Well after the excitement of this past week, between surprise news appearances and all the attention surrounding it, we ended up getting a little sidetracked from our series about the beer trip from 5 years ago. By the way, I appreciate all the wonderful comments and chatting with people in person about my adventures on the Grand Rapids news. With that it is time to get back to the story. We will now pick back up where we left off in the afternoon of July 26th of 2020.
We arrived in Holland to check into our room at 3 as we had planned. I contacted my Grandfather and he pushed our meeting time for dinner back to 4:30 or 5 o’clock, so at this point Crystal and I took a short nap before we woke up to meet up with my Grandfather for dinner.
Around 4:30 we met with my Grandfather and his wife for dinner. We met at the Curraugh Irish Pub in Downtown Holland for dinner. This was the first time that I had seen him since the pandemic started. I did not drink on our visit with him since I had some driving to do and wanted to save my drinking for breweries that I hadn’t been to yet. I believe Crystal and Claudia did enjoy a beverage during our dinner while my Grandfather and I abstained from drinking. After an excellent dinner (I had an excellent burger at the pub) and enjoying my time spent with my Grandfather and Claudia, it was time for us to visit our next brewery for the day.
Up next on our itinerary was Hopland Brewstillery. We really enjoyed this stop on our trip, I was sad to see that they had permanently closed while researching for this story. Although they closed, the space did reopen recently as another brewery, Leigh’s Brewing Company. I see you guys and after our appearance on the news together this week, you are on this list and I will be out to see you in the future. They did not do flights at the bar but really encouraged us to try as many beers as we wanted before we settled on a beer for a full pour. This was my only visit to the brewery and I wish that I had made it back before they closed.
After we left Hopland, we drove a short distance over to Brewery 4 Two 4 to continue our brewery expedition. We ended up getting a flight here and we really enjoyed every beer on our flight. The vibe of the place was really cool also. This is another brewery that I really have to make it back to on my next trip to Holland. My visit on this trip was the only time I have physically made it to Brewery 4 Two 4. Between good beer, really cool people and a friendly atmosphere, I highly recommend checking them out.
Before we headed back to the hotel to park the car for the night, we had one more brewery to visit. That brewery was Tulip City Brewstillery, which also has unfortunately permanently closed. Crystal and I arrived maybe a half an hour before they closed for the evening so this ended up being a shorter stay on the trip also. The beers were very clean and very enjoyable so I was really sad to read that they had closed.
At this point we headed back to our hotel to park the car for the night and since it was a nice night out we decided to forgo ordering an Uber to get back into Downtown Holland. We decided that walking a mile and a half would help us burn quite a few of the beer calories we had taken in throughout the day. So we proceeded to walk towards Downtown and our next destination.
Big Lake Brewing was up next on our list of breweries to hit. I had enjoyed their beers in cans over the years and now I was going to finally be able to cross Big Lake Brewing off my list. This is another brewery that we made it to relatively close to closing time. We were able to enjoy a flight and a pint each before they did their last call for the evening. At this point in the night, we were starting to feel the rigors of drinking beer all day long.
There were two more breweries we were trying to make it to for the night and the next one is the brewery I was most excited about for the entire trip. I had heard nothing but good things about Our Brewing Company previous to visiting and they did not disappoint. Our Brewing Company is a must stop anytime that I am in Holland or relatively close to Holland. They easily made my top 25 breweries in Michigan list and if I had to narrow it down to a top 10 or top 5, I don’t think I would be able to leave them off of those lists. I have easily been back to Our Brewing Company a dozen or so times over the last 5 years. I usually go out of my way from Muskegon when visiting my Grandfather to get a couple of growler fills and a pint or two before the drive back home.
As a matter of fact, we enjoyed Our Brewing Company so much that we ended up closing down the bar. The last stop of the night was supposed to be New Holland Brewing Company which is literally right next door to Our Brewing Company. Since they closed at the same time, we decided to skip New Holland for the evening and start our day tomorrow with a stop at New Holland. Our Brewing Company is another brewery that if you guys are reading this and are looking for a live-in bartender…..I am very interested.
Once the bartender told us it was time to go, I of course left albeit begrudgingly. I couldn’t wait until the next time I got to visit Our Brewing Company as she locked the doors behind us. At this point, we decided to continue to burn off calories by walking back to our hotel room. It did end up raining a little bit on us during our walk back. After visiting 8 breweries throughout the day, we didn’t really care that much and enjoyed our walk back to the hotel.
After we got back to the room for the night, we ended up going to bed relatively quickly. We knew that we had another long, fun day of visiting breweries before we were due to be back home the next night. Crystal and I needed our rest. This story will be concluded in Part 4…..Cheers!
#cheers #beer #beerlovers #brewery #brewerylife #drinklocal #michiganbeer #craftbeer #roadtrip
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