Last Thursday I had a rare evening in that I had some free time. I had been hearing a lot of hype about the Shark’s Club in Howell, and their list of 68 amazing craft beers on tap, many of them from Michigan. Our friends over at Michigan Microbrews had also been doing a great job of promoting a Founders Brewing event that just happened to be the same Thursday at the Shark’s Club. So I called up my beer drinking buddy, grabbed the last ticket, and made the trek to Howell to enjoy a night of delicious Founders fun.
The event started at 6pm, and I arrived with time to check out the place that had been getting so much attention. The Shark’s Club is situated conveniently just off the express way, and is a large, open, two story building, filled with pool tables, arcade games and plenty of tables. The Founders event was being held on the second floor, where we had our own private area, bar, and spread of food.
After taking a seat at one of the round tables filled with happy beer tasters, I took a quick look around and realized I was in a room full of Michigan beer all-stars. The knowledge, talent, and expertise in the room was insane with the likes of people like Rex Halfpenny of the Michigan Beer Guide, tons of CBiM members, this and last year’s Oberon Queen, the founder of Michigan Microbrews, a slew of representatives from Rave Associates (a giant distributor of Michigan Craft Beer and other beverages), and Beau Loncharte, the Michigan sales representative for Founders.
Beau brought some amazing beers with him for us all to try, the first being a newer beer and silver medal winner at last year’s GABF. The all-day IPA has been a beer in process for the past few years, and something you can usually only find around the taproom. It’s got a great taste, but a lower percentage of alcohol at 4.7%, thus a good introductory beer or something to sip on while hard at work – brewing more beer of course. The beer has proven to be so popular that they will now start bottling the IPA and are asking for your help to pick the new label.
Also on hand to try were the highly sought after 2010 and 2011 Kentucky Breakfast Stouts (now simply called KBS because of conflicts with the word Kentucky), the Canadian Breakfast Stout, and Backwoods Bastard. They were all absolutely amazing, and I would have to say I preferred this year’s KBS only slightly over last, although half of the room preferred the 2010.
John, Katee, and Beau did an amazing job with the event, selling around 40 tickets more than the original plan of 60 people. It was the perfect amount of people, beer, and fun. The food when present, ran out quickly, but I was there for the beer! The Shark’s Club will be holding another dinner on May 5th featuring Bellaire’s Short’s Brewing Company. Mark your calendars, it’s sure to be another great event.
