Hereford and Hops Escanaba

Below is an entry from the book Yooper Ale Trails and the text is by Jon Stott. (Used with permission.)  Read on or listen to the audiobook segment available from Audible.com or iTunes

 

Hereford & Hops #27 on map
Address: 624 Ludington St, Escanaba, MI 49829
Phone: 906-789-1945, 
www.herefordandhops.com 
www.facebook.com/HerefordandHops 

One of the Escanaba area’s finest, Hereford and Hops is the first brewery to start brewing in the Upper Peninsula and the first to have “grill your own steak” capabilities. It is housed in an old building that used to be Escanaba’s busiest hotel with 80 rooms!  This old building was known to have served bootleggers and gangsters during prohibition. There was even a speakeasy in the basement! Though it is currently closed, the speakeasy still exists in the basement of the old building. A flood in 2020 caused so much damage that they are still working to get it back to usable standards. Located not far from the waterfront, it would have been easy to smuggle booze in.

Originally the Delta Hotel, built in 1912, finished in 1914, it was intended to be the grandest hotel Escanaba could offer. At a cost of $100,000 (2.75 million today), it was constructed with that aim in mind. At the time though there more than 35 hotels and rooming houses already in town, it was felt that a truly grand place was needed, something with more than 30 rooms and a place that would redefine Escanaba’s sky line. It became exactly that. It was the tallest building in town at five stories. William McKinley, a Speaker of the Illinois Assembly at the time, attended the Grand Opening. It became the place to be for the wealthy and elite in Escanaba.

In 1930, the hotel changed hands to C.J. Burns. He established a bar and lounge in the basement called C.J.’s. This was right after prohibition was declared making this one of the few speakeasys, to survive to this day. (Though currently closed due to damages, they hope to get it up and running once again.) People came from all over the world to the hotel including cruise passengers, industrial moguls, and gangsters. Al Capone’s fingers stretched well into the U.P. and supplied some of C.J.’s booze. There is a tradition of alcohol here that goes back 100 years.

There is an interesting story that in the early days, Colonel Sanders sold his chicken recipe to the Delta. Before Sanders began KFC, as we know it today, he tried to sell his recipe for chicken to restaurants around the country. There was no thought to restaurant chains then, only selling his special recipe. At one time, and the document has disappeared, there was a copy of the agreement between Sanders and the hotel restaurant. It supposedly featured an early picture of Sanders on the contract and his signature giving them permission to use it. As the tale goes, the restaurant was the only one around to have that recipe at the time.

Now, with the brewpub, the tradition continues, but with a much quieter and relaxing atmosphere. H&H revels in its historic past, now on the register of National Historical Places. Historical pictures and artifacts adorn the walls. Though its focus is Beef and Beer, their menu is extensive. The Elk Burger is awesome. Going to Hereford and Hops is a step back into time when Escanaba was flourishing and grand style was in fashion. It is not just about great food and beer, it is also about the history within these walls that still speak if you listen hard enough.

Text below by Jon Stott.

It was a ten-minute drive along M-35—past the end of the airport runway, the Escanaba golf course, the public and Catholic high schools to Ludington Avenue, Escanaba’s main street, and then east along Ludington—to the next stop on this ale trail: a building of double historical importance. Built in 1914 as a luxury hotel, the Delta Hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places and is home to Hereford & Hops Steakhouse and Brewpub, the Upper Peninsula’s first craft brewery. Since the late 1990s, I’d been enjoying lunch here during my annual day trips to the city known as the center of the UP’s “banana belt.” On one of my visits, I’d sampled my first Upper Peninsula version of Kolsch, a German-style beer that was relatively unknown across the United States at that time but has since become very popular among craft beer drinkers. 

I first met the owner of Hereford & Hops, the late Don Moody, in 2017, when I arrived to do an interview with brewer Mike Sattem. Mike was brewing and while we were waiting, Don showed me around the brewpub, which occupies most of the first floor of the building (the upper floors house apartments). At the front was the seven-barrel brewhouse, visible behind the floor-to-ceiling plate glass panels that formed one of the walls beside an elegant, full-service bar. Next to the bar was a cozy pub area that had a pool table, oversized easy chairs and a sofa, a gas fireplace, and, above it, one of the establishment’s four TVs. A formal dining room, featuring tables set with white cloths and a fully-restored player grand piano, was behind the pub area, and, next to it, a large grill where patrons could cook their own steaks. Past the grill was a room nicknamed “The Other Grill,” a Mongolian grill where patrons filled bowls with ingredients that would be handed to a chef to be grilled. 

Many years ago, Don, a native of Kankakee, Illinois, and his wife and young family spent summers in Rock, a small community north of Escanaba. “We had a small farm. I decided to raise Hereford cattle at the farm, and we moved to the UP permanently.” He and a neighbor purchased the Delta Hotel building and, when, in 1992, the Michigan Government changed its liquor laws to allow brewpubs, they decided to build one. He also took a crash course in brewing. In the months after the December 1994 opening, the idea of grilling your own steak and drinking beer brewed on premises became so popular that there were lineups of people waiting to get in: locals, day-trippers from as far away as Marquette and Green Bay, and, in the summer, tourists, including an increasing number of beer tourists. 

One of the people who had worked on the renovations of the Delta Hotel in the early 1990 was Mike Sattem, a recent high school graduate. “I never thought it would happen,” he said as he joined Don Mooney and me in the dining room. “Now here we are, twenty-five years later, two people who’d had no experience brewing, an owner and a head brewer.” After Hereford & Hops had opened, Mike began hanging around John Malchow, who’d taken over from Moody as the brewer, picking up as much information he could about the brewing process. He apprenticed in the brewery of a sister restaurant in Wausau, Wisconsin and was part of the brewing team that won three World Beer Cup and two Great American Beer Festival medals. When Malchow moved on, Mike returned to Escanaba and has been there since, making him, along with Derek “Chumley” Anderson of Vierling Restaurant and Marquette Harbor Brewery and Lark Ludlow of Tahquamenon Falls Brewery, the longest-serving brewers in the UP. 

When I met Mike Sattem again in 2022, the beer list included many of the styles I recognized from my earlier visits. There had been some changes, Mike noted. He now often brewed lesser-known styles, including the growingly popular sour beers, which he said he stored in a different part of the brewery’s basement to prevent any contamination. He also has lowered the alcohol percentage of most of the beers as patrons’ tastes evolved. “Most people enjoy something that complements their food, not something over the top.” But he also noted that as people’s familiarity with craft beers evolved, they were more accepting of hoppy beers. 

“When we started out, we developed Whitetail as a gentle beer, but people thought it was too hoppy.” Whitetail Golden Ale (ABV 4.7 percent) is one of Hereford & Hops’ flagship beers. A gold medal winner at the World Beer Cup, it has a light-to-medium malt body and a crisp hop finish that has earthy, pine, and citrus notes. Another beer designed for novice drinkers of craft beer is the very low ABV Bluegrass Wheat Ale (ABV 3.1 percent), a blueberry-flavored ale that uses lemongrass instead of hops. This unusual ingredient provides ginger and lemon flavors that balance the fairly unassertive two-row barley and wheat malts and complement the hint of blueberries. 

Cleary Irish Red Ale (ABV 4.8 percent), winner of a Great American Beer Festival bronze medal, and Blackbird Oatmeal Stout (ABV 6.1 percent), winner of a World Beer Cup bronze, are two of Hereford & Hops darker brews. Cleary Red is a medium-bodied amber given a malty sweetness by the caramel malts and touch of candy apple-flavoring. The stout is a medium- to full-bodied version of the style given a silky, creamy texture by the oats, and roasted and coffee notes by the dark malts. Redemption IPA originally started at 5.5 percent ABV, but, Sattem told me, “I gradually ramped up the ABV to 7.5 percent as people’s palates developed. Medium-to full-bodied, it has an array of hops, including Simcoe, Cascade, and Amarillo, that contribute citrus, earthy, piney, spicy, and floral notes to complement the malty backbone. The Kolsch (no ABV available) is light-bodied, crisp, and clean-finishing. It follows the German recipe as closely as possible and is a refreshing, almost lager-like drink. 

I’d visited the brewhouse on my previous trip, but asked Mike if we could tour it again. “I’ve just finished cleaning everything, including the windows. People are much more worried,” he added, “if all the equipment isn’t clean, the beer will be no good.” Between the mash tun and brew kettle hung a sign that I remembered from my earlier visit. “Blessed is the mother who gives birth to a brewer.” Mike laughed and told me that, although his mother is proud of him, she doesn’t drink any alcohol. I remarked that I was sure that many, many of the people who had enjoyed his beer had probably blessed her. 

UPDATE: The Hereford and Hops changed hands in July of 2024. Though they plan to continue as always, it will be interesting to see how the place evolves with new owners.

For more information like this, please check out our book “Yooper Ale Trails” by Mikel B. Classen and Jon C. Stott.