Grand Rapids Day One

Looks like Mother Nature is going to win this round. We sat on the plane and listened to the pilot tell us that we would be delayed another 15 minutes every time lightning struck. "Another one. That's another one." Can you just put a clock up or something? Stop announcing it. We sat for 2.5 hours before taking off -- on a 2.5-hour flight. I'm reading my latest Crichton novel, pretending to listen to whatever my wife was saying, and ordering beers. It wasn't that bad.

"Can I get a beer?"

"We can't serve beer until we're off the ground." Things just got serious. A woman started playing music throughout the plane without headphones. It wasn't my kind of music, but let's be honest, nothing ever is. A flight attendant asked her to turn it off and responded by saying, "Can you tell that lady to stop breathing so loud?"

 We got off the plane and started looking for Ubers/Lyfts. There are none. I called the hotel to ask if they had a shuttle service. They said, "No, but we have a guy named Moe that's pretty reliable." We found someone else out front to take us. His name wasn't Moe.

We had dinner plans, but they were ruined by the lightning delays. We found a nearby bar and called to see if their kitchen was open. It wasn't. My wife said to call and ask again. How would that help? We ended up at a bar called Flannigan's. We traveled 2.5 hours to go to an Irish Pub called Flannigan's. We have those in Florida. But it was our only choice. The people in the bar did the thing from TV where strangers (us) walk in, and everyone stops talking to turn and look at us. We must look lost. I know we looked hungry. Their kitchen only had pulled pork fries, chicken wings, and mini tacos. What are mini tacos? Aren't tacos already mini burritos? Aren't burritos just enchiladas without sauce? I need to stop pulling at this thread. The pulled pork fries are fantastic, and I can tell everyone is jealous I ordered them-- I started eating faster. The mini tacos were microwaved frozen nonsense. The beer tasted great.

I was tricked into waking up early. I'm not sure how I fell for that one. We went to get MadCap Coffee. The coffee scene in Grand Rapids was well put together. MadCap didn't even ask me how I take my coffee. They just made it black. We went from coffee to breakfast -- with more coffee. More importantly, we drank lots of water at breakfast. We wanted to store up hydration like camels before our day of drinking beer. This is why the only emoji I use is the camel emoji. The breakfast sandwich at San Chez was worth the trip alone.

Founders Brewing was what inspired this trip. That was our first brewery stop. I usually like to get a full glass instead of a flight. I don't like half-assing 4 beers; I prefer to whole ass one beer. My wife put a strict limit of one drink/flight per stop, but this is Founders! I ordered a flight and a pallet cleanser. I picked a flight because they had several beers available here on location. I chose All Day IPA as my pallet cleanser because I needed this bad boy at the source. This beer is responsible for every home improvement project I've completed. I couldn't have done any of those projects without it-- that or my wife telling me I needed to do those home improvement projects. After picking 4 beers I'll probably never have again and getting my pallet the cleanser, the server asked if I needed anything else. I said, "A leasing application would be great. I'm moving in."

With all these beers in front of me, I decided it was a good time to confess that I packed a beer rating sheet I printed off Craftbeer.com. I folded it in half and laminated it-- I'm that cool. My wife took this reasonably well. Our guests were surprised, but I'm sure they expected me to do something stupid at some point-- maybe not at the first stop. After I rated my beers, they wanted to have a go. I thought this would spark conversations, but instead, it sparked competition. Game on. This would be a key aspect at later breweries.

Lunch was at a market that didn't have a great local beer selection. I decided instead to find more coffee. I heard I had to go for a walk after this, and I needed the strength. Plus, I had two at the last stop-- against the rules. The coffee was so good at every stop on this trip. Grand Rapids brings together the Coffee 'til Craft Beer lifestyle, and I am here for it.

Here's that walk I heard about. It was almost 30 minutes-- ridiculous. I sweated out all the beer. Now I have to start over. I was tricked by some rug store. My wife said, "We're just going up here on the left." I thought, "I wonder what this brewery is called." Then it wasn't a brewery at all-- it was a rug store! I refused to look at the merchandise in a peaceful protest. This backfired, and someone thought I worked there. I'm about to start taking inventory to pass the time. We got out of there and bumped into Elk Brewing. Thank goodness this was here. We still had a way to walk. I chose another flight since we were having fun with the rating system. The sheet was requested before I even sat down-- it's a communal sheet. Their citrus IPA was described as a Deschutes Fresh Pressed IPA, so I got that. My wife got a gose and described it as 'salty.' How about that? A beer brewed with salt is salty, huh?

Everywhere we went in Grand Rapids, someone told us that Brewery Vivant was their favorite brewery. Probably a dozen locals told us this. It was not our favorite. There was line phlegm in one of our beers, mine was flavorless, and the other two should have been the same beer but looked nothing alike.

I planned on pacing myself throughout the night, but I couldn't do it. Harmony Hall had so many good beers I needed to try them all. I'll cut myself off after this place. Soon after. Maybe. We'll see. I needed a fun game to play while drinking all these good beers--I'm in luck. They had an old-school game called Skittles. The table was about the size of a Foosball table. There were mini bowling pins all over the table. It wasn't an open area; rooms with doorways cut out. You had a spinning top and piece of string to attack. You spin the top and get points based on the pins you knock down. It's not part of the rules, but it helped when I tried to use Mutant Telekinesis/The Force/Wingaurdian Leviosa-- depending on your background. What does not help is yelling "violence" at the top of your lungs, but I was willing to try anything. A combination of beer quality, environment, and tabletop games puts Harmony Hall Brewing on my top all-time list.

I'm trying to skip a round because I had 4 more than everyone else at this point, but we're at New Holland! I ain't skipping the 12 varieties of Dragon's Milk they have on tap. Maybe I could have missed out on the Tangerine Space Monster- but not likely.

Aren't fajitas just tacos you make yourself?