Oktoberfest Dinner & Brew Cruise on MI Princess

Join the outdoor summer fun on Saturday August 10^th, 2013 at the Brews & BBQs event featuring Bell’s Brewery Beer hosted at Timber Ridge Golf Club. The day starts out with a 4 person, 18 hole golf scramble with a shotgun start at 1pm.

Ypsilanti’s Riverside Park is the home to Michigan Brewers Guild’s Annual Summer Beer Festival, one of several events hosted throughout the year. I’ve previously attended the Winter Beer Festival in Comstock Park, but this was my first year to check out the long-running Summer Beer Fest, and like many of the Brewers Guild events this year’s event was a sellout with over 6000 attendees. Note: if planning to attend one of these events, be sure to book your hotel weeks if not months in advance!

Quickly becoming one of Southeast Michigan’s premiere fall festivals, the Blues & Brews Festival is back with a full line up of great live music and award-winning craft beers.  True to its name, the Blues & Brews Festival combines two of Michigan’s legends, Rhythm & Blues Music and hand-crafted beer, into one unforgettable event.

The Festival of the Moon and Sun are both coming this weekend to Lansing's Old Town (June 21-22). Designed to be a celebration of the arrival of summer, these events are always an outstanding time with plenty of food, music, and of course, beer and wine. Friday's Festival of the Moon is sponsored by Bell's Brewing Company and will feature a full line of their beers on tap as well as food from Grand Grillin, Mark’s Gourmet Dogs and Amie Jo’s Elephant Ears. The event runs from 6PM-11PM.

Children’s Leukemia Foundation of Michigan is hosting its third annual BRU Fest Michigan fundraiser to bring together aficionados of craft beers and delicious food to benefit Michigan children and adults affected by leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related cancers.

There are two things that March brings us that mark the coming of Spring. The first of course is March Madness, the games leading up to the end of college basketball season. The other is the release of Oberon. Though there is quite a bit of hoopla associated with March Madness, it is possible that the fans are not nearly as ravenous as the fans of Bell's Brewery's biggest hit beer.

Grand Rapids Magazine-branded travel retail stores will be a part of a future construction project at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. HMSHost Corporation of Bethesda, Maryland, will manage the project, initially planning to rebrand the airport’s current newsstand location as “Grand Rapids Magazine travel retail store” in June 2013. Two additional stores—one in concourse A, planned for completion in January 2014; and another in concourse B, with a planned completion date in June 2014—will also be part of the efforts intended to “localize” the airport.

The Upper Peninsula may soon be welcoming a major player into its craft beer scene.  On April 25th Escanaba's city council is expected to approve an offer from Mr. Larry Bell, president of Bell's Brewery, to purchase two parcels of land for the amount of $35,000.  The property sits in Escanaba's Whitetail Industrial Park (Street View of parcel: http://goo.gl/maps/xm48K ), an area that the city has been developing for several years.  Mr. Bell is also requesting the right of first offer to purchase additional land to the west.

Event goers celebrating diversity at the 6^th annual Kalamazoo Pride event will be able to raise a glass of Bell’s beer while dancing and singing to an entertainment lineup headlined by Chicago-based Kimi Hayes, back by popular demand.

The Michigan Cask Ale Festival returns Saturday, May 4, to Ashley’s Beer & Grill, 7525 Wayne Rd., with expanded hours and the largest lineup of cask-conditioned and served beers in the Festival’s six-year history – and the largest available at one time anywhere in the state.