A new brewery is breathing life into a long-vacant former furniture showroom on Plainfield Avenue in Grand Rapids’ burgeoning Creston neighborhood. Launched last month by two couples — Vince Lambert and Cailin Kelly, and Scott Schultz and Molly Bouwsma-Schultz — Creston Brewery aims to bring an inclusive environment to the local craft beer scene with something for people of all backgrounds and tastes, including non-beer lovers.

In Kitchen Confidential, the bestselling chronicle of the food industry’s colorful underbelly, Anthony Bourdain warns of the mayhem and mediocrity that can occur “when the chef starts thinking of himself as an artist rather than a craftsman.” But can food be art? Revue asked some of the area’s top chefs to explain what in the restaurant world, if anything, qualifies as artistic.

Although craft brewers once maligned mass-produced American lagers as “fizzy, yellow beer,” many have started to embrace the traditional German styles as consumers seek out sessionable options.

Let’s face it: Sometimes you just want a flavorful, crushable beer. Lagers are the so-called lawnmower beers, but that doesn’t mean they have to forego nuance and flavor, as this sampling proved. 

Brewery Vivant is now selling tickets to the sixth-annual Wood-Aged Beer Festival.