Tag Archives: Broad Leaf Local Beer

On Tap: AlePrize on the walls of local pubs, beer and anti-racism, and Belgian Tripel

3-bottom, Beer, City of Kentwood, Education, Going Local, Local Business, Local Entertainment, Non-Profits, Restaurants, Upcoming Events, , , ,
AlePrize artwork on the wall at Broad Leaf Local Beer in Kentwood. (WKTV)

By K.D. Norris

ken@wktv.org

The Beer City Brewers Guild’s AlePrize, a celebration of art and beer at Grand Rapids area breweries, is exhibiting local art in two local craft brew pubs in the Kentwood/Wyoming area. The month-long, city-wide event pairs local artists with local breweries.

Broad Leaf Local Beer is showing the work of Ty Davis and David Ruggeri, and Ryan Crowley. Railtown Brewing Company is showing the work of Dave Battjes.

“It’s no secret that the pandemic has impacted the brewing industry in a major way,” according to a statement from AlePrize organizers. “From taproom closures to reduced capacities to the general anxieties of keeping staff and guests safe, these have been challenging times for our region’s breweries. Fall is typically a season where taprooms can expect an uptick in business from ArtPrize visitors, but this year looks different.”

Following the regional art festival’s cancellation, the Beer City Brewers Guild come up with the idea of AlePrize, an event “that celebrates local art and beer during the age of COVID-19,” according to the statement.

AlePrize artwork on the wall at Broad Leaf Local Beer in Kentwood. (WKTV/K.D. Norris)

“All of us brewers in the guild are gonna miss ArtPrize in a big way,” Chad Atherton, guild board member and Director of Market Development at Founders Brewing Company “AlePrize isn’t a 100 percent supplement for what ArtPrize brings to the community, but we thought it would be a cool opportunity to connect with local artists and utilize our spaces to promote local artists.”

A $1,000 prize will be awarded to the artist who gains the most public votes and another $1,000 prize will be awarded to the top rated artist judged by a panel of local artists and culture community figures.

Of the more than 40 breweries in the guild, nearly half will be participating in some capacity. And beer/art fans should also be on the lookout for beers brewed specifically for AlePrize.

For more information on this event, visit AlePrize

Shorts Brewing part of anti-racism, anti-oppression project

Short’s Brewing Co. and non-profit Title Track have joined forces to create a call-to-action for the entire Michigan craft brewing community — step up and better our businesses and our communities for all people through support of anti-racism and anti-oppression efforts.

“As a Title Track board member, it’s been important for me to find opportunities that could support the work Title Track is doing,” Joe Short, founder of Short’s Brewing Co and Title Track board member, said in supplied material. “The craft beverage and hospitality industry made perfect sense as a platform to scale community conversations about anti-oppression programming to help us build strong and resilient communities.”

The goal is to raise $25,000 to develop anti-racism and anti-oppression programming. Short’s has made that goal even more attainable with an initial pledge of $5,000, according to supplied material.

Once the goal is met, Title Track will host five events across the state that are open to the brewing community. These events are designed to provide “a better understanding of racial justice and the steps needed to create meaningful, lasting change on the path to equity and inclusion for all — which is especially relevant in an industry made up of mostly white males.”

Title Track, a non-profit dedicated to clean water, racial equity, and youth empowerment, was launched in 2019 by Seth Bernard in the hopes of making his Michigan home a better place to live. Craft Libations for Collective Liberation is just one of many programs for the non-profit.

To donate, or learn more about Title Track’s Racial Equity Team, visit here. For more information about Short’s Brewing Company visit shortsbrewing.com.

Take a road trip to Stormcloud

If you’re taking a road trip up north, through Frankfort, before the snow flies, you might want to stop at Stormcloud Brewing Company and try their seasonal release of the brewery’s Harvest Tripel.

According to supplied material, “the innovative and unique beer blends the traditional Belgian Tripel beer style with freshly harvested hops grown in northern Michigan.”

Released annually using a different hop variety every year, the 2020 Harvest Tripel is brewed exclusively with Michigan Saaz hops grown by Michigan Hop Alliance in Omena.

They had me at “Belgian Tripel.”

For more information about Stormcloud visit Stormcloudbrewing.com.

New ‘Michigan Restaurant Promise’ initiative promotes health and safety during COVID-19

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, Community Health, Food, Hard News, Health, Local Business, Local Entertainment, Local Food, Restaurants, ,

By WKTV Staff

ken@wktv.org

A group of 86 Michigan restaurant and bar owners last week announced the launch of “Michigan Restaurant Promise”, a new initiative to ensure the health and safety of their employees, customers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has had a significant impact on West Michigan and many businesses — particularly bars and restaurants — have suffered,” Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss said in supplied material. “It’s great to see this group rally together to protect the health and safety of their employees, customers and our community.”

Among the local restaurants and craft breweries involved are Mitten Brewing, Brewery Vivant (parent company of Kentwood’s Broad Leaf Beer) and Long Road Distillery.

“As restaurant owners and managers, we feel a sense of responsibility for the health and well-being of our employees, our guests and the community at large,” Kris Spaulding, owner of Brewery Vivant, said in supplied material. “That’s why we started this initiative — to show our communities we are taking this seriously and are committed to protecting their health and safety.”

There is also a concern about those establishments not as committed as others.

“It’s frustrating to see bars and restaurants not enforcing the health and safety guidelines laid out to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” Chris Andrus, owner of Mitten Brewing, said in supplied material. “Those establishments threaten to undo the many sacrifices our community and industry have made and undermine the hard work of establishments like mine committed to keeping the public safe.”

The effort could also serve as a model for the state.

“Small businesses are the heart of West Michigan and it’s great to see this group of local restaurant and bar owners be leaders in putting people first,” Hanna Schulze, president of Local First, said in supplied material. “The Michigan Restaurant Promise can serve as a model for other communities to hold their local businesses accountable and encourage them to prioritize the health and wellbeing of their employees and customers above all else.”

Learn more about the initiative by visiting MiRestaurantPromise.com.

Wyoming, Kentwood craft breweries staying positive despite ‘first to close, last to open’ concerns

3-bottom, Beer, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, Community Health, Food, Going Local, Local Business, Local Entertainment, Local Food, WKTV Projects, , ,
Hankerin’ for a dinner of TwoGuys Brewery’s prime rib and beer? TwoGuys managing partner, brewmaster and all-around craft-brew guru Tom Payne shows off a take-home option. (WKTV/K.D. Norris)

By K.D. Norris

ken@wktv.org

Three Wyoming and Kentwood area craft breweries and brew pubs — TwoGuys Brewing, Broad Leaf Local Beer and Railtown Brewing Company — are doing what they can to keep their taps flowing in these times of COVID-19 restrictions.

Like most restaurants, they are offer take-out and delivery of food from their kitchens. Like most breweries, they offer to-go craft beer choices from their brewers. And like any good pub, they offer the kind of optimism that any good bartender will offer up to customers contemplating the worst over a cold pint.

Broad Leaf reports they are brewing up a Super Wonderful Happy IPA, “named to contrast the times and keep people thinking positively,” they say.

But despite a barkeep’s optimism, there is a healthy outpouring of concern about the future.

Railtown Brewing Company. (Supplied)

“It’s been a long road so far. Sadly, we’re in the early part of a marathon not a sprint,” Railtown’s Justin Buiter said to WKTV. “We were one of the first industries to see forced shutdowns and we’ll be one of the last to re-open. We’re planning for the worst and hoping for the best.”

TwoGuys also has some concerns about what might happen with a “slow opening” of establishments like theirs.

“As far as plans for when things open back up, we aren’t really sure,” TwoGuys Brewing managing partner Amy Payne said to WKTV. “We are prepared to pivot once again as necessary but have discussed that until all restrictions to regular business are lifted we will, most likely, continue to operate as we currently are. Opening our taproom at half capacity (if that should be the next phase) would definitely be detrimental to sales so keeping with the current model would keep us closer to our goal numbers.”

A bright spot has been community support  

Despite the current hardships, the three breweries have been thankful for the support of the community during these times.

“The community support has been amazing,” Railtown’s Buiter said.”We see a lot of familiar faces every week. Folks genuinely care about us and want to see us through this, and that means more than we can put into words.”

For Broad Leaf and its mother ship, Grand Rapids’ Brewery Vivant, their thankfulness includes community support of employees whose jobs were impacted by the closures.

“All gratuities at both locations are being put into an emergency fund for our hourly staff,” Broad Leaf and Brewery Vivant co-owner and president Kris Spaulding said to WKTV. “We have been amazed at how generous our community is. Through those guests, we have built up a meaningful fund that will surely help out some of our staff who are struggling.”

Broad Leaf is also being a little old-school resourceful when it comes to labeling their to-go beer cans and their brewing choices.

Broad Leaf Local Beer offers door pick-up of beer-to-go, and merchandise, at the Kentwood location. Much of the pub’s usual food fare is available through the mother ship, Grand Rapids’ Brewery Vivant, by pick-up or delivery. (WKTV/K.D. Norris)

“People may notice our simple war-time style labels printed on address stickers as we make do with what we have on hand,” Spaulding said. And “We have been going back to old school methods and are all pulling together to be able to share what we all love with the amazing public that has been going out of their way to support us.”

Also “Super Wonderful Happy IPA … is sort of an old-school IPA made with Mosaic and MI Chinook hops …  Bananicula is a pastry stout with Count Dracula Chocolate cereal, banana, vanilla, and marshmallow that we bottled by hand on a homebrew counter-pressure filler contraption our head brewer Jacob cobbled together.”

Man, and woman, does not live on beer alone

That adapting with the times is also at play in to-go food selections.

Much of Broad Leaf’s eclectic fare — including their appropriately named “Drunken Noodles” — is available for pick up and limited-area delivery out of Brewery Vivant’s Eastown kitchen. (The actual Broad Leaf location has curbside pick up of beer and merch, as well as beer delivery.)

TwoGuys, in contrast, has made some changes to adapt.

“In order to stay relevant in the current situation we took a look at what our guests, and hopefully folks new to TwoGuys, would be looking for as the social distancing seemed like it was going to carry on longer than officials were suggesting,” Payne said. “What we decided was, although hot take-out food is great for some, many were traveling across town to get back home if they worked near us or wanted to support us even though they lived across town. Take-out hot food just isn’t as good when it has travelled for a while. So, we began to work on ‘Take N Bake’ options.”

Currently they offer casseroles, lasagna, mac and cheese — and prime rib meals — purchased in tins ready to be put in the oven when they got home.

Desserts have also been “huge,” she said. “Pans of brownies full of all kinds of delicious additives … Nothing like brownies when the world is full of uncertainty.”

(The take-and-bake fruit cobblers looked too good to pass up when researching this story! And their TwoGuys IPA hits the pale ale spot.)

Railtown Brewing Citra Warrior IIPA. (Supplied)

At Railtown, they are open for pick-up and carryout of beer, cider and much of their regular menu food for lunch and dinner, daily except Sunday. Ordering is by phone only. And they do have some special brews unexpectedly available.

“Due to COVID-19, we had to cancel our Warrior Unleashed party which is a celebration of our Imperial IPA, Citra Warrior,” Railtown’s Buiter said. “The result is, we have a ton of beer selections on tap currently. We released 4 variations of Citra Warrior — Midnight Warrior (Black Imperial IPA), Soulless Warrior (Ginger Imperial IPA), Tiki Warrior (Pineapple Imperial IPA), and Tiki Torch (Pineapple and Cayenne Pepper Imperial IPA).”

Keeping with that barkeep’s optimism, they also have a new “Shutdown Brown”, a hazelnut brown ale.

Railtown is located at 3595 68th St. SE, in Dutton but just across the border with Kentwood. For food and beer information, call 616-881-2364 or visit railtownbrewing.com.

TwoGuys is located at 2356 Porter St. SW, in Wyoming. For food and beer information, call 616-552-9690 or visit twoguys-brewing.com.

Broad Leaf is located at 2885 Lake Eastbrook Blvd, in Kentwood. For food and beer information call 616-803-0602 or visit broadleafbeer.com.