Traverse City Breweries and Distilleries

The peninsulas lean toward wine. The city leans toward everything else. Traverse City and the towns just around it hold 27 tasting venues, most of the region's breweries, all of its downtown distillery rooms, and a pair of urban wineries, which makes the city itself the right day for a group whose tastes do not line up. Beer people, whiskey people, cider people, and the friend who only drinks Riesling can all be kept happy inside a few square miles.

This is also the day that needs the least driving. A meaningful cluster of rooms sits in or within a short ride of downtown, so a city tasting day can be part walk, part short hop, with real restaurants in between instead of tasting-room crackers. The planner routes city days the same way it routes the peninsulas: pick the rooms, set a date and start time, and it orders the loop against actual opening hours. For mixed groups it will happily weave a brewery between two wineries.

How to build a city tasting day

Breweries and brewpubs run later hours than the peninsula wine rooms, which changes the shape of the day: city days can start after lunch and roll into the evening. A comfortable pattern is one distillery room while you are fresh, two breweries with a meal between them, and a nightcap somewhere with a patio. Many of these rooms serve full menus, noted below, so the food problem mostly solves itself. If your crew is split across the city and a peninsula, do the peninsula first while tasting rooms are open, then land downtown; the sample itineraries include a beer afternoon that shows the rhythm.

Every venue in and around the city

Pairing the city with the peninsulas

The classic long weekend gives Old Mission one day, the Leelanau trail another, and lets the city carry the evenings. Groups sorting out drivers and reservations should start with the group planning guide.