Bad News for Michigan Beer Lovers..

Cherry Trees near Traverse City

As many (or at least some of you know) my wife is from Traverse City, MI. I have been lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time there, however anyone that has spent anymore then 12 minutes in Traverse City will know that the city is synonymous with cherry's. Cherry Capital of the world in fact. Even their airport is called "Cherry Capital Airport". Well, this spring was not very kind to the cherry harvest it seems. A warmer then usual spring, followed by some frost reeked some havoc on the crop. Making for a much lower then normal yield this fall.

Why am I bringing this up on a beer blog? Well, Bells Brewery, from Kalamazoo brews their seasonal Cherry Stout using Montmorency Cherry Juice, that comes from the Traverse City area. As a result of the crop, there will be no Cherry Stout brewed by Bells this fall. There is a small number of 2011 batch kegs that find its way into the market on a limit basis.

The next batch of Cherry Stout is planned to be brewed next fall.

You can read the release from Bells here.

I would like to add a little prospective however. while this is really a mere minor inconvenience to us beer lovers, this is truly awful news for the farmers and their family's. Lets hope that this doesn't effect them too greatly, and hope next year is a real banner crop for them, to not only allow us a great beer we enjoy, but more importantly for these hard working folks to be able to maintain their lifestyle.