Hops and Schmaltz

Went to visit family in Michigan last week. I enjoyed a lot of things about the trip; two of them related to food.
Michiganders know Bell's beer but they don't distribute to my neck of the woods so I had never heard of them. I went on a beer run in search of interesting local beer and found it with Bell's. At $10.50 a sixer I was worried they wouldn't live up to the price. It is one of the few brewers I've had around that price that are actually worth the coin. I tried three types and each one was excellent. If you see Bell's in your store, toss some in your basket.

On the last night of the trip we drove about 1.5 hours to a restaurant where my classmate is one of the chefs. I know there are other great restaurants within hotels but I usually dread the continental cuisine. Six.One.Six. at the JW Marriott Grand Rapids was wonderful. Not only is the hotel beautiful, the restaurant feels like its own entity. While there I saw a chicken confit hash on the dinner menu and went for it. It was delicious. Joel said he used schmaltz to confit the chicken. I had never heard of schmaltz but it's a very traditional Jewish ingredient; basically rendered chicken fat. Yum. I'm definitely going to stop tossing the chicken trim into the stockpot. I can't wait to play with some schmaltz. Definitely head to Six.One.Six when you can. They also have Bell's on their beer list.

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