Meanwhile in Michigan...

Here, David and Cheesey pose out front of Stop #1, the
Motor City Brewing Works. While I loved their beers,
these guys also made their own specialty pizzas that
are pure dynamite. Stopping there mid-afternoon, the
tiny place was jam-packed with couples and families.

The open invitation has been sitting there for a couple of years. My old high school buddy, Greg, aka Cheesey, and his lovely wife, April, live just outside Detroit in a well-heeled community called Gross Pointe Farms.

"You and David come on down any time," Cheesey has told me. "There's some great craft breweries here! If you come here in the Summer, we can all go out in the boat!"

Well, three weekends ago, it became high time to take the generous couple up on their offer. While including my son, David, seemed to be quite important to both of them, it seemed especially so to April. That seems to be the effect he has on most women. He's a huggy and loving lad and the ladies... well, they seem to really, really like those hugs. (Who knew, eh?)

The entire trip was, frankly, a stunning education on how the City of Detroit, which filed for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy back in 2013, has pulled itself up and revitalized itself in four short years. This was far beyond ordinary urban renewal, which takes decades. This was nothing short of an urban rebuilding miracle to an outside observer. Like the mythical Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Scotty has been manning at the bar at Motor City
Brewing Works for as long as Cheesey can remember.
The place had a warm ambiance that is tough to beat.
Also because of the pizzas around us, it smelled great!

But we'll deal next time with the city's rebirth and how the efforts of business people like Cheesey, as well as those in tax brackets far higher than him, realized that Detroit's bankruptcy was actually a beacon of light for entrepreneurs. Nothing turns around a bankruptcy quite as quickly as humongous infusions of big-league cash.

No, this time, we'll stick to the fun adventures enjoyed by the four of us and while I will, of course, be looking at Detroit and Michigan craft breweries next time as well, we have other stories to deal out today.

But since I go out of my way to shine a light on Ontario craft breweries up here (as do fine writers and videographers such as Beer Bro Glenn, Drunk Polkaroo and Brother Hago), I was in Michigan, not Ontario. So today, it's all about that fine state and its many craft breweries. When in Rome and all that...

When we landed there on Friday afternoon, April was still at work and wouldn't catch up to us until dinner at Benihana's, which is a fun story for a little further along. First up was a day-time trip into Detroit to Greg's restored-three-storey office with some sight-seeing of the city.

While most graffiti is the stuff of eye-sores, Cheesey
took us to one that was outrageously colourful and
fun. This is a cropped shot of David and myself in
front of the wall that ran 150 feet long and three
storeys high. Cheesey and I couldn't figure out how
many artists contributed to it but dozens, for sure.

Cheesey's office used to be an abandoned house which he got on the cheap and basically rebuilt from the ground up. Now the multi-storey office for his business, Computech Corporation, is completely redone and remodeled, even down (or up, I suppose) to the sizable attic which is now a shiny, gleaming conference room. However, what makes this house notable is that it was formerly owned by James Joy, owner of the Packard Car Company waaay back in the day. I tell you, this city is all about cars.

But hey, Cheesey knew what I wanted to see so before long, we three were off to Motor City Brewing Works to check out our first craft brewery of the day. Now I wrote about this brewery extensively in May 2016 when Cheesey brought me up a ton of beers from them during one of our high school mini-reunions. So I'll just include that link at the end if you're curious about the brewery's colourful history and shaky start-up. But on this day, our asses would be parked in the brewery itself which is a helluva lot more fun than researching it on the interwebs.

Their specialty food, much like Barnstormer Brewing and Distilling in Barrie, is stone-fired pizzas and geezuz, did that place smell good.

As a West Coast-British IPA hybrid, this is the
best of both worlds, balancing the hops on the
nose with thick malted barley on the tongue.

But we're here for the beer, aren't we? So let's "hop" into that. Naturally, I jumped all over their India Pale Ale (that's it - just India Pale Ale - no hoppy-punny nickname). I have reviewed this last May but here's a brief recap. The 7%, 85 IBU (international bitterness units) is goosed by Warrior, Columbus and Simcoe hops so you're expecting a whole lotta west coast. But no, there is a malt heaviness on the back-end so this is what we like to refer to as a West Coast-British hybrid. A combo of the two styles. That adds a breadiness to the grapefruit on the nose, as well as some grassiness to the pine on the tongue.

Despite the fact I am a devout hop-head, this is a style I have truly come to appreciate. They can't all hit your nose and tongue like a sledge-hammer so it's nice to take a trip to Hybrid-IPA City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. (I heard that somewhere in a song.) But believe me, there were many hoppy IPAs to come in my immediate Michigan forecast.

But first was the important matter of meeting up with April. While I have met her a couple of times in the past, this was a first for David and as mentioned earlier, it was a meeting that was highly anticipated by the gracious couple. So we all connected at Benihana's, a restaurant that cooks your food on a piping-hot grill in front of you in a hilarious and entertaining manner.

Goddamn, that's some good looking people right
there. Okay, mostly April but hey, Cheesey and 
David are holding their own, too. Just a great visit.

The first meeting between April and David went pretty much as expected. "You look like a hugger," she smiled sweetly to him... and got exactly that. When it comes to the people, I have taught my boy that much. You always offer men a handshake, though you can pull them in for the one-armed bro hug as he did with Cheesey. But if a woman opens her arms, you get in there and take the hug. It's a rare gift. His proficiency level at this seems high. Well, far better than his Dad's, that's for sure.

A great meal, we were seated between an older black couple and a young Millennial white couple. And the only reason their skin colour is relevant here is that our table represented something of a microcosm of the state of Detroit these days. The old guard of the recent years past happily breaking bread with the young urban newcomers helping to revitalize the city. Plus the old black dude was the funniest guy at the table by far. When the young chef tried to prank him by pretend-squirting the ketchup on him (it was a piece of red wool), the man never flinched. "Been married to her all these years," he said flatly, "so it takes a helluva lot more than that to scare me." (Earned him a playful whack on the arm and a "Hush!") Great dinner, great fun, great company and surprise, surprise, David got more hugs from the older couple as they were leaving. The boy has a gift. And he likes to share it.

That's right - Hop Cat in Detroit has 130 taps,
dedicated to some of the best craft beers from
America and around the world. The Canadian
nod? A lone Unibroue (Chambly, Quebec) brew,
Ephemere Elderberry, a Belgian Wit goosed by
elderberries. But I wasn't in Canada so... pass!

After dinner, it was back to Cheesey and April's where the hostess and my boy were content to park it in the basement for the rest of the night, watching a Harry Potter DVD. Me and Cheesey, on the other hand? We had places to go.

The one place Cheesey has been raving to me about for the past couple of years is HopCat, the city's premier craft beer bar on the corner of Woodward Avenue and East Canfield Street in the downtown core. "This place has 130 taps!" Cheesey enthused a couple of years back. "You have got to see this!"

So that's precisely where we went. As expected, the bar was packed by Millennials, all enjoying their Friday night out, not to mention some damn good beers. There were 20 IPAs on the menu out of their 130 taps and the lone nod I saw to a macro was Pabst Blue Ribbon, which, in some places, still has some hipster cred. (My stomach is not one of those places.)

While the majority of the beers were from Michigan, there was one Canadian brew, as well as a healthy handful from other states and Europe. This bar believes in drinking locally, meaning Michigan, baby.

I had two New England-style IPAs, one from nearby Batch Brewing (which I'll talk about tomorrow as we made the trip there afterwards) and the second, a collaboration between Brewery Vivant (Grand Rapids) and Witch's Hat Brewing (also Grand Rapids) called Farmer's Hat Juicy IPA. "Maybe next time, we can make the trip to Grand Rapids because it's a huge craft beer city," said Cheesey. Actually, there's still plenty of Detroit crafties to visit so when that time comes (and it will come sooner rather than later), I might suggest passing on that two-and-a-half hour car ride and just staying put.

As it turns out, there are two versions of this beer with the recipe subtly tweaked between the batches made in each brewery. I got the Brewery Vivant version.

The rule of thumb for New English style
IPAs is simply this: if it looks like either
orange juice or mango juice, it's probably
gonna be pretty damn tasty. And it was!

While the Witch's Hat version is a SMASH (single malt and single hop) IPA, the Brewery Vivant one was goosed with both Citra and Huell Melon hops. At 7.2% and roughly 80 IBUs (international bitterness units), the Farmer's Hat didn't just tickle the nose, it sucker-punched it. Hard. Holy crap, so much aroma, big bursting heaps of tropical fruit and, of course, melonly goodness! This New England-style of IPAs is probably my favourite trend of the year - it's cloudy, it's hazy, it's a mucky, murky mess of delicious!

Okay, as I said, I'll be back tomorrow with more Michigan fun, starting with our trip to Batch Brewing. Also, how a great lunch at Mike's On The Water lead me to make the biggest Daddy mistake of 2017, virtually squelching Cheesey and my Saturday night brewery visit game-plan. Why? Because I'm an idiot. (You'll have to read about it. But man, rookie mistake.)

Also there's an explanation about why this column has been missing in action for the past few weeks. While David and I were enjoying ourselves down there, there were issues with my 87-year-old mother up here and the eventual decision on how to deal with it is about to cause some great upheaval in my life. But what can you do? Fortunately, Cheesey has gone through exactly the same situation with his mother so he was the perfect guy to bounce this situation off. When you're not in the vicinity of your family, it's great to have two friends that you consider family around and April and Cheesey certainly fill that bill. But back tomorrow with that all. Oh yeah, last year's column on: Motor City Brewing Works! is, well, that link. Until then, guys and doll, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...