We continued on to Grand Rapids for a stop at Founders, another brewery more widely distributed outside of Michigan. “Please stop taking pictures and let me drink this beer.” Sadly, we didn’t get around to trying the Dragon’s Milk, their bourbon barrel stout. I’m not typically a fan of sweet stouts, but I really dug this one. Their Sticky Fingers sweet stout had a wonderful molasses flavor. New Holland does have a great way with darker beers.
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Although it was still delicious, the chocolaty intensity that makes it so drinkable wasn’t as present as when it’s bottled. The thing that surprised me the most, however, was The Poet. Our great waitress also gave us a small sample of the Blue Bradberry blueberry wheat ale, which managed to retain a ton of blueberry flavor without being overwhelmingly sweet.
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It was a pale ale just the way I like it grassy and herbal, juicy and tropical, dry without being chalky or unpleasant on the palate. My favorite here was the Paleooza Michigan pale ale, a beer brewed with MI-grown cascade hops. Made with their Mad Hatter midwest IPA, it’s nice and rich with a lovely mustard tang to give it a bit of a kick. My first note about New Holland: they make great beer cheese. From the size of the restaurant and its location right in the center of town, it was easy to see that New Holland was already an institution. The beer we’d had was The Poet, an incredible oatmeal stout that blew our minds.
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We arrived in Holland around lunchtime, and made a beeline towards New Holland Brewing Company – one of the few breweries whose beers we’d tasted prior to this trip. Heading out from Ann Arbor meant that we finally had a chance to sleep in, since our next destination was only about two hours away. Since this was a driving-lite day, we filled up every nook and cranny of time we had with beer samplers. If you think we enjoyed a lot of samples yesterday, hang on to your hats: this is where it gets intense. On our third day in Michigan, we had an unprecedented amount of beer. Check out part 1, part 2 and part 3 if you enjoyed this!) (This post is part of a series detailing my recent trip to Bell’s Funvitational in Kalamazoo, Michigan.