Culture

In early June, Southwest Michigan came together to support the LGBTQ community with a colorful celebration in downtown Kalamazoo hosted by OutFront Kalamazoo.  Not only were we the presenting sponsor, but we also offered a photo booth to attendees, many of whom sported Bell’s sunglasses, flags and buttons. In addition to the festive souvenirs, we served up our specialty Belgian-Style Tripel Ale, Sparkleberry. Those were some of the first kegs to be tapped in Kalamazoo, a raspberry-infused celebration of diversity served in a bright pink koozie.  This year’s event was the 11th annual for OutFront Kalamazoo, an organization focused on advocating for equality and creating a supportive community, and continues to be their largest fundraiser of the year.  Below are some photos of the fun, continuing the theme of loving who you are! Sparkle on.

Bell’s has again been recognized as one of the “Best and Brightest Companies to Work For” in West Michigan. This is our fourth year in a row of being honored with this amazing award. The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For® is a program that provides the business community with the opportunity to gain recognition, showcase their best practices and demonstrate why they are an ideal place for employees to work. This national program celebrates those companies that are making better business, creating richer lives and building a stronger community as a whole.  "This recognition wouldn't be possible without the dedication and passion all of you bring every day to each of our breweries, each of our markets and our Eccentric Cafe," Carrie Yunker, our director of human resources, said.  An independent research firm evaluates each company’s entry based on key measures in various categories. They include compensation, communication, shared vision, diversity, employee feedback, inclusion, work-life balance and community initiatives, along with other important aspects of being an ideal company to work for. 

Homebrewing is a part of our roots at Bell's, and we continue to honor that tradition by promoting it both with our fans and within our brewery. Every year, we host a homebrew competition for our employees, and this year's winning beer is Leaf Peeper, an IPA with big dank and tropical fruit aromas. It was dry-hopped five times over five days and comes in at 6.8 percent ABV. This year, 56 employees in 12 teams took part, coming up with new recipes and brewing them. The winning team team consisted of Kevin Ahn, Matt Moberly, Sarah Bauman, Anne Moore and Josh Vigansky, who work in a variety of departments including the General Store, Safety, Marketing, Logistics and Sales. This is the fourth annual employee competition. Homebrewing is an important part of Bell’s culture and we want to make sure every employee has a chance to experience what sparked the love for brewing for so many, including our Founder and President Larry Bell, more than 30 years ago. The teams brew their beers over the summer and submit them during Skills Week, our annual company meeting. [[{"fid":"6470","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"default"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"}}]]   The beers are judged by other employees. The winning team brewed their beer at our original downtown Kalamazoo brewery and had the first pints from the Eccentric Café. Check to see if Leaf Peeper is on tap using our tap cam and growler list. [[{"fid":"6472","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"default"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"2"}}]]  

Mistakes happen all of the time, in both life and in brewing. Sometimes, nothing good comes out of them, and other times, mistakes result in something so amazing that we could not have planned. The good kind of mistake happened for our 2016 Employee Homebrew Competition winning beer.   “Pedal to the Kettle was a total accident,” said Jon, a brewer at Bell’s and team captain.  But a happy accident. A kettle soured beer, Pedal was brewed with pediococcus, an organism that is commonly used for sour beers. It produces the tartness we know and love in sour beers. Homebrewing is an important part of Bell’s culture and we want to make sure every employee has a chance to experience what sparked the love for brewing for so many, including our Founder and President Larry Bell, more than 30 years ago.  For the third year, we've hosted our annual Employee Homebrew Competition. Teams are made up of employees from different parts of the company. More than 89 Bell's employees participated in 17 different teams. In addition to the captain, Jon, winning team included Elanor, web developer; Tania, organizational development manager; Andrew, bartender and Shelly, tour manager.  Like most teams, the group met for a shifty to discuss their plans for their beer. They decided quickly they wanted to brew a style none of them had tried before, and decided on a sour. They also wanted to focus on fruity and tropical notes. "When we sat down, we thought ‘why not take all the big trends that are happening now in beer and push them together?’” Jon said. “So we can get hoppy beers, we can get sour beers and throw a great big Frankenstein out to the world.” [[{"fid":"3721","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":4480,"width":4480,"style":"width: 480px; height: 480px; float: right; margin: 10px;","class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"}}]]The plan was laid out for brew day. Then the mistakes started happening. First, the planned grain bill wasn’t milled, so they used another set of grain Jon had for a different batch he was planning. With a totally different malt profile, they began brewing in Jon's yard over an open flame on a July evening. But then, another mistake: they ran out of propane and weren’t able to get to a boil before adding the souring agent. Given the timeline of the competition, they couldn't make a proper sour, which can take anywhere between three months to three years.  “A kettle sour knocks away 99 percent of the process that goes into a sour,” Jon said. So the beer soured over two days before being fermented with brewers yeast, giving some of the sour flavor in significantly less time. By the end of the brew, they had to MacGuyver several things. Their tools included a hairdryer, and a repurposed cooler hooked up to a Raspberry Pi programmable computer. But it all worked out. "When we sat down and tried it, we were unanimous,” Jon said. “This is the beer we have to enter because it is too good to not enter." Although accidents abound, it ended up creating a beer none of them would change. In fact, our brewers worked to recreate it when they brewed it in downtown Kalamazoo at our original B1 brewery. Pedal to the Kettle will be going on tap soon at the Eccentric Café -- keep an eye on our tap cam. [[{"fid":"3488","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"default"}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"},"link_text":null}]]  

If you’ve been to the Eccentric Café recently you may have have tried Wide Eye PA, but may not know it was the winner of our Employee Homebrew Competition. Now in its second year, teams are made up of employees from across the brewery. Each group presents the beer they brewed together over the summer during our annual Bell’s Family Meeting in September. Wide Eye PA was selected by a panel of Bell’s judges as their top choice. The team — Sid, David, Devin and Chris — came up with the idea over a “shifty” after they finished working third shift. They knew they wanted to brew an IPA, but since it was 9 a.m. and they had stayed up all night, all they could think about was coffee. The seeds of Wide Eye PA were sown. Wide Eye straddles the line between an American Pale Ale and an IPA with a firm bitterness and bright hop aromatics. Instead of dry-hopping it, the team decided to go another route and added whole coffee beans during fermentation.The coffee is sourced from ChocolaTEA Café in Portage, Michigan. They tried several different ways of mixing coffee and beer — including brewing hops in a coffee machine and tasting it, which result in wrecked pallets for a week. Ultimately, dry hopping with coffee beans provided by far, the most interesting taste. Given their schedules, they ended up brewing on a Wednesday morning after working 8 and 12-hour shifts. The team brewed Wide Eye PA at our original brewery in downtown Kalamazoo, where so many other new beers are now born. Wide Eye PA is now available at the Eccentric Cafe, but before you visit, always be sure to check our Draft Cam (it updates throughout the day).

We’re proud to be a presenting partner of the 13th Gilmore Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, commissioning a new piece by legendary composer Michel Legrand and hosting two jazz concerts at the Eccentric Cafe.   “Kalamazoo has always been a great town for the arts — and having the Gilmore Keyboard Festival here is sort of our crown jewel,” said Larry Bell, founder and president of Bell’s Brewery.   The Gilmore Keyboard Festival is a three-week keyboard festival with nearly 100 concerts and more than 200 artists.   The finale will include the debut of our commissioned piece “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.”  It will be performed by Legrand himself with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.    Legrand has composed music for several films, and won Academy Awards, including for “The Windmills of Your Mind” from “The Thomas Crown Affair.”   “It’s really special to even be associated with somebody of his stature,” said Larry.    As of May 2, tickets are still available for this event. Check to see if tickets are still available.    Two concerts will take place at the Eccentric Cafe as part of the Thursday Jazz at Bell’s series. The Aaron Diehl Trio will perform May 5. and the Taylor Eigsti Trio on May 12. Both 6:30 and 9 p.m. sets for both artists are sold out.   “It’s great we’ve come so far as a company to host a couple of the events,” Larry said. “It thrills me to no end to participate in that and bring some jazz to Bell’s.”   The Legrand composition is the second piece we have commissioned as part of the Gilmore. In 2014, we commissioned with the Gilmore the piece “Ode to La Bruja, Hanon, Czerny Van Cliburn and little gold stars ... (or, To Everyone Who Made my Life Miserable, Thank You).” The tribute to piano teachers was composed by Michael Gordon for Grand Band.      

We are proud to share that for the second year in a row, we have been named one of the Best and Brightest Companies To Work For® in West Michigan. The National Association for Business Resources annually recognizes the most influential, trend setting companies regionally and across the country. We were also named as one of the Best and Brightest Companies To Work For® in the U.S. by the MBPA this past December. “It's our employees’ collaboration, dedication and passion that makes our company the amazing place to work that it is,” Carrie Yunker, Director of Human Resources at Bell’s said. The competition identifies and honors companies who display a commitment to excellence in their Human Resource practices and employee development.  “We’ve said it before, happy people make great beer. Taking care of our extended Bell’s family is crucial and a very important piece of who we are as a brewery,” she said. An independent research firm evaluated us on key measures in various categories including Compensation, Benefits and Employee Solutions; Employee Enrichment, Engagement and Retention; Employee Education and Development; Recruitment, Selection and Orientation; Employee Achievement and Recognition; Communication and Shared Vision; Diversity and Inclusion; Work-Life Balance; Community Initiatives; Strategic Company Performance and the Best of the Best Small Business, Medium Business and Large Business. “Companies that recognize that their employees are the key to their success achieve staying power. Our 2016 winners create their human resource standards to ensure employee satisfaction and they set standards for every business to aspire toward,” said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO of the MBPA, in a press release. An award ceremony, honoring this year’s recipients and awarding this year’s new elite awards, will be held in Grand Rapids in May.

The Bell’s Team closed out Kalamazoo Bike Week with 1,209 miles in seven days, an average of 172 miles a day. That’s a full loop around Lake Michigan and back over the Mackinaw Bridge an extra time! Our original goal was only to travel from our Comstock Brewery to Upper Hand Brewery in Escanaba and back around the lake for a total of 896 miles. Thirty-seven Bell's employees got out on their bikes for a total of 97 rider days.  Well done, Team Bell's! To cap it off, we also had a record number of riders for our annual Bell's to Bell's Ride to benefit the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us to support this part of our community as well. We’ll be back again next year, hopefully with even more riders and to take a crack at a bigger mileage goal.