Twelve Mile Circle readers don’t really care about my brewery visits. I get it. You won’t offend me if you skip this article or scroll through the pictures without reading anything. I really do this more for myself to create a record of my visits that extend beyond the simplicity of my list or my map. Oddly though, I rarely talk about the actual beers, focusing instead on settings, atmosphere and other memories. So if you’re looking for beer reviews you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.
Sometimes when I write about my travels I intersperse the breweries within the articles and sometimes I lump them all together in a single article. I’m doing the latter this time because I had way too much material. Lucky you, this means you can ignore the breweries all at once.
Naturally I’ll offer the usual caveat. These visits are about quality not quantity; about tasting not indulging. We visited a dozen breweries but I generally consumed a single beer or less by volume at each location, usually in the form of shared flights or samplers.
I’ve ordered the narratives approximately the same way as other articles in the series, somewhat chronologically with the the week as it unfolded.
Snowbelt Brewing
That very first day we didn’t even make it up to Mackinac Island or the Upper Peninsula for a bunch of complicated reasons. We only got as far as Gaylord. I’d never been there before so that offered an opportunity for me to explore its quaint downtown.
Snowbelt Brewing was along Main Street in the section of buildings with architectural elements resembling an Alpine village (map). Garage-style doors opened the brewery completely to the mild summertime weather and a lively crowd enjoyed the scene on a particularly lovely Saturday afternoon.
I’m not sure I’d want to be there in the winter, though. Gaylord, and likewise Snowbelt Brewing, sits within a genuine snowbelt. The state of Michigan gets a lot of snow, but this area gets even more, like 152 inches per winter. That’s above 12 feet! Lake effect moisture combined with a slightly elevation rise makes all the difference here.
Big Buck Brewery
Elsewhere in Gaylord, in a large standalone building at the back of a huge parking lot, stood the northwoods-style Big Buck Brewery. My favorite feature was the giant beer bottle that beckoned anyone driving through Gaylord on Interstate 75 (map). The interior looked like a rustic cabin expanded about a hundred times, with mounted heads of various game animals plus antlers galore. Think of it as the world’s largest Man Cave. Even the beer flight came with a side of antlers.
HopSide Brewery
I went on a county-counting excursion towards the Lake Huron coast at Alpena. I’d never been to Alpena before and the only time I’d ever even heard of it was in weather reports. Alpena always seemed to come up as a winter weather extreme. Even so it felt just fine at HopSide Brewery in the middle of July! I liked the little hop garden growing on the back patio (map).
Northern Superior Brewing Co.
I haven’t been to a ton of Canadian breweries so I was thrilled to add Northern Superior Brewing in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (map) to my tally. But we weren’t in Canada for long — only a few hours — and just to see a combination airplane museum / insect zoo. Yes, I agree that’s a weird combination. Anyway the brewery was in the building next door so I considered it a golden opportunity.
Unfortunately the taproom wouldn’t open for another hour. I though for sure we’d miss this one because of our regrettable timing but then we noticed that we could still buy cans next door in the actual brewery. So we got a mixed 4-pack and imported it back into the United States. At the border, the U.S. Customs agent asked if I bought anything in Canada and I held up the 4-pack. They smiled and waved us through. Consider that my little contribution to the Canadian economy.
Superior Coast Brewing
And speaking of back in the United States, our next destination was just on the other side of the St. Marys River in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We could literally see its Canadian counterpart from there.
It was time for lunch and that gave us an opportunity to try Superior Coast Brewing, tucked inside Karl’s Cuisine restaurant (map). They billed themselves as a “winery and brewery” restaurant. So take note, and as the order implies, the emphasis on beer fell below the food and the wine. I’m always glad to add a new brewery to my list although they only had a couple of their own beers on tap.
Petoskey Brewing
Petoskey Brewing is a revival story. The original incarnation used this same building in Petoskey more than a century ago (map), built specifically as a brewery. The facility returned to brewing once again in 2012, and with a similar name. We stopped here for lunch on the way to nearby Petoskey State Park on a hunt for an elusive Petoskey Stone.
Les Cheneaux Distillers & Brewers
Sometimes the day turns out in unexpected ways. Originally we intended to spend part of the afternoon at Father Marquette National Memorial just outside of St. Ignace. However that excursion involved much less than what we expected and it left a hole in our plans.
So we decided to take a short road trip along the edge of Lake Huron on the Upper Peninsula to Cedarville (map). There we stopped at Les Cheneaux Distillers & Brewers. I thought back to our time in Sault Ste. Marie and worried that once again the beer might get short shrift. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, no, they actually had a fairly robust beer program. We managed to salvage the afternoon after all.
Tahquamenon Falls Brewery
I’ve never been to a brewery with a cover charge before so that was an interesting new twist at Tahquamenon Falls Brewery. Well, technically it didn’t. But it was located within the upper falls section of Tahquamenon Falls State Park so anyone who wanted to visit the brewery had to first enter the park (map). They even shared a parking lot. Entry required a park pass which cost a few bucks.
I’m not complaining because we actually wanted to see the falls! That was the primary reason for being there to begin with. So we hiked to the upper falls, went to the brewery for lunch, and then drove over to the lower falls. It was a pretty perfect day-trip from St. Ignace.
Bière de Mac Brew Works
Mackinaw City offered a small constellation of breweries and Bière de Mac came up first on our agenda. It was located a little bit outside of town and offered some elbow room on its property (map). That made it great for enjoying a flight at a picnic table on a sunny day. I really enjoyed the relaxing setting here. It looked like they also had live music at times, although of course nothing was happening at some odd hour on a random midweek afternoon. And that was fine. Kind of perfect actually.
Rusted Spoke Brewing Co.
A true brewpub sat not too far away in the thick of Mackinaw City itself (map). We stopped at Rusted Spoke for lunch, a convenient location while touring Fort Michilimackinac and the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse.
I’m not sure exactly how the brewpub got its name but the North Central State Trail does run directly behind it. That’s a bicycle trail stretching all the way from Gaylord to Mackinaw City, with connections to other long-distance trails. So there are definitely opportunities for rusted spokes! I’m also a big fan of brewery-focused bike rides so I’ll have to keep this one on my list.
Dixie Saloon and Brewing
There was another brewpub in Mackinaw City, right along the Central Avenue corridor (map). However this was another example of a brewery as an asterisk. The Dixie Saloon has been around forever, tracing back to the 1890’s. So the brewery was a modern afterthought, like “hey, why don’t we add a brewery?” Nonetheless I enjoyed sitting on the outdoor patio watching ferries at the dock traveling to and from Mackinac Island.
Dixie sounds like an out-of-place name in Michigan. The saloon explains that it came from the old Dixie Highway that once extended all the way from Florida to Michigan.
Filling Station Microbrewery
This was a bonus destination. We flew in and out of the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City, which is about an hour and a half away from the Straits of Mackinac. But the checkout time at our rental home and our departure flight didn’t match up well. We had some time to kill, and who wants to spend that waiting in an airport? Not us. So we stopped for lunch at the Filling Station Microbrewery in Traverse City (map) before heading a few miles to the airport to catch our flight.
It’s located in an old train station and retains a lot of the original architectural details. In a previous time, passengers boarded trains on the patio where we now dined.
“Crafty” Brewery
We also dined at the Great Turtle Brewing Company on Mackinac Island. They had a variety of beers listed as their own, however, I dug a little deeper and found that Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City actually brewed them. Great Turtle’s beers are all imported from the mainland. So I enjoyed the visit but it didn’t “count” for the strict purpose of my brewery list.
Articles in the Mackinac’s Orbit Series
- Up North
- Counting Fingers
- Sault Ste. Marie
- Petoskey
- Eastern U.P.
- Mackinaw City
- St. Ignace
- Town of Mackinac Island
- Lake Shore Road
- Into the Highlands
- What’s Brewing?
See Also: The Complete Photo Album on Flickr.
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