5A — Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Nothing new in dull 
‘Grinder’ premiere

By DREW MARON

Daily Arts Writer

In “The Grinder,” Rob Lowe 

(“Parks and Recreation”) stars 
as 
Dean Sanderson, 
a 

fictional tele-
vision 
actor 

known 
for 

his role as a 
dashing law-
yer 
on 
the 

eponymous 
show-within-
a show.

At 
the 

beginning 
of 

the 
episode, 

Dean watches 
the 
series finale with his 

brother Stewart (Fred Savage, 
“The 
Wonder 
Years”), 
his 

brother’s family and his father 
Dean Sr. (William Devane, “24”). 
 

Brother Stewart works as a real-
life attorney in their suburban 
hometown with his wife Debbie 
(Mary Elizabeth Ellis, “New Girl”) 
and their two kids. When Dean 
shows up, Stewart begins to feel 
like a secondary character in his 
own life, thanks to Dean’s fame 
and success acting as Stewart’s 
real-life job. 

While 
struggling 
with 
an 

eviction 
case, 
however, 
the 

endlessly charismatic Dean helps 
Stewart by deciding to become a 
real lawyer.

This plan is met with obvious 

skepticism by his brother Stewart, 
who is reasonably offended by how 
cavalier Dean acts about pursuing 
a career as a lawyer. Unfortunately 

for the show’s credibility, Dean’s 
decision is met with enthusiasm 
from everyone except Stewart.

The concept of “The Grinder” 

sets it miles apart from the cookie-
cutter 
comedies 
and 
sitcoms 

plaguing fall pilots, and the show 
has the potential to be both biting 
satire and trippy meta-humor 
in the future. However, the first 
episode doesn’t quite deliver the 
funny insight into fact versus 
fiction promised by its premise. 
Along with its responsibility, the 
show must also deliver a solid, 
albeit 
somewhat 
conventional, 

family 
comedy 
with 
great 

chemistry 
between 
its 
leads 

and some well-placed jabs at 
Hollywood legal dramas.

Neither Savage nor Lowe fall 

into the trap of being the unfunny 
straight man. The consequence, 

however, is that the series doesn’t 
use 
its 
talented 
supporting 

cast. The notable exception is 
newcomer Colin Kalopsis who 
plays Stewart’s 13-year-old son 
Ethan. Kalopsis is given some of 
the best lines in the show, and it 
wouldn’t be surprising if we’ll be 
seeing a lot more of him in the 
future. On the other hand, Ellis’s 
role as Debbie is relegated to the 
stereotypical wife-character — 
ironic, given the show’s aims at 
exposing television clichés, and a 
shame given Ellis’s talent.

Rarely does a show’s pilot 

reveal exactly what its makers 
have up their sleeves, and it’s 
likely that the pilot of “The 
Grinder,” though an entertaining 
half hour of comedy, has yet to 
show the true potential of what 
the series can be. 

B-

The Grinder

Series 
Premiere 
Tuesdays at 
8:30 p.m.

FOX

TV REVIEW
Evolution of A2 
craft breweries

Ann Arbor 

breweries thrive 
since mid-’90s 

By KAREN HUA

Daily TV/New Media Editor

It was a Thirsty Thursday.
I headed deeper downtown, 

against a campus crowd flow-
ing the opposite direction for 
the night. East Washington 
became submerged in a golden 
sunset, hues of amber and red 
from pale to dark.

Arbor Brewing Company’s 

monthly beer-tasting event had 
a “Michigan-made” theme that 
night. Ochre ambiance and a 
hearty aroma greeted me at 
the door. I shuffled between 
two dozen varieties all brewed 
in-state, from porters to pales 
to “Peanut Butter Chocolate 
Stout.” I mingled among retired 
men 
indulging 
flavor 
from 

mason jars with the utmost 
precision — a drastic difference 
from conventional University 
drinking culture.

According to the Brewers 

Association, Michigan alone 
produced more than 825,000 
barrels of craft beer last year 
across 159 craft breweries — a 
quantity that’s nearly quadru-
pled over just the past decade. 
During the recession in 2008, 
while the cost of germinated 
barley soared 25-to-40 percent 
and hops prices tripled, craft 
beer production continued to 
rise steadily in the state.

A 
historically 
German 

immigration town, Ann Arbor 
opened its first commercial 
brewery in 1838, during a cen-
tury when the U.S. brewery 
count was at an all-time high 
of about 4,100. The numbers 
majorly dipped during Prohibi-
tion and the Great Depression, 
but by current day, we have 
almost recovered the histori-
cally high counts — just shy of 
3,500 at the end of 2014.

Though beer was nationally 

re-legalized in 1933, no compa-
ny brewed commercially in Ann 
Arbor for 46 years following the 
end of prohibition until Matt 
and Rene Greff opened Arbor 
Brewing Company in the sum-
mer of 1995, with Grizzly Peak 
emerging three weeks later, two 
blocks down.

An 
influx 
of 
short-lived 

brewery 
openings 
cluttered 

the mid ’90s, led by a series of 
closes and financial struggles 
that made locals wonder if craft 
brew would just be a fad. How-
ever, those that prevailed are 
some of the most successful 
businesses today. Jon Carlson 
and partners would go on to 
invest in the local development 
firm 
Mission 
Management, 

which is responsible for suc-
cessful Ann Arbor breweries 
like Grizzly Peak, Blue Tractor 
and Jolly Pumpkin.

David Bardallis has docu-

mented the city’s entire brew-
ing history in his book, “Ann 
Arbor Beer: A Hoppy History of 
Tree Town Brewing,” published 
in 2013. He graduated from the 
University’s 
Dearborn 
cam-

pus in ’94; as he came of legal 
drinking age, the craft beer 
boom took off. He is now a home 
brewer and connoisseur of local 
product — the man even has the 
word “bar” in his name.

Rene and Matt Greff wrote 

the 
foreword 
to 
Bardallis’s 

book, and they have hosted a 
beer-tasting series every month 
since 1997.

“It’s partly flavor, it’s partly 

quality — but I think even more 
importantly is the local aspect: 
Being engaged with and know-
ing the people who make your 
beer. There’s a whole commu-
nity feel,” Rene said.

A veteran in the brewing 

industry now, she believes pas-
sion for beer can stem from 
college. By partnering with a 
University graduate from India, 
the Greffs recently began oper-
ations on their first overseas 
brewery in Bangalore.

In the following two weeks, 

I worked my way backward in 
time, filling in the details from 
management firms to Peanut 

Butter Stout. To my surprise, 
Jolly Pumpkin’s history extends 
only six years, but the roots of 
its owners intertwine deeply.

Maggie Long, managing part-

ner and executive chef at Jolly 
Pumpkin Café and Brewery on 
South Main, was raised around 
Detroit 
and 
completed 
her 

graduate degree at the Univer-
sity. The restaurant’s old-world 
tropical décor transported us to 
a colonial South America.

Before we started, she inter-

jected, “Hold on, I just gotta 
text my six farmers back.”

Her commitment to local-

ness doesn’t just stop with food. 
Jolly Pumpkin’s liquor license 
only allows them to distrib-
ute to themselves, so they sell 
exactly what they brew in Dex-
ter, Mich.

Long began as executive chef 

at Grizzly Peak, where she met 
Ron Jeffries — head brewer at 
the time — a University gradu-
ate and local brewing legend. 
In 2004, Jeffries started the 
first Jolly Pumpkin in Dexter, 
where he became one of the 
first people in the country to 
brew sour beers. Long’s desire 
to make a local impact followed 
him there.

“Six years ago, sours were 

still on the obscure end, so we 
wanted to make this a really 
comfortable, 
approachable 

place,” Long said.

Now, Jolly Pumpkin is most 

known for their two entry-
level sours, Bam Biére and Bam 
Noir. Long strove to make their 
beers as versatile as possible, 
suitable to pair with anything 
on the menu, eliminating the 
need for expertise. In doing so, 
she has encouraged a humble 
community of drinkers, not 
exclusive or pretentious with 
ale epistemology.

“Beer’s such a great world, 

especially in Ann Arbor. Every-
body kind of does different 
things, so they all have their 
own niches,” Long said. “If 
somebody doesn’t like one style, 
they can go somewhere else and 
have another style.”

Jolly Pumpkin is now a 

70,000-square-foot facility for 
brewing and bottling. Back dur-
ing first year of business, its Oro 
de Calabaza golden beer won a 
Gold Medal at the Great Ameri-
can Beer Festival. The company 
has won national and interna-
tional accolades almost every 
year since, including the most 
recent at the seventh annual 
Hong Kong International Beer 
Awards, where they took home 
more first-place prizes than any 
other brewery.

Later in the week, I headed 

over to Blue Tractor BBQ & 
Brewery, which also only brews 
and sells on the premises. Steve 
Barnes, formerly general man-
ager of Grizzly Peak, moved 
over to manage Blue Tractor 
three years ago. An Ann Arbor 
native, he echoed Long’s senti-
ments about Jeffries.

“There are chefs and there 

are cooks. The cooks just take 

the recipes and put it together 
and here it is. But the chef 
creates something new,” he 
says. “Whereas Ron, he was sort 
of like a chef-brewer. He could 
create new things and start 
things from scratch and have 
these ideas and they turned out 
great.”

Barnes then led me right 

around the corner, simply a wall 
separating what we just drank 
from what was currently being 
produced. From a sweaty sauna 
to a refrigerator-cold room, he 
detailed the complex procedure 
of the two-week process from 
grain to glass.

“I give (my head brewer) free 

reign to do whatever he wants 
to do,” Barnes says. “That’s 
what I did with Ron. Not 
everything works, but that’s 
how you learn.”

Later that day, down the 

street, Grizzly Peak Brewing 
Company reflected the same 
sentiment — a fearlessness to 
push the envelope and make 
mistakes with brewing.

“Beer has been able to sus-

tain itself through any of the 
fads because of the fact that 
people started doing new and 
interesting things, as opposed 

to the same lager over and over 
again,” said Stacy Baird, Griz-
zly Peak’s general manager.

Baird was hired only six 

months 
ago, but 
she 
has 

already revamped the menu 
and modernized the space to 
invite younger, chicer custom-
ers into her usual mix.

Both she and Duncan Wil-

liams, the head brewer, were 
born and raised in southeast-

ern Michigan. Williams came 
under Jeffries as an assistant 
in 2001, but took over as head 
brewer when Jeffries left to 
open Jolly Pumpkin.

On his job, the brewpub 

and the entire Ann Arbor 
craft brewing scene, Williams 
explained, “It’s a mixture of 
innovation and tradition.”

For rookies or the adventur-

ous, Grizzly Peak offers a sampler 
of five-ounce selections of beers, 
sorted from lightest to darkest, 
or less hoppy to more hoppy, to 
encourage drinkers to try new 
items side by side.

Just as Baird and Barnes are 

relatively new faces of manage-
ment in the industry, new faces 
arrive from around the world in 
Ann Arbor each fall. Just as Baird 
and Barnes are willing to try 
new things with brewing, more 
millennials are also willing to 
expand their palates to appreci-
ate quality brews.

“A lot of younger people are a 

big part of the reason (the craft 
brewing industry is so success-
ful). The millennials and the 
like are fuelling a lot of that. If it 
wasn’t for them, it couldn’t sus-
tain itself.” Baird said.

Ultimately, all four brewing 

companies share the same goal 
of growing appreciation for their 
craft and their product — not only 
to the University’s college crowd, 

but to the entire city of Ann Arbor.

“The community just gives us 

the ability to bring more people 
into the area, and because we’re 
so close in proximity, they don’t 
have to walk far. We gently feed 
off each other,” Long said.

“There’s been this amazing 

camaraderie right from the very 
time we opened,” Rene said. “We 
know that we’re competitors, but 
we feel like there’s enough busi-
ness to go around, and we’re real-
ly more like all in this together.”

Long added, “The explosion 

of the brewery in the area and 
throughout the state has cre-
ated jobs outside of brewing, like 

hop farms. So when you create 
the demand on a relatively small 
scale, there are offshoots that 
come of it.”

Long’s sentiment has basis in 

fact, as Michigan’s craft brewing 
businesses contributed almost 
$1.9 billion to the U.S. economy 
last year — 3.4 percent of the $55.7 
billion contributed by craft brew-
eries nationally. National brewer-
ies have also created more than 
424,000 jobs related to breweries 
and brewpubs.

From two breweries down the 

street two decades ago to three 
brewpubs and nine microbrewer-
ies to date, it’s clear the craft-brew 

boom is infectious.

Over on the east side of town, 

down Packard Street, Pointless 
Brewery & Theatre is set to open 
next year, which will serve impro-
visational theater with in-house 
brews. This spring, more than 
500 people raised almost $53,000 
on Kickstarter for the new busi-
ness, proving the local dedication 
to craft brewing.

On the other side of town on 

West Liberty Street, Glasshouse 
Brewing is just set to open its 
doors later this summer. The Pay-
eur family hones their focus 
on what will strictly be a brew 
house and beer bar.

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

Bartender and server Maureen Terrill pours a glass of beer at the Jolly Pumpkin. 

Commitment 
to localness 

doesn’t just stop 

with food.

Millenials 

are willing to 
expand their 

palates.

NBC

“This sitcom literally sucks.”

Homeopathic meds 
for a hypochondriac

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

By CAROLINE FILIPS

Daily Arts Writer

There 
are 
few 
things 
I 

loathe more than my sinuses. 
As unpredictable as Michigan 
weather and as capricious as 
my spending habits, my nasal 
chambers are likewise among my 
tragic flaws — that along with being 
the offspring of a hypochondriac 
and a practicing physician (read: 
I’m a de facto over-informed 
nervous wreck when it comes to 
all things disease).

When the congestion struck 

last week, I shied away from my 
rote scanning of WebMD’s symp-
tom checker and turned to the 
Daily Arts desk for medicinal 
advice — yeah, I was that desper-
ate. Among the run-of-the-mill 
suggestions of my counterparts 
(“Get lots of rest! Drink flu-
ids! Call your mom!”), a voice of 
homeopathic reason surfaced.

This ally of a Senior Arts 

Editrix 
seemed 
under 
an 

uncharacteristically 
maternal 

trance as she spent a full eight 
minutes focused on my impending 
wellness 
trajectory. 
 
She 

recommended I visit the People’s 
Food Co-op in Kerrytown — the 
alleged Ann Arbor health oasis. 
She jotted down her homeopathic 
musings and fully ignored my 
skepticism. She rattled off various 
herbal supplements, micro and 
macrobiotic 
rich 
foods, 
and 

teas she swore by. She rapidly 
questioned my health history 
and eating habits as I pondered 
her lack of a medical degree. She 
applauded my consumption of 

ginger and seaweed salads, but she 
shuddered at my gluten and dairy-
laden diet with a rhetorical health 
ultimatum, only to inquire, “Do 
you want to get better?”

I let her ramble and listen 

to herself for a hot second, 
but 
then, 
unsuspectingly, 

something about her outlook 
appealed to me. Though I often 
approach my illnesses with a 
routine pragmatism — doctor, 
prescription, repeat — I was 
tempted to abandon my trusted 
methods. In my head, my fleeting 
teenage status seemed sufficient 
rationale. And yet, the more 
I listened to her blasphemy, 
the more tokens of wisdom I 
vowed to cash out at the co-op. 
This 
alternative 
means 
of 

healing had its own brand of 
practicality. Turning to nature 
made sense, and though I had 
no intentions of acclimating to 
a full-on Emersonian lifestyle, 
an unrefined, non-commercial 
means of healing seemed a more 
feasible rebellion than getting 
tatted up. And besides, I trusted 
her strong jawline — a result of 
admirable discipline and devotion 
to facial yoga.

So to be spontaneous and 

carefree in the hopes of it 
radiating some allure, I did the 
characteristically uncharacteristic 
thing: I decided not to pick up my 
prescriptions and rather follow the 
advice of my temporary healer.

Toting my list of all things 

natural, I approached the co-op 
threshold with a slight hesitation, 
but then I kept hearing those 
words: “Do you want to get better? 

Do you want to get better? Do you 
want to get better, Caroline?”

Though I suspected the market 

to be a combination of hole-in-
the-wall fruit stands and spice 
emporiums, 
I 
was 
pleasantly 

surprised by its normalcy — a 
standard grocery store layout and 
an above average produce selection 
with the enticing additions of a hot 
food bar and adjunct café. Sure, I 
was taken aback at the organic cat 
food, but the remaining selection 
was positively intriguing.

It was an easy feat as I perused 

the aisles, finding my editor-
endorsed products in a matter 
of minutes. As I strolled home, 
still resonating with the voice 
of perpetual doubt in my head, 
I silently swore not to gauge my 
health progress for at least a week.

Within days, I saw the light, the 

one I assumed mentally obstructed 
my Editrix and others whom 
I’d assumed fell victim to that 
naturalistic shit … sorry, phooey. 
As I popped supplements of 
concentrated garlic, brewed green 
tea around the clock, simmered 
and sipped miso soup, munched 
on nori and irrigated my nasal 
passages as necessary, my sinuses 
cleared along with my mind. Less 
than a week into my homeopathic 
practices, I was left with nothing 
more than a lingering sniffle.

Though I won’t advise skipping 

a doctor’s appointment in times 
of 
serious 
somatic 
setbacks, 

for seasonal bouts of colds and 
coughs, I’ll continue to trust my 
off-beat Editrix and head to the 
People’s Food Co-op when I want 
to get better.

