Distributor Locations
The highly acclaimed Founders KBS lands in Chicago on Friday, March 15 and we’re here to help you locate a tasting near you. Be sure to use our BEER FINDER to locate a KBS near you.
These times are to our best knowledge but are subject to change. Please arrive early and plan ahead to secure your KBS. Read More
So you started a new diet. First off, congrats. Best of luck to you on this carb-free endeavor. Secondly, after pizza, burgers, and ramen, you’ve probably cut out beer from your new regiment as well. Well let us be the bearer of good news and share with you five beers that won’t break your diet.
A tour of Michigan’s hop industry leads to the release of Founders wet hopped Harvest Ale.
BY JACK MULDOWNEY OF THE HOP REVIEW
According to a recent report from Hop Growers of America, your next craft beer is more likely than ever to contain Michigan hops. In Grand Rapids, Founders Brewing Co. is celebrating the rise of local state hops with this year’s release of Harvest Ale–a wet-hopped IPA–working around the clock to add the un-kilned hops into the brew within hours of harvest. The beer, an annual mainstay at the brewery since the early 2000s, showcases a recipe complete with 100% Michigan hops for just the second time, after last year’s batch.
We recently followed the Founders team around the Great Lakes state, as we visited the three hop farms that would supply the Cascade and Crystal hops for this year’s ale: Northern Michigan’s MI Local Hops, and Southwest Michigan’s Hop Head Farms and Pure Mitten Hops. Each of these three operations provided a unique scale and approach to their harvesting techniques, allowing us several perspectives into the beauty of American hops grown right in the brewery’s home state.
Of course, like most college kids, my go-to beers have been domestic lagers…after I turned 21, of course. I often wouldn’t think twice about what beer to order at the bar and my college budget was an excuse for limiting my choices. Now that I’ve graduated and finished my internship here at Lakeshore Beverage, I’ve garnered a newfound knowledge about beer. Hint: they don’t all taste the same.
From recent grads like myself, to your uncle who’s been drinking the same domestic lager his whole life, there’s a craft beer out there for everyone. Listen, I’m not asking you to jump right into trying an intense hoppy IPA, but I am asking you to try a different beer than you’d typically reach for. There’s a huge world of beer out there and it’s time to widen your horizons, so here are 10 craft beers you can enjoy.
On Thursday, July 19th, the Green City Market Chef BBQ offered the most divine and delicious bites for attendees to enjoy. Beer tastings were available from a variety of Midwest beverage purveyors including Goose Island, Moody Tongue, Virtue Cider, Founders, Bell’s, Boulevard, 3 Sheeps, Urban Chestnut, Sun King, Jolly Pumpkin, and Burnt City. Lakeshore Beverage partnered up with the Green City Market Junior Board and Goose Island this year and brought Plinko to our lounge area. Guests could win a variety of Goose Island merchandise and one lucky winner even got to take home a Goose Island Bike!
There are literally hundreds of festivals in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs throughout the summer. Whether they’re showcasing a specific neighborhood, food, or beer, these festivals bring people together from all over the city. Our Special Events team is often the unsung heroes at many of these events, making sure the beverage operations run smoothly and that the beer continues to flow. We went behind-the-scenes to see what happens in order to make these festivals happen.