Bell’s & Olde Peninsula – Kalamazoo (MI) breweries

Following our visit to Holland’s breweries we travelled south east about 1.5 hours to Kalamazoo with primary aim of visiting Bell’s Brewing Inc.

Bell’s Brewing Eccentric Cafe

Bell’s original location is sandwiched in between the streets and railroads of the industrial side of downtown Kalamazoo, this is known as Bell’s Brewing Eccentric Cafe. This brewpub is a popular place with bars, eating areas, a beer garden, a brew house and an attached Home Brew supplies store.

We arrived early afternoon and immediately joined a tour round the brewery which is now mainly used for experimental batches with certain ones being destined for barrel ageing in rum, bourbon or wine barrels – some of which are made into sour beers. Bell’s also now have a separate 200 barrel production facility which is open for self-guided tours but with it being Memorial Weekend we were unfortunately not able to take up this opportunity due to it being closed for the holidays.

After the tour we indulged in some late lunch along with a couple of samplers which included some brews that are only available on tap at this location.

Sampler #1 (back row left to right):

• Altbier – 5.6%
• Oat Ale cream ale – 4.5%
• Baltic Porter – 8.0%*
• Wild One sour brown – 6.8%
• Baron von Nordwestlich kolsch – 5.1%*
• Bear Hug imperial stout – 8.1%

Sampler #2 (front row left to right):

• Consecrator Doppelbock – 8.0%*
• Double Cream on Nitro stout – 6.1%*
• Mead honey wine – 9.0%*
• Deb’s Red american amber/red ale – 6.2%
• Larry’s Latest Lager Trial pale lager – 4.1%
• Le Contrbassiste farmhouse brown – 7.1%

* designates our favourites from each sampler.

Before leaving we took a look at the beer garden to find 10-12 feet high hops which puts to shame our 6-18 inch saplings though we understand these at Bell’s are mature and are even kept alive during the winter months rather than leaving them to ‘reset’ during winter dormancy.

After exiting the Eccentric Cafe we took the opportunity to take a look round the Home Brew Supplies store round the corner which has a good range of merchandise plus grain, equipment, kits and much more so this seemed like a good chance to grab some bottle caps, yeast nutrient, a stir plate and a couple more items. Great prices and they even ship within the US so check them out online.

Olde Peninsula Brewpub & Restaurant

After Bell’s we walked a couple of blocks to Olde Peninsula Brewpub that our cab driver had alerted us to earlier that afternoon. Once inside we took our place at the bar with the brewery behind us and visible through a glass wall. We decided to try a couple of samplers:

Sampler #1 (left to right):

• Haymarket Cream Ale – 4.25%
• Sunset Red – 5.75%
• Midnight Stout – 5.25%
• Stout Chocula – 5.25%*

 

Sampler #2 (front left to back right):

• Nitro Stout Chocula – 5.25%*
• Black ‘n’ Tan (Haymarket Cream Ale + Midnight Stout) – estimated at 4.75%*
• Tornado Pale Ale – 7.25%
• Rockin’ Razberry Wheat – 5.5%*

* designates our favourites from each sampler.