• The Detroit Free Press, Monday, August 29, 2011 11 AM

Michigan has become a national hotspot for craft beer brewing, writes columnist Tom Walsh, who was told by the brewmaster for micro-brew Frankenmuth that Michigan is a great place to set up hop, I mean shop.

Walsh says Hiller's and Busch's supermarkets began carrying Frankenmuth beers in metro Detroit a couple of weeks back. "Frankenmuth is a modest-sized player among nearly 100 microbreweries operating in the state," writes Walsh, adding that Michigan ranked fifth nationally last year in the number of craft breweries, behind only California, Washington, Colorado and Oregon.

"All of this is happening, mind you, in a market where overall beer sales tumbled nationwide last year, dropping 1.7% in supermarkets," writes Walsh, adding that craft beer sales in those same stores jumped 14.7%, the fifth straight year of double-digit gains. Mainstream beer mega-brands Budweiser, Miller and others have lost share, he notes.

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