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Whiskey Point Brewing:
WHAT IT’S LIKE RUNNING AMERICA’S MOST REMOTE BREWERY Karl Klockars MiBrewTrail Whiskey Point Brewing Company, located out in the waters of Lake Michigan on Beaver Island, may very well be the most remote brewery in America. Sure, there are small-town breweries that are separated by more raw mileage, but those are connected by things like “highways” and “dry land.” And yes, there are other island-based breweries, but most are connected by bridges; at most an hour long ferry ride. If you want to try a pint of Whiskey Point beer, it requires a two-hour ferry ride or a 15-minute flight over a 30-mile stretch of Great Lakes water, meaning once you get to the historic grocery store that houses the Whiskey Point brewery, you have definitely earned that pour
of blonde ale, IPA or porter.
I was gone for school and work and things, then came back in 2013.
close again. [laughs]
We spoke with owner and Q: Tell me about your brewing brewer Patrick McGinnity about journey, and why you wanted what it’s like to run a brewing to bring a brewery back home Fun fact: I once spent more business so distant from the than 12 months without leaving to Beaver Island. mainland, on an A: When I island with just was teaching a few hundred I moved here when I was 8, I composition at year-round Central Michigraduated from high school here residents: gan University,
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in a class of four — and 50% of us Q: Before we someone got start talking me a kit for went on to get master’s degrees. about the Christmas and So yeah, I’ve been here my whole brewery itself, I started home life, pretty much. let’s talk about brewing and the location: really got started Have you been to get into it a full-time resand kind of geek the island at all. It was just a ident of the island for pretty out on the science. And so I was much your entire life? always thinking, “Wouldn't it be busy time [and] it was about 11 great if there was a brewery on months before I realized that I A: I moved here when I was 8, the island?” It took quite a while hadn’t left the island. And then I graduated from high school before we even started getting at that point, I had to just stick it here in a class of four — and real craft beer on the taps at the out and try to make it past the 50% of us went on to get masbars on the island. ter's degrees. So yeah, I've been 12-month mark because, yeah, here my whole life, pretty much; you're never going to get that I wouldn't have been interested
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in starting a company somewhere else because I wasn't really into entrepreneurship — it was more that Beaver Island was missing out on the craft beer scene, and I knew that with all the tourism that goes along with craft beer that it would be a destination place if we could get it up and running. Q: How long has Whiskey Point been up and running? A: We’ll be starting our third year on like, the first of July. I won't say we haven't had a good year yet, but we haven't had a normal year yet. Our first year, we had all these building delays and things that pushed it until almost the Fourth of July before we were able to open, and then we just got slammed and ran out of beer. In 18 hours, we were out of beer. And basically we had to close down until we could brew more beer.
MI Brew Trail | Spring 2021
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