July is Michigan Beer Month and this upcoming event promises to end the celebration on a high note.
The 25th Annual Michigan Summer Beer Festival, set for July 26-27 at Ypsilanti’s Riverside Park, will showcase hundreds of beers from top Michigan breweries, complemented by local food and music.
The Michigan Brewers Guild, founded in 1997, hosted its first festival in July 1998. The Summer Beer Festival is the longest-running of the Guild’s five annual events dedicated exclusively to Michigan beer, produced by nearly 300 member breweries.
At the upcoming festival, Detroit breweries in attendance will include Atwater Brewery, Batch Brewing, Brew Detroit, and Detroit Beer. Other notable participants include Oak Park’s Unexpected Craft Brewing, Dearborn’s Downey Brewing, and Warren’s Dragonmead Brewery, among many others.
Attendees will receive 15 sampling tokens with their tickets, with additional tokens available for purchase at 50 cents each.
The brewing industry in Michigan contributes over $1.8 billion to the state’s economy and ranks No. 8 nationally for the number of breweries, earning the state the nickname “The Great Beer State.” In early July, the Michigan Brewers Guild announced that even Governor Gretchen Whitmer endorses Michigan Beer Month.
“Governor Whitmer has been a longtime supporter of Michigan breweries, helping create a culture which celebrates uniqueness and adding to the fabric of society,” Scott Graham, executive director of the Michigan Brewers Guild, said. “She recognizes and actively praises the impact that locally brewed beer has on the state, from the more than $1.8 billion going back into the state’s economy, to the number of jobs — both direct and indirect — tied to our industry.”
As Senator of Michigan’s 23rd district, Whitmer supported a 2014 bill allowing small microbreweries to self-distribute their beer. In 2020, as Governor, she signed legislation doubling the self-distribution limit for microbreweries to 2,000 barrels. In 2023, she shared a beer with Daily Show host and Kalamazoo native, Jordan Klepper. Earlier this year, she brewed her own “Governor’s Whitbier” at Bell’s Brewery using Michigan hops and peaches, which was exclusively served at the Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism in April.
“There is no denying that beer brings people and business together like few other products can — blending elements of agriculture, manufacturing and tourism into a vital economic driver for our communities, large and small,” Whitmer wrote in the 2021 issue of Michigan: The Great Beer State, the Guild’s annual publication. “It is an industry thriving with artistic and diverse individuals with a passion for crafting a plethora of beers with bold character, flavors and even names, continuing to push the boundaries to be the best at what they do.”
Other Michigan Brewers Guild events this year include the U.P. Fall Beer Festival on September 7 and the Detroit Fall Beer Festival on October 19.
For more information and tickets for the Summer Beer Festival in Ypsilanti, visit mibeer.com.
