Fetch Invaded by The MOB

Last Sunday, February 8th 2015, the monthly club meeting was held at Fetch Brewing Company in Whitehall. Dan Hain and his awesome staff spoke with the group, gave us tours of the facility and treated us very well.

Dan Hain talking to a house full of Mobsters

25,000 pennies on the vault floor!

There was abundant home brew available as well as the excellent beers brewed by Fetch. The brewery is a beautiful old bank building with tons of character and charm. You can even sit inside of the old bank vault and enjoy your beers.The floor of the vault is covered with 25,000 pennies which were hand laid, face up, by the brewery employees.

Old dairy tank mash tun, works like a charm.

As you all probably know, starting a brewery is expensive, that's why Dan had to get creative when building the brew house. The mash tun they use is an old dairy tank with a home made copper manifold.

We had a great turnout for the meeting and signed up a few new members as well. Overall I would say that this was one of our best meetings yet.

Thanks to Dan and Fetch Brewing Company for being such gracious hosts, we will definitely be back.

Time to Review the Rules

We are very lucky to have friends in The MOB who allow us to hold our meetings at their breweries and we cannot take that for granted. We need to ensure that we, as a home brew club, follow all the rules and do not jeopardize our hosts in any way. To that end I am posting the statute that explains the rules. Please read this and follow it during future meetings.

MCL 436.2027(3)(d) - This section does not prohibit: A micro brewer, brewpub, or on-premises licensee from allow...ing the sampling and consumption on the licensed premises of beer, wine, mead, honey-based beer, or cider produced by 1 or more home brewers at a meeting of home brewers, or a club composed primarily of home brewers, under the following circumstances:

(i) The sampling or consumption is for the purpose of exhibitions or competitions involving home brewers.

(ii) The beer, honey-based beer, or cider is served in portions that do not exceed 3 ounces. The wine or mead is served in portions that do not exceed 2 ounces.

(iii) The beer, wine, mead, honey-based beer, or cider produced by the home brewer is only consumed by the home brewer, the home brewer’s family, a club member, a
judge, or a guest speaker and is not sold to members of the general public.

(iv) The participants in the sampling or consumption otherwise comply with applicable state and federal law and applicable regulatory provisions of this act and rules adopted by the commission under this act.

(v) The participants in the sampling or consumption are not charged for the sampling or consumption of the beer, wine, mead, honey-based beer, or cider.

Crankers Brewery, Big Rapids, MI

After a weekend of deer hunting near Baldwin, I decided to stop at Crankers Brewery in Big Rapids on my way home for lunch and a pint.  I've had their beer before at the Winter Beer fest and the WGRD Beer Fest in John Ball Park but have not been to the brewery.  My first impression when I arrived was confusion because the sign on the building read Crankers Coney Island.  I went inside anyway and, sure enough, it was a coney dog restaurant.  I asked the cashier if I was in the right place, I was.  The brewery is attached to the restaurant through an archway.

Walk through the archway into the brewery and you enter a totally different, and wonderfully familiar, environment.  The bar is a dark enameled concrete inset with small gears and rails.  The taproom is quite large with a vaulted ceiling and the serving tanks are on a second floor balcony.  I ordered a flight of Honey Kolsch, Professor IPA, Crankenstein Oktoberfest and Fifth Voyage Coconut Porter.  All were very good and they are the four that have won awards for Crankers.

I ordered an olive burger as I sipped on my flight of beers and when it arrived so did Adam Mills, the brewmaster.  He said he noticed my BN Army t-shirt and wanted to talk with me.  We talked for a half hour about his transition from a teacher and home brewer to the head brewing position at Crankers.  He told me that he used to drive 120 miles per day for his teaching position and when Crankers opened up only a couple miles from his house he had to do it.  We also talked about how he was able to transition from a ten gallon homebrew setup to a fifteen barrel brewhouse.  He said he kept the base malt proportionate but had to scale back on the specialty malts.  Overall he says that brewing on the big system is actually easier than brewing on a home system.  It's easier to clean and control, it's just bigger.



Adam Mills in his brewhouse at Crankers.

After I finished my burger, which was excellent by the way, Adam came back out to bring me for a tour of the brewhouse.  They were bottling so we couldn't go too far, didn't want to get in their way.  They have a fifteen barrel brew system, four fifteen barrel and two thirty barrel fermenters, a small bottling line that looked like was having a hard time keeping up.

 

Thanks to Adam for being so gracious and spending time with me and showing me around.  He told me that he would be able to host an outing for The MOB if we would be interested.  It's a bit of a drive but I think we should do it.