Sabbatical 2015 – Around the Great Lakes

Day Nineteen: Kalamazoo, Michigan

One of the disadvantages of not doing these posts first thing the next morning, is I have even less memory of what the drive was like than I would have. 🙂 I must admit, though, at this point the hours in the car have blended together quite a bit. I do remember a nice view of Lake Erie when leaving Cleveland, and that driving from my hotel to Bell’s Brewery as pretty and they have a nice bike trail going out that way. Anyway, my first stop of the day was in Marshall, Michigan at Dark Horse Brewing Company for lunch. They had (still have?) a show on the History Channel called Dark Horse Nation (think Duck Dynasty but with brewers instead). I had their black bier chili (quite good) before heading on to my hotel in Kalamazoo.

Kalamazoo has quite a number of high quality breweries for a city of 75,000, the most famous of which is of course Bell’s Brewery. They are in the midst of a major expansion, but you are still able to tour the brewery (or explore parts of it on your own)…and get two free 5-ounce samples!

In addition to the above, I visited Arcadia Ales, Boatyard Brewing, Olde Peninsula Brewpub for dinner, Tibbs Brewing, before calling it a night at Gonzo’s Biggdog Brewing. There are several other breweries and brewpubs there, though, that I did not visit.

  • Miles traveled: 293.1
  • Time in car: 5:22
  • States: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan
  • Exercise:  8,960 steps