For this week’s Brewvine we’re checking out Fresh Coast Beer Works in Traverse City. This microbrewery has great food and beer, but it’s also a great spot to learn how to brew your own beer and get all your homebrewing supplies.
Fresh Coast Beer Works started out as Ubrew Homebrew Supplies in 2016, and in 2017 they got their license to open the microbrewery.
“My business partner and I one day decided we wanted to open a homebrew supply store, so we opened to that up and immediately applied for a microbrewery license. Was at a little location south of Traverse City and we got our microbrewery license and started brewing on a very small system there,” Chuck Green, the co-owner of Fresh Coast Beer Works, said.
Fast forward to today and Fresh Coast has a prime location downtown and up to 14 beers on tap at any given time, including several sudsy staples.
“It gives us room to experiment,” Green said. “We like to try different things. We have our six staples that we always have on tap and then the other six that we have on tap are oftentimes one off batches, experimental, fun stuff that our head brewer likes to invent.”
Fresh Coast is still a one-stop shop for home brewers and has a large selection of local ingredients.
“Well, as far as brewing supplies, our grain list is very expansive. I think we’re up to 50 or 60 different styles of grain from very light plsner grain to darker grains that you would use for, say, a stout,” Green said. “We do sell a lot of local malt from our Great Lakes Malting Company, which is just south of town, too. And that’s really what we make most of our beer with is their malt right there. And it’s all grown local and produce local. Our hops selection. Again, we get a lot from my local hops out in Williamsburg, so we keep things pretty local for the most part on our all of our selections.”
Once you have your supplies you can learn how to use them from the experts. Fresh Coast Beer Works offers classes for home brewers of all experience levels.
“We start with the basics and we usually do a couple different levels an extract brewing class and an all grade brewing class, all again being a little bit more expansive on the brewing process. But everything is legitimate. And in our our teachers teach cleanliness, they teach the science behind it. It’s really great,” Green said.
Fresh Coast Beer Works is one of 30+ merchants on Michigan’s Brewvine Passport offering you exclusive discounts to their products. Get a three-day or annual pass by clicking here.