Arcadia

Every other Wednesday, local great beer watering hole Crunchy's hosts a Meet the Brewer night. Last night, they hosted the guys from Arcadia Ales brewing company in Battle Creek, Michigan.

As most brewers, these guys love their craft, they take it very seriously, but they have that irreverent fun streak that comes from a beverage synonymous with everyman social interaction. The great democratizer, after all, is beer!

Oades Big 10 carries pretty much the entire selection of Arcadia's brews. This brewery focuses primarily on British-style ales and I found out last night that they use the same yeast strain on every batch of beer they brew and that they use an open fermentation (tops of the fermenters are left open to the air) method on all of their beers. Their yeast strain is now on its 1,200th generation.

They have also acquired some now-defunct salt mines deep under the city of Battle Creek, and they store many of their barrel-aged beers down there. The temperature is extremely stable and it gets very little, if any, vibration that would stir-up the beer and keep the yeast and trub from settling. It's as close to cave-aging as we can get here.

Crunchy's is carrying Arcadia's award-winning Cereal Killer barleywine, Hopmouth Double IPA, Imperial Stout, and London Porter.

Crunchy's Manager, Paul Stewart, is a true beer advocate. While he carries the money-makers (Millers, Buds), he has devoted the bulk of his 20-odd taps to craft beer, and most of that is Michigan-based. Make a point to stop over at Crunchy's and support Paul's mission to introduce people to bigger, better beer.

The next Meet the Brewer night is February 24, where Crunchy's will host the brewers from my favorite in-state brewery, Founders.