Today seems like a good day for a trip down memory lane and another story of an epic beer trip that I have taken over the years. We will rewind the clock back to July of 2020 for this series of posts about the trip. This will either be a 2 or 3 part post, so I hope you enjoy reading.
As we all know the world was utterly chaotic at this time in history, we were all cooped up in our houses for a very long time and at this point in my life I had only visited around 200 of Michigan’s breweries. Since we were at around 400 breweries in the state at the time, that meant that I had to put in serious work to finish visiting them all. As I sat around my apartment yearning for the days that I could go back out and visit breweries, I began planning trips to be able to finish hitting them all.
I had set the goal of visiting every brewery in Michigan back in 2007, when it was a task that seemed possible, we only had about 80 in the entire state at that time. Once the 2010’s hit and the amount of breweries in the state exploded, this task seemed harder and harder to accomplish. I almost gave up and decided I would never be able to do it. The goal was nice but achieving it was going to be a daunting task. Luckily for the followers of this page, my Mom didn’t raise a quitter. Being locked up in our houses for an extended period of time with nothing to do, it made me realize I wanted to accomplish this goal more than ever.
For my 36th birthday, I decided to plan an epic brewery trip for that weekend. I hadn’t really been to a lot of the breweries along the coast of Lake Michigan in the Lower Peninsula at the time, so I decided to set my sights on crossing some of those breweries off of the list. We were heading up North to Crystal’s family reunion for the first part of the weekend, then we were going to hit breweries for the rest of the extended birthday weekend.
July 24th of 2020 had finally arrived and I was prepared to go on my first brewery trip in almost a year. I figured we would start the trip off by hitting Tri City Brewing Company in Bay City, that way I could pick up a six pack or two to take to Crystal’s family reunion the next day. This was not our first visit to Tri City Brewing Company, but it is the only brewery that we hit on this particular day of the trip. We then proceeded to head to Gladwin to get ready for the reunion the next day.
The next day, July 25th, we went to the family reunion that was at a local park in Gladwin. After a few hours of hanging out in the hot sun, we decided to leave the family reunion and head back to Crystal’s Mom’s house. When we got back to the house, Crystal’s Mom looked at me and Crystal and said, “It’s still early, what breweries do you guys want to go hit today?”
Quick excerpt about Crystal’s Mom, Leona. She is not a big fan of breweries or beer in general, but she is a huge fan of traveling and going to new places. She is the ultimate road trip companion and will drive hours away from home just to go out and do something new and different.
So I pulled up a map of breweries that I hadn’t been to yet. The problem with Mid-Michigan is we had been to everything relatively close to her house on previous visits, so this day trip would require a bit of traveling. I floated the idea of driving up to Frankfort to visit Stormcloud Brewing Company, Five Shores Brewing and Lake Ann Brewing Company. I figured there was no way in hell we were going to make this trip on that day, it was already pushing 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Crystal looked at me and said, “Hell No.” Leona looked at me and said “Hell Yes”, she then looked at Crystal and said, “the vote is 2 to 1, we are going.”
We loaded ourselves in the car during the late afternoon and began driving 2 hours towards Frankfort and Stormcloud Brewing Company. When we arrived, we were informed that there would be a 2 hour wait for a table. At this point, we decided to put our name on the list and head to Beulah, Michigan, which is about 15 minutes away and visit Five Shores Brewing Company while we waited for our table. Since they closed at 8, we decided it was the only way we were going to be able to hit both before they closed for the night.
It was back to the car for us for a little bit more driving before we would be able to enjoy a beer. We arrived at Five Shores Brewing to have a flight while we waited for our table to open up at Stormcloud. At the time, the only seating available at Five Shores was outdoors, due to COVID restrictions. I went into the brewery and got us a flight to enjoy in their outdoor seating area. I set the flight down on the table and the second I went to sit down, my phone started ringing.
Of course it was Stormcloud calling to tell us that our 2 hour wait was over after 20 minutes and to head back on to the brewery. I asked how long we had to be back and they said 10 minutes before our table was given away. We proceeded to slam our beers and get back on the road. As a result, I do have to pay another visit to Five Shores Brewing again in the future, we had no time to enjoy this brewery or take in all that they had to offer. This was the only time I have ever visited this particular brewery. I will make it back one of these days for sure.
When we arrived back at Stormcloud, our reservation had been given away at that point. Luckily for us, there was no longer a wait and the brewery was only half full. We ended up getting seated immediately. Needless to say, we could have fully enjoyed our flights at Five Shores. Alas, we were at Stormcloud to enjoy a few beers and a couple of appetizers so that we could line our stomachs to continue drinking. We fueled up on a few Belgian inspired beers from Stormcloud, which is one of my favorite breweries in the State of Michigan and made my top 25 list on this page.
After our visit to Stormcloud, we had one more brewery that we could make it to before they closed for the evening, Lake Ann Brewing Company. This was not my first rodeo at Lake Ann Brewing Company. On annual trips up North to my friend’s cottage in Lake Leelanau, we had gone to Lake Ann a few times over the year. This would be Crystal’s first visit though so of course we had to stop. On this particular trip to Lake Ann Brewing Company, we ended up closing the brewery down for the night. I even had a check-in on Untappd on both July 25th and 26th.
Since I had been drinking for a while, another great thing about trips with Leona, we have a built in designated driver. I ended up sitting in the back seat of our rental car and having a few of the to go beers that we purchased on the drive back to Gladwin. The rest of the night was a bit hazy after having a few car beers, but I was not driving, so that was just fine with me.
We will pick up Part 2 of the story in the next couple of days. I planned on this just being a one day story, but there is just too much to tell as it pertains to this epic brewery trip. Stay tuned over the next few days as we continue the rest of this story. Cheers!
#cheers #roadtrip #brewery #brewerylife #drinklocal #craftbeer #michiganbeer #beer #beerlovers
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