Water & Soil

Michigan borders four of the five Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie. The state consists of two peninsulas connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten, while the Upper Peninsula lies to the north and is known to locals simply as the "U.P."

Much of the soil dates back to the Ice Age. Glaciers left behind sand, gravel, and till, and the state draws its water from this subsurface as well as from the lakes. There are no reliable hardness figures for individual brewing towns, and they wouldn't mean much anyway. Nearly every brewery treats its water, either stripping out minerals or adding salts deliberately to suit the particular beer.

More important than the well, then, is the climate. Winters are long and cold, and on the Keweenaw Peninsula in the far north, snow often piles up several meters deep. There, in the former copper-mining region, the Keweenaw Brewing Company has been brewing since 2004 in Houghton and South Range. Its best-known beer, the Widow Maker Black Ale, is dark and warming on cold days. In Marquette on Lake Superior, the coldest and deepest of the five lakes, Blackrocks opened in 2010. Its flagship beer, the 51K, is an American IPA. The lakes also shape the weather: in autumn they release warmth, in spring they hold onto the cold longer.

To the south, Detroit sits between Lake Saint Clair and Lake Erie; to the west, Grand Rapids lies on the Grand River. Kalamazoo takes its name from the river of the same name, which later flows into Lake Michigan.