Time to head East for the U.P. to find some beer on the Yooper Ale Trail.
This handy guide by Jon Stott and Mikel Classen covers the Upper Peninsula in Michigan and the first thing that I thought was smart was how each of the eight trails had no more than four stops listed and many were less than. (There was one with five but one brewery on it had not opened at time of writing). It makes for achievable adventures.
The second smart thing was that for many breweries, the author visited twice and could show the evolution of the brewery from new brewers to new beers. It is something that I haven’t seen employed in guidebooks before and I liked it.
Other fun facts are that blueberry beers are pretty much a required beer menu item. The style can change, though most were wheat beer based. If that berry is your favorite, I would say head up because blueberry ain’t seen much outside muffin pastry beers.
Also, because outdoor activities are the main tourist draw, the beers skew to the lower ABV since folks are hiking and biking and paddling and can’t be downing Quad IPAs.
On the new book cover, the book lists two authors but the book doesn’t really differentiate who wrote what which is fine in fiction but here, I would like to get a bead on who wrote what. I think that Stott wrote the majority and I like his folksy writing style but I can’t know for sure.
Another dent is the fact that after reading the really informative brewery summaries, there is a whole appendix listing contact info, beer lists and whether they had food or not. Format wise, that could have been folded into the main book fairly easily instead. There was also an appendix of beer styles and I would have preferred more about favorite Michigan beer styles.
I would say though, I usually hate the capsule brewing process chapter and I inwardly groaned when I saw it in the book, but it was much better here. It was more like having a friend explaining brewing than a manual.
Overall, a guide should help beer fans find new breweries and Stott and/or Classen do that really well. This book will help.