New Nano Brewery to Feature the Bizarre & Unusual

This week's contribution from Joseph P. Sprinklehead, roving Buzz reporter, comes with a complimentary grain of salt. Just an FYI.

File photo. Not for use in beer.

Grand Rapids, MI – A new brew pub slated to open this fall in the small West Michigan town of Lager (population 68) will serve beers made with adjuncts that can best be described as “bizarre” and “unusual.” This according to co-owner and head brewer Eugene Gunnison.

“Our beer certainly won’t fall within the standards of the Reinheitsgebot,” Gunnison said last week in the brewery’s downtown riverfront location. “We want to be a part of the craft beer craze that is erupting in West Michigan but we also want to do things that other local breweries aren’t doing.”

Gunnison said the nano brewery that he will operate with his wife Elaine will offer four standards and will feature two other beers that will rotate on a seasonal basis. The standard offerings will include Possum Pale, Raccoon Red Rye, BS River IPA and Pigs Feet Porter.

“We’re going to source as many of the adjuncts as we can locally,” Gunnison said. “There’s certainly no shortage of possums and raccoons in this area and we’re in the process of finalizing a deal with a slaughterhouse in Grand Rapids for the pigs feet.” Gunnison also said that he has received permission from state and local authorities to use water from the Baron-Shaw river for his IPA. “It’s got the perfect chemistry for a crisp, highly hopped ale,” he said.

Gunnison said that one of the brewery’s first seasonals will be an imperial stout that is currently aging on wood that he salvaged from local, one-hundred-year-old barns, explaining that the wood has just the right amount of dried bat guano to impart a subtle richness and distinct acidity to the beer. He also plans to brew a wormy mushroom infused Octoberfest in the fall.