Ale Trail
2 | Tahquamenon Falls, Grand Marais, Munising |
Until 1994, there had never been a brewery in Luce or Alger Counties. Then, two years after the passage of a Michigan law permitting restaurants to serve their patrons with beer brewed on the premises, Lake Superior Brewery at Dunes Saloon opened in Grand Marais. In 1996, Tahquamenon Falls Brewery opened on a two-acre plot of private land in the middle of one of Michigan’s largest state parks. It would be over a decade and a half before another brewery opened in these counties. Pictured Rocks Brewery at Shooters Firehouse Brewpub opened in the town of Munising in 2013, but closed in early 2018. East Channel Brewing Company and ByGeorge Brewing Company, which opened in Munising in 2017 and 2020 respectively, are still operating.
Why after decades and decades of no breweries, did the two counties have five, four of them not just surviving, but thriving? There is a simple answer: tourism. The number of visitors who came to the UP from the Lower Peninsula, other states, and other countries, has exploded since the turn of the century. In the summer months of 2021, over a million people visited Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Picture Rocks National Lake Shore, which stretches from just west of Grand Marais to Munising. Large numbers were knowledgeable about and enjoyed craft beer.
(3) Tahquamenon Falls Brewery and Pub at Camp 33
Tahquamenon Falls Brewery and Pub (photo by Gina Harman)
Address: 24019 Upper Falls Dr, Paradise, MI 49768 (Upper Tahquamenon Falls)
Phone: 906-492-3300
www.tahquamenonfallsbrewery.com
The second stage of “my circ-ale journey” began as I drove on 6 Mile Road west from Sault Ste Marie. A few miles out of town, it turned into West Lake Shore Drive and then Lake Superior Shoreline Drive. Around the edges of Whitefish Bay were several sandy beaches, interspersed with stretches of wooded areas where long driveways led to very large vacation homes. The scenic drive ended at State Route 123, which headed north to the unincorporated community of Paradise, noted for its summer blueberry festival and rumored in one version of the legendary tales to have been the birthplace of the logging-era hero Paul Bunyan. Then I turned west toward my destination, the Upper Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park, the second largest state park in Michigan.
A little early for my meeting with Lark Ludlow, the owner of the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery and Pub, I parked and ambled down the wide, half-mile long paved pathway to the Upper Falls, which is the second largest falls, in terms of volumes of water per second cascading down the fifty-foot drop, east of the Mississippi River. I recalled reading that the establishment of the large parking area a fair distance from the falls had been one of the conditions of a bequest from Jack Barrett, who in the middle of the twentieth century had donated 164 acres of land to the recently created state park. He wanted the parking lot to be far enough away from the falls so that visitors would walk through the forest and experience more fully the natural wonders around them. He also required that two acres next to the proposed parking lot remain private land, which he would own. It was here he erected a building that resembled those found in old-time logging camps, named it Camp 33 (logging camps had numbers not names), and leased the premises to people who, for many years, ran a shop that sold souvenirs and over-the-counter food. Some forty years later, Lark and Barrett Ludlow, his grandchildren, bought the two acres, tore down the now dilapidated building and developed new plans for the property.
When I met Lark a few minutes after returning from the falls, she continued the story. “Barrett had been living in Marquette, but I was working in upstate New York. So, in 1990 we built the gift shop. It was basically a seasonal operation. But I felt that having a restaurant would make the perfect finish to a visit to the falls, be it in any of the four seasons. I’d learned about the craft beer industry that was beginning to grow across the country and thought that being able to offer dinners the craft beer brewed a few dozen feet away from where they were eating would cap the experience.” With the help of “Chumley” Anderson, the brewer at Marquette Harbor Brewing at the Vierling Restaurant in Marquette, she began brewing on a 10-bar
