These photos were taken Wednesday afternoon in Grand Rapids, Michigan as I started my annual craft beer tour. Wednesday found me at The Mitten Brewing Company, a microbrewery/pizzeria that opened in November 2012.

For over a year now, my sister Ruth and I have been planning a fall craft beer tour through the northeast as I have very little experience there and it would be cool to visit breweries and watch the leaves change colors. Unfortunately, my sister happened to be a participant in the Amtrak train derailment in Missouri this past June. To say she got jacked up in it would be an understatement (26 broken bones above the waist), but she wanted me to come visit, so we decided we would venture around the state for a week or so.

While I visited this part of Michigan five years ago, there are plenty of breweries I have not visited/heard of around here and my sister is going to do her best to introduce us to those we have yet to visit. Wednesday was The Mitten Brewing Company.

Mitten Brewing is located in an old, brick firehouse that apparently had some historical significance. I did not get a lot of details on that, but it does make for a pretty cool location.

As they say, timing is everything and the timing was right Wednesday as we arrived when co-founder Max Trierweiler was in the taproom arranging mug club glassware and he was eager to show me around and give me a little history. The primary tidbit being that while they officially opened in November 2012, they unofficially opened in October because the Detroit Tigers were in the World Series and they figured they pretty much had to open, even if they didn’t have much in the way of beer, so they sold all they had and started brewing again for the official grand opening.

On the day of our visit they had more than 20 beers available on tap, with everything from lagers to legit barrel-aged sours. As I am doing the driving, I shied away from a flight and instead got a half pour of their Leelanau Harvest Ale (wet hop), Dock’s No-No DIPA, and their Peaches and Strawberry sour. They were all solid, but the sour was my favorite.

My sister did order a pizza, I ain’t Alfredo No Ghost, which is like a margarita pizza with chicken on it; it was pretty tasty.

You may have noticed the photos of the brewhouse, which looks pretty small for a place boasting 20+ taps. Well, the fact of the matter is that the photos are of the original brewhouse which they have outgrown; they have a 20bbl system across the street. I just never got around to going over there for photos.

The Mitten Brewing Company is located at 527 Leonard Street NW in Grand Rapids; they open daily at 11:30 AM and offer cans, howlers, and growlers to-go. They have two satellite locations serving pizza and beer; one in Northport and another in Saugatuck, those locations only offer cans as far as the to-go options. Cheers!

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