While Frankenmuth Brewery uses only a few choice ingredients to brew its Michigan beer, there can be drastically different results depending on the variance of our recipes. This leads us to one of the most common questions we get asked about our beer. New brew enthusiasts are constantly wondering how different beers are made and the question, “What is an IPA and how is it different from other beers?” is frequently a topic of discussion around the brewery.

Frankenmuth Brewery’s Batch 69 American Style IPA is a traditional take on an India Pale Ale, which predates the first official Michigan Beer by only about 30 years. While England was colonizing India, English breweries looked to send beers that would remind new settlers of what they left behind in their home country. The exported beer, which gets its name from the pale malt used in its brewing formula, became more popular than regular pale ale and breweries around the world began copying the new style of brew. In beer lore, brewers were worried that their brew would go bad on the boat ride to India. It’s believed that the beer gained even more hop taste because the brewers attempted to preserve their products by packing casks full of even more hops.

The distinct hoppy flavor of Batch 69 IPA and others like it lends itself to the kind of hop used in the brewing process. Frankenmuth Brewery brewmaster Jeff Coon utilizes four kinds of hops (Amarillo, Cascade, Columbus and Simcoe) when creating his Michigan beer and each brings a special something to the table. The Cascade hop is known for bringing a bright citrus aroma to the beer while the brew gains acidity from the Columbus hops. Additionally, the Simcoe hops give off an aroma of citrus and pine, while the Amarillo also adds to the bitter bite of the Cascade and Columbus hops. When hoppy powers unite, the three different kinds of flower clusters give the Batch 69 IPA a unique flavor note of grapefruit and a robust hop punch.

While we’ve suggested using this Michigan beer as the base of a BBQ sauce before, the Batch 69 IPA is also a match made in heaven for other food pairings including spicy foods, chicken wings, curry dishes, steaks and aged cheese. Essential for eating with food or just a relaxed drinking situation, beer drinkers all over the world have gone so IPA crazy that there now is an annual holiday celebrating the beer dubbed IPADay. We will be counting down the days ’til August 4. We hope that you will enjoy a couple of Michigan beers like a Batch 69 along the way with us.

Frankenmuth Brewery has discussed how beer has the saved the world time and time again in a previous blog, and now we’re taking our shot at lending a helping hand with the debut of our new summer beer festival, Michigan Bier Celebration. Taking place July 21 at Heritage Park’s Harvey Kern Pavilion in downtown Frankenmuth, the Michigan Bier festival will feature all the sights and sounds of a classic summer beer event. The icing on the cake? You’ll be helping out those that need it right in the heart of your own community.

Teaming up with Charity Celebration, a non-profit organization which distributes funds to worthy causes, Frankenmuth Brewery hopes that the Michigan Bier Celebration will help local Frankenmuth charities continue the beautification and preservation of our historic town. Some of the selected charities that will benefit from the Michigan Bier Celebration include the Frankenmuth Rotary, Frankenmuth Beautification, Cass River Fund, Toys For Tots and the Michigan Brewer’s Guild. So where do you come in? Well, if you’re a Michigan beer lover like Frankenmuth Brewery, then you will find your end of the deal extremely enticing. With advance general admission tickets selling for $10 ($12 at the door), ticket buyers will not only have the gratification of donating to charity, but will also receive a souvenir Oktoberfest boot for taste testing beers at Heritage Park. Advance VIP tickets will be available for $25 ($30 at the door) and will secure summer beer festival enthusiasts the Oktoberfest boot, 8 beer tickets for sampling, and food vouchers to redeem at the event.

The highlight of the festival will be the aforementioned beer tasting, which will showcase the Oktoberfest beers of 15 Michigan breweries and 12 additional brewers from across the country. Signified by its traditional copper color, the Oktoberfest beers that will be up for grabs at the Michigan Bier Celebration will also feature the hallmark ingredients from Germany and the traditional benchmark of an ABV in between 5% and 6%. “Michigan craft beer lovers will get a sneak peak at more than two dozen 2012 Oktoberfest brews expected to debut in Frankenmuth,” says Haithem Sarafa, executive director of Charity Celebration. “Visitors can sample the many different styles of this seasonal brew as well as other beer/cider products, many of which will be introduced into retail stores in early August.”

In addition to all the beers set for tasting, the Michigan Bier Celebration will also feature live music, like the traditional German sounds of Steve Drzewicki Polka Band and the Fred Ziwich International South Machine to the more modern jam band-meets-funk sounds of Funktion. Spinning the music in between all the live action, DJ Litio will have you dancing around the summer beer festival inside Heritage Park like there is no tomorrow. To experience all of the Michigan Bier Celebration, be sure to buy your advance ticket right now by clicking on the  symbol. We hope that you will consider spending July 21 with your friends from Frankenmuth Brewery, making a positive impact on the community while drinking a quality brew or two.

It’s that time of year again. Time to break out the grill, gather friends and family and pick up some Frankenmuth Brewery micro brewed Michigan beer to celebrate a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. Now, you could just get any old six pack of beers, but why not do it with a little more style by purchasing our new sampler pack, lovingly referred to as the Frankensampler.

Packed with 12 Frankenmuth Brewery microbrewed beers, the Frankensampler is the answer to all beer problems. Not sure what beer you like? Well, the Frankensampler comes with four varieties: the American Blonde Ale, Batch 69 IPA, Red Sky Ale and Dunkel Lager, with three bottles of each. Developing a love for light beer? The Blonde and Batch 69 will fulfill your need for delicious refreshing beer. Do you like a heavier brew? Let Red Sky Ale and Dunkel Lager rock your Michigan beer world.

For this holiday weekend, we decided to step up our game a little bit and have some fun with our lovely brew pack. Just like you, we will be celebrating the holiday by taking in some fireworks, doing a bit of BBQing and enjoying some beers. While coolers are a great way to keep Michigan beer cold, we figured we would make a D.I.Y cooler out of the Frankensampler box for easy on the go access.

The process of making your own cooler is simple. First, take out all the beer. Next — and here comes the hard part — put a garbage bag in the empty box. Third step, buy ice and pour it into garbage bag. Then, put the beer back in the box and let the ice work it’s magic. Sure it’s not rocket science, but despite the simplicity of Frankensampler-gone-Frankencooler, it gets your beer cold really, really fast.

Celebrate the holiday right and pick up your Frankensampler at a Michigan beer store or head on over to Frankenmuth Brewery and say hello! We’d love to see all our friends and family for the long weekend, and we would especially love to see you make that Frankensampler into a Frankencooler.

While the process of brewing and drinking beer is one of the most essential components of any Michigan brewery, what many brew enthusiasts don’t realize is just how much waste is created in the process. According to a study done by Gunter Pauli, the author of The Blue Economy, 92 percent of all brewing ingredients are wasted. Much of this waste is spent grain, and Frankenmuth Brewery and other craft brewers are doing our part to put it towards good use.

In Pauli’s 2003 study, almost 85 percent of breweries involved said that they sold or gave away their spent grain to local farmers for use as animal feed. This sense of recycling has put the brewing world ahead of many other industries. Yet, with the advancement of the brewery food in the past decade, breweries like Frankenmuth no longer have to give away waste. Instead, we are working to incorporate the leftovers into our recipes. In our own Michigan brewery kitchen, we use much of our spent grain to create the bread bowls for the plentiful amount of our famous chili that we serve everyday.

Breweries are famous for innovation in reinventing the brewing wheel. Great Lakes Brewing Company, located in Cleveland, Ohio, has also started to work with its waste in the same way our Michigan brewery has: by recycling it into menu items. In addition to using its spent grain for bread, the brewery has also begun experimenting with using waste grain to actually grow food.

Elsewhere, inventor Eric Fitch has outfitted Magic Hat’s Vermont brewery with a new machine, the anaerobic methane digester. While the invention is a bit of a mouthful, and cost nearly four million dollars to build, the machine can be used to turn brewing waste into natural gas. According to Fitch’s company Purpose Energy, the 42-foot tall building is capable of holding 490,000 gallons of water waste and can turn that into 200 cubic feet of bio-gas per minute.

Frankenmuth Brewery is dedicated to continuing our progression toward total eco-consciousness. While it starts with little things like donating waste to local farmers for animal feed and making food from our spent grain, we will continue to find ways to reduce the waste of our Michigan brewery. We are proud to see our brewing brethren following suit.

With the holiday fast approaching, Frankenmuth Brewery is here to remind you how to celebrate your dad with our Father’s Day Gift Guide for father figures who love drinking Michigan beer. While bringing your dad by the brewery for a beer and a meal on you is one way to start off the celebration, take the gift giving fun a step further by gift wrapping one of the amazing gifts below.

However you decide to honor your dad, remember to plan accordingly. Father’s Day falls on June 18 this year. May we now present to you the Frankenmuth Brewery Father’s Day Gift Guide for dads who love their Michigan beer:


Homemade Six Pack Carrier

Made by Cold Creek Brewing, located in Lebanon, Missouri, this rustic six pack beer carrier looks like something Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan would have carried around in simpler times. Made with beautiful knotted wood and a copper handle that has a bottle opener built into it, this carrier makes the perfect gift for dad and it will be even more special if you include a few of his favorite Michigan beers from Frankenmuth Brewery when you give it to him.



German Beer Bottle Opener/Cap Catcher

If you know anything about Frankenmuth Brewery, you know how proud we are of our German heritage. Surely, our Pilsener could inform if you haven’t heard through word of mouth alone. Emblazoned with the German phrase “Hopfen und malz gott erhalts’s,” or in English “God save hops and malt,” this unique bottle opener/cap catcher from Innovation Workshop is a gift that will remind your dad of the classic wall-mounted bottle opener of yesteryear. Beautiful in design and functionality, the opener can be mounted with screws or even attached to any metal item as the entire back is a large magnet.



Hobo Tin Can Beer Holder/Garden Drink Holder

Based on the innovations of classic characters in hobo literature like Nick Adams and the wandering men from Of Mice and Men, these tin car beer holders are a simple gift that will make your dad smile. Whether for the garden, driveway or front porch planter, his beer will always be within reach and that should keep him happy for many future Father’s Days to come. Head over to the Stripey City Etsy page and pick up a pair, one for you and one for your dad. Then, head to Frankenmuth Brewery to pick up some Michigan beer for your hangout session with pops. He will love it, guaranteed.

As the oldest Michigan brewery, Frankenmuth surely knows a thing or two about beer. We also know a thing or two about cruising YouTube for hilarious and interesting beer videos. Today’s collection are superb and run the gamut from mind-blowing to just plain weird. Focusing in on the way we receive beer, the videos show a new way to open bottles, a new way to drink beer and a new way to purchase brews. Kick back, grab a Frankenmuth beer and have a laugh courtesy of these great viral videos.

Guy Opens a Beer Bottle With Chainsaw
We don’t know if this is scary or amazing, but either way the chainsaw-weilding older gentleman that opens the beer bottle in this video most certainly has the skills to pay the proverbial bills.

Guy Drinks a Beer Without His Hands
Despite making this more of a challenge than it really needs to be, this limber lad takes drinking a beer to new heights. While balancing a beer on his head, he uses his feet to put the beer on the ground and drink it. A tough one to explain, but essential to watch.

Beer Vending Machine
Taking the way we buy beer and turning it on its head, Arnie is a beer vending machine that not only delivers beer, but also knows what beers you like. By using a personalized key fob, Arnie will speak to you, allow you to make a post to your favorite social media site and give you the beer of your choice. Stock Arnie with beer from a particular Michigan brewery and we’re sold.

If you love Frankenmuth Brewery like we love you, our faithful pack of brew enthusiasts, then we want to hear all about it. Let us know your feelings about the beer, the food, the staff and the overall experience that you’ve had at Frankenmuth Brewery.

Now, via a new Facebook application, you can let others know just what you’re thinking after each and every visit to Frankenmuth Brewery. Recently have a great-tasting American Blonde Ale out on the patio overlooking the river? Recommend it to the rest of Facebook. Can’t get enough of the Bavarian Bratwurst or Mountain-High Meatloaf Sandwich? Show your love!

The process is simple. Check out our easy How-To Guide and share your recommendations on our Facebook page.

1. Log on to the Frankenmuth Brewery Facebook profile.

2. Look for the Recommendations box on the right hand side of the screen. Beware, it’s easy to miss!

3. Type up your Recommendation for other Frankenmuth Brewery visitors and let them know what you think about us. When finished, click the blue “Recommend” button.

4. And with that, your Recommendation is visible to all other Facebook users.

Thank you for your love and recommendations, in addition to the rest of your support over the past 150 years. Frankenmuth Brewery is happy to have such a big family and we are grateful for all your business.

BrewChief, a community run by brew reviewers from around the globe, offers a social network for beer drinkers to document their love or detest for products from microbreweries all over. As a part of its mission to have an impact in the brewing industry, the website is currently running a recurring interview series that shines a light on the underrated masters of the brewing universe: brewmasters. Recently, BrewChief took the time to interview Frankenmuth Brewery Brewmaster Jeff Coon, gaining some insight on his favorite beer to brew, what he thinks of the beer reviewing process and his advice for those new to the craft beer segment.

What is your favorite style of beer to brew?

A Märzen Oktoberfest … hands down, because it was the first beer that I learned how to make. I enjoy the tradition behind the style, it being a true lager and incorporating the multi-stepped mash process makes this brew complex and really fun to make. I brewed my first Oktoberfest in April 1972, when I was 13. From a stylistic standpoint, I believe my Oktoberfest
is true to what Oktoberfest was and is today.

What are your favorite beers outside of your own?

Outside of the brews I make there are quite a few different ones that I really enjoy. Dogfish Head 90 & 120 minute IPAs are a few brews that I think are pretty sweet and I really enjoy. Russian River Pliney the Elder is another one of my favorites. Anybody that can brew a good German style Pilsener is always nice, I love that style of beer, and I just think it’s great. I also like all the Stone Vertical Epic series brews, they’ve all been good! I’m looking forward to trying Sam Adam’s Utopias.

In Michigan, I really enjoy Founder’s KBS, and New Holland Poet (I like to age my bottles for 16-18 months). I’m also a fan of Dark Horse Plead the 5th Imperial Stout.I love talking to people about beer because it’s the most underrated celebratory beverage, my love of beer and passion for brewing grows every time I am able to introduce a new style to their palate.

Thanks to BrewChief for taking the time to interview our own Jeff Coon. Visit their website for more great beer features.

Can you hear that? It’s the sound of beer drinkers, sud suckers and brew enthusiasts stampeding through the streets of Frankenmuth to meet up at Heritage Park (located conveniently behind Frankenmuth Brewery) for The World Expo of Beer. One of Michigan’s biggest beer events, the brew festival is hitting Frankenmuth this weekend, May 18 and May 19, for a 48 hour mad dash of beer tasting and the announcement of the prestigious WEB medals.

With over 300 beers up for grabs this weekend, the WEB will show off dozens of different brews that come from not only Michigan breweries, but several world renowned brewhouses abroad, and offer distinct titles to the best of the bunch. Word on the street has it that a few Frankenmuth Brewery beers have made the medal cut, but to be sure, fans of our brewery should to come out to the event to hear the all exciting results firsthand.

So how do you get involved? Head to Heritage Park in Frankenmuth, bring $7 for admission (the money goes to charity) and take your free collector beer sampling mug around to the tent full of tables with beer gold. Enjoy the sights, the sounds and the camaraderie of your fellow beer drinkers, and soak up all things beers. For those, who aren’t as familiar with what goes into a good beer there will be several classes called “The Brewer’s Table” that will offer knowledge on pairing food with beers, and how to throw a cocktail party with hors d’oeuvres and chocolate.

Come enjoy what will be two beautiful days in downtown Frankenmuth that will leave you saying, “I love craft beer!” Also, be sure to stop by and see the Frankenmuth Brewery team as they will be handing out tastings of all your favorite Frankenmuth beers.

Bonus: Check out these hilarious hi-jinx from the 2010 World Expo of Beer and prepare for more beer fun this weekend.

It feels like summer is upon us. Maybe it’s not official yet (June 20 is the calender date), but Frankenmuth Brewery is celebrating the nice weather with Michigan beer and taking in as much baseball as we can. Ahh… baseball. From the smell of the fresh cut grass to the crack of the bat and even the annoying Wave, we’ve missed our boys of summer in the months since October.

While Frankenmuth Brewery’s alliance and love is always with the Detroit Tigers, we always enjoy watching America’s pastime, no matter who’s playing. While watching the San Diego Padres win over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, there was a phenomenal play not on the field, but in the stands. A foul ball popped up behind the dugout and an unassuming fan caught the ball in his beer. Like a true beer enthusiast, the fan drank the beer with the ball still in the cup.

In tribute to our new favorite ball catching fan, Frankenmuth Brewery has compiled a collection of incredible cup catches. From upper decks to pools in the outfield, these fans are dedicated to drinking their beers, regardless of whether there happens to be a baseball in the way.


San Diego Padres Fan Catches Foul Ball in Beer



A Red Sox Fan Makes an Amazing Upper Deck Snag With a Beer

Atlanta Braves Fan catches Ball From Outfielder

Fan Jumps in Pool: Catches Ball and Saves Beer

Next time you’re taking in a Detroit Tigers game, or any baseball for that matter, kick back with a Michigan beer from Frankenmuth Brewery. No matter what you do though — just don’t drop any of that precious, precious beer.