Road Trip 2009, Day Five, Part II

Our original plan was to come down the Western side of the state of Michigan and stop for a visit at two legendary breweries in the Grand Rapids area - Founders in Grand Rapids proper, and New Holland in Holland, MI, a few miles away. We were now completely off schedule, however. Determined to catch at least one, we headed for Founders. After an uneventful two and a half hours on US-131, we rolled into downtown Grand Rapids.

Founders, located in the warehouse district on the edge of downtown, turned out to be a block-long hangar, with several roll-top gates, all of them open, separating the cavernous interior from an equally capacious raised deck. At nine o'clock on a Tuesday, the place was well peopled with a stylish twenty-something crowd, but we had no trouble finding two seats at the end of the bar opposite the stage. A singer was performing, accompanying himself on guitar, but the place was so vast that we could barely hear him in our corner. Founders has made a reputation in recent years for being a hotbed of extreme beer, and they did not disappoint. They are most famous, or infamous, for a beer called KBS. It used to stand for Kentucky Bourbon Stout, but seeing as they were nowhere near Kentucky, authorities intervened. Thanks to our generous and enthusiastic bartended, we tasted it. A 11.2% ABV monster aged in Bourbon barrels, it was so intense that the ounce or so he poured for us was more than enough. I cannot imagine drinking even a snifter of the stuff, much less a pint. We had to be a bit careful, seeing as we still had a couple of hours of nighttime driving ahead of us, but I did enjoy a snifter of the Hand of Doom, which is founder's double IPA aged, once again, in Bourbon barrels (definitely a signature of the brewery). It was enormous - huge hops, huge fruit, big funk and pronounced alcohol (10.4% ABV). Evidently, it is not bottled, so we were glad we got to experience it at the source. There were many, many other fascinating-sounding beers on the blackboard, so we made a mental note to come back (the annual release of KBS in March is supposed to be worth attending), and 130 miles later, were back in Ann Arbor.