Today’s post is about a very important day in Daze of Beer history. This post is about the first brewery I visited post-my last job. I mean, yeah, did I end my last job like an eternity ago and did I visit this brewery also an eternity ago? Most definitely. But does that shock anybody? Of course not. Whatever delusion we all carried that I would become better at posting on the blog once I didn’t have a job were carried by the idea that I wrote these posts on my own time, which I did not do. I wrote 90% of all my content on my work computer at my last job during downtimes (or when I should’ve been doing something but couldn’t overcome the debilitating anxiety that made opening emails one of the hardest tasks to overcome in my day). Once I became a person “between jobs” (I am now, once again, gainfully employed so I feel like I am qualified to call my brief timeout from the workforce me being “between jobs”), I had nothing to avoid other than my bank account and I fell off the writing train.

But one of the first and only big “things” of my unemployed phase was I went to the UP on a whim on day. I woke up, not even a week after I had concluded my time in my previous personal hell, and got into Hector (Oh, did you guys know that I got into a car accident in December that total Hector who was in my life for not even 10 months? Pour one out for him, man, because now I am one of those hipster assholes who doesn’t have a car and my life is infinitely more difficult because of it… but back to the story) and we went on one of our last journeys together to the UP.

In all honesty, my intent was to land in Canada. I had my passport. I had my breweries planned. And I was ready to do it. But the problem that I discovered once I got within a mile of where I was going (and within eyesight of the border), was that the breweries that I wanted to go to were closed on Tuesdays and I would have to wait until Wednesday to visit both of them. As it was Tuesday, I had to come up with a new plan. But luckily, Sault St. Marie is exists both in and out of America, and in both of these lands, there are breweries.

So, I went to a different Sault St. Marie brewery that was a little more… dare I say… free? I went to Soo Brewing Company, in Sault St. Marie, Michigan! Now, here’s something else I had to contend with as a newly unemployed person. The “noon on a Tuesday” brewery crowd. I think I have mentioned in previous posts, specifically the one where I was in Philly?, that as a gainfully employed person, nothing prepares you for what it’s like being one of (or thee) only people(/person) in a brewery. But now that I was finding myself unemployed, I got to become that person.

So, I walked into this cutesy little store front to find a very casual “living room” vibe place. There were a couple of people playing cribbage who were friends with the guy working (who may have also been the owner) and my pick of the taproom. I ordered a flight consisting of the Mystery Table Ale, Soo Brew, Boom Baby IPA, and the 13 IPA.

An overall statement to make about this, based on my (lack of) notes and my Untappd profile is that I found all the beers very middling, which is also what I remember. Everything was very firmly fine. I was not a huge fan of the table ale but that’s also because I just really don’t like table ales all too much to begin with. I did like the 13 IPA a lot, marking it as my favorite beer of the brewery. But in general, the beers were fine. Just fine.

But the tap room was wild. Like I said, it felt like walking into someone’s living room. There was sport memorabilia hung up on the walls and a groovy vibe of your friend’s step dad’s basement going on. The people playing cribbage were incredibly comfortable and at home there (but then again, they were definitely very close to the worker/maybe owner), and everything felt chill, albeit a little outside of my normal bullshit hipster comfort zone. The man working was also brewing at the same time, and it was one of open-to-the-tap-room brew ops that I typically hate because the smell of brewing is usually a little much for me. I think it impacts my experience. But they were running such a low volume, doing it for the love not the glory kind of operation at this place that it didn’t really impact anything. I will say, though, that while I was there the kind and gentle soul that was working must have been brewing an IPA because there became a strong whiff of something a little less hoppy and a little more… happy? What I’m saying is it smelled like weed but I’m off my game and don’t really know how to make a joke out of this.

Overall, it was a nice place. It was small but it was clearly done out of love for the art. And then it started snowing and I was hella pissed because it was far too early in the year to snow and I was planning on spending the night in Sault St. Marie to venture into CANADA the next day to check out those other breweries, but someone told me they were calling for 8 inches that afternoon and another thirteen inches over night into the next day and I was not emotionally prepared to deal with any winter driving yet, so I bid adieu to Michigan and headed south again.

But I will go back to Sault St. Marie again, probably this summer, and head into Canada to check out their breweries. I’m still very interested in the North of the Border bullshit that might be happening in craft beer. But as for this brief trip, I wrapped it up wildly quick.

Alright, guys, you might think that’s what I’ve got to say about Michigan, but my next post is set in Michigan City Indiana, and then after that, (if I ever get to it lol), will be another Michigan post coming hot from the Lower as well as some bonus content about Ypsilanti. Sit tight, I’ll get back to Milwaukee eventually… maybe?