by Paul Kitti

On Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, tucked between The Melting Pot and The M Den, sits the home of some of the best beer being brewed in Michigan. From Belgian ales to seasonal holiday brews, Jolly Pumpkin offers a variety of high-quality beer and is a premier destination in Ann Arbor for out-of-town beer lovers. Anyone who has stepped into the warm, quirky environment of the Jolly Pumpkin and placed an order would probably agree with the mission statement from their website: “The creation of fantastic beers of truly outstanding artisan quality, maintaining traditional small-scale production, keeping beer a beverage of both outstanding complexity and simplicity, this would be our laudable goal.”

Any day of the week, you can order a rustic meal and a delicious beer at their first or second floor bar and enjoy the view from the upstairs rooftop patio. They have a full menu of pizzas and sandwiches, all designed specifically for enjoyment with freshly-brewed beer. If you find yourself at the upcoming Beer Festival in Ypsilanti, be sure to stop by the Jolly Pumpkin stand. They will be serving some of their most critically acclaimed beers, such as Bam Biere, an “artisan farmhouse ale that is golden, naturally cloudy, bottle conditioned and dry-hopped for a perfectly refreshing balance of spicy malts, hops and yeast,” and their holiday mixture, Noel de Calabaza, which boasts a deep, malty taste combined with figs, raisins, sugar plums and “cashews betwixt rum laden truffles.” A fair warning, however: once you’ve tried one of Jolly Pumpkin’s artfully crafted beverages, you will undoubtedly have to adjust your standard for what great beer should taste like.