KALAMAZOO, MI — A new ball venue, mead anteroom and alfresco beer garden are advancing to city Kalamazoo.
With admirable designs on a 4,000-square-foot mead hall, an appropriately ample concert space, a dog-friendly beer garden with added alive entertainment, and afterwards on a Nordic tapas restaurant, Valhalla — makers of Norse Nectar Mead and anon City Union Brewery beers — will anon alarm the amplitude at 530 W. Kalamazoo Ave. home.
Thom McGuire, carnality admiral and arch operation administrator of the employee-owned mead maker, said the achievement is to be in the new space, aforetime active by KM Machinery, by year’s end.
At present, Valhalla operates out of a amplitude at 3408 Miller Road, area the aggregation has been crafting mead aback 2012 and distributing about the state.
After affairs out the antecedent buyer in 2019, McGuire and the blow of the agent buying aggregation opened the doors to the Miller Road alehouse onsite in October 2020. Simultaneously, the aggregation has added its administration 10 times over, growing from 30 administration credibility to 300 beyond Michigan in the accomplished two years. The ambition is to aggrandize into added Midwestern states in the abreast future.
Despite pandemic-induced hurdles, the Viking hall, “owned by a mix of advanced pagans and bourgeois Christians, who all get forth — the way it should be” has crafted a fast afterward and will bless one year of confined up mead-tales, meads and beer in-person on Saturday, Oct. 23.
The aboriginal anniversary “Valhalladay” will affection a beard-growing competition, axe-throwing contest, alive music and added from noon-midnight at the Miller Road location. And, of course, mead — “the booze of the gods.”
“I anticipate we aloof do things a little bit abnormally than best people,” said McGuire, 53, while talking about Valhalla’s mead and comparing the abundant categories and subcategories of mead to those of ability beer.
For starters, all mead is fabricated with brewed honey. At atomic 51% of the fermentable qualities charge be honey for it to be advised a mead, said McGuire, who additionally serves as admiral of the Michigan Mead Makers Guild.
At Valhalla, best of the mead is butt aged, he said.
“We booty a ton of time to accomplish abiding our meads are area they charge to be afore we absolution them,” McGuire said. “We currently accept about 8,000 gallons of mead in action and go through about 24,000 pounds of honey a year.”
With that added production, Valhalla is artlessly outgrowing its space. Plus, McGuire said, “no one anytime drives bottomward Miller Road on a Friday night and says, ‘Now area can I go get a drink?’”
So, with business booming, audience growing and assembly defective added and added of the accepted space, Valhalla’s buying aggregation ample time was accomplished for a move to a added arresting location.
The new area will be a accurate mead anteroom by definition. Plans accommodate four-top tables topped with Viking bouncer absorbed to kiln-dried timberline stumps and long, board barbecue tables to host beyond parties. Movie-set-caliber copse and an ice cavern crafted by Kalamazoo aggregation Sawdust and Levity will ample out the hall.
Both the calm and alfresco ball venues should be able to authority 450-500 people, McGuire said.
To date, Valhalla has apprenticed with Kalamazoo beer maker Brewery Outré and served their beer in the Miller Road taproom. While Valhalla prepares for its new space, Brewery Outré is accomplishing the aforementioned and has designs on aperture its own brewery in Kalamazoo soon.
Enter City Union Brewery — a cast new brewery beneath the Valhalla banderole that will tap its aboriginal beers in the advancing months. The brewery’s name comes from the celebrated pre-prohibition Kalamazoo brewery of the aforementioned name. The allotment rights were purchased to use for the new business, McGuire said.
Related: ‘Brew from Kalamazoo’: A attending aback at a affluent brewing history from 1837-1915 (with photo gallery)
Keeping history at the forefront, the aboriginal two beers will be called Lake Street Lager and Portage Street Porter, afterwards the circle area the old brewery (and afterwards The Creamery) stood. Addition celebrated nod will be the Kalamazoo Train Bones Double IPA, called afterwards a 1924 bones in Kalamazoo that dead one and afflicted 27.
City Union beer will be brewed at the Miller Street assembly ability with accessories purchased from Tibbs Brewing Company, which bankrupt in 2020, citation COVID-19 restrictions. There will additionally be a three-barrel arrangement onsite at the new area downtown.
Similar to their accepted location, berserkers will man the aperture and Valkyries will cascade those aces to access their mead and their beer. And, of course, assemblage will accept the adventitious to accompany the Oxhorn Mug Club, which comes with a deluge of discounts, abnormally on Thor’s Day (Thursday) back bear fills are 40% off.
Growlers of mead additionally tend to aftermost a little best than beer, too, with a shelf activity of a year, McGuire said.
When it comes to mead, one can apprehend abode favorites such as the Raspberry Holy Grail, the Coffee Denlinger, the Aphotic Angel Blackberry Ginger Mead, arctic drinks such as the Hripo — a Hurricane fabricated of ablaze and aphotic meads — and after-dinner cordials fabricated with Atacún amber and raspberry.
Atacún chocolate, as able-bodied as the Chickadee Cider served at Valhalla, are all beneath the Roast Umber Coffee flag, a aggregation they accept apprenticed with for their amber and coffee needs. For the non-drinker, that includes a nitro algid brew, hot coffee and Bifrost soda and chrism soda.
And for the cocktail drinker, there’s an arrangement of mead-tales — affair fabricated with mead as the alone booze — anon to accept their own book, anniversary with an accompanying Norse tale. In addition year or so, Valhalla hopes to barrage its own accurate cocktail band as well, McGuire said.
The mead anteroom at 3408 Miller Road is currently accessible from 5-11 p.m. Thursdays, 5 p.m. – 2 a.m. Fridays, apex – 2 a.m. Saturdays and apex – 11 p.m. Sundays. There is no kitchen, but alfresco aliment is welcome.
Valhalla additionally hosts Dungeons and Dragons night every added Tuesday night. Added approved contest accommodate pub trivia nerds at 7 p.m. on Fridays, an accessible mic night with Dooley Wilgenhof at 7 p.m. every Sunday and tarot readings on the third Thursday of every month. From noon-2 p.m. every Sunday, there is additionally an breezy agnostic association hangout.
Once in their new location, McGuire said he expects to be accessible Tuesday-Sunday weekly. For added information, appointment https://norsenectar.com/.
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