For decades, the Mackinac Bridge served as a cultural time machine, transporting visitors back to a bygone era. 

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was the place where lumberjacks roamed the forests, miners donned their hardhats to search for copper and pasties were part of the daily cuisine. Until recently, Yooper drinking habits also seemed stuck in a forgotten age when choices amounted to various iterations of macro lagers — especially Wisconsin-made staples such as Blatz, Schlitz and PBR — often consumed in mass quantities. 

Those crazy creative brewers are at it again, ready to put it all on the line to push boundaries and move the craft beer scene into a new direction — just not always in expected ways. Let’s take a look at some of the stranger brews that have crossed the bar over the last few months. 

Everything’s better with beer! From fall dinners to summer weekends with friends, beer really makes the world go ’round — especially for West Michigan folk. Fortunately, craft beer lovers across the state are finding new ways to incorporate our favorite beverage into non-alcoholic products. Local makers are utilizing the intense and creative flavors in Michigan’s craft brews to inspire a whole new world of beer-based beauty products and edible delights.

Walking about the lengths of Pure Mitten’s hop bines — rows of them on trellises, tall as a giant’s overalls — it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the sight, and more so, the smell of this farm out in Coopersville. Lupulin particles hitch to nose hairs like burs, lighting up the mind with scents of fresh-cut grass and grapefruit shandy.