03/17/2024
Go Hop Lot! Congrats!
Hop Lot ranked No. 2 beer garden in USA
By Brian Freiberger
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Hop Lot Brewing Company in Suttons Bay was ranked the No. 2 beer garden in the United States of America according to USA Today via its annual 10Best ranking awards on Tuesday.
“It’s nice to see that people enjoy it as much as we do,” Hop Lot Co-Owner Steve Lutke said. “Every year we look around and we try to figure out how we can enhance it, improve it, whether it’s landscaping or a different area for games or putting different things for kids. It’s always been family-based … I think for us it was just that validation that people are enjoying this.”
Steve along with his brother Drew and sister Sarah started the hopping local business in 2015.
Hop Lot was edged out by city-slickers ‘The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery & Biergarten’ in Charlotte, North Carolina ranking first.
USA Today has various 10Best lists which are first nominated by a panel of editors from both USA Today and 10Best. com. The top-10 is then determined by public vote.
Steve recalls being nominated back in January for the top-20.
“As more and more people engaged with it, our customers and online it became more fun. Let’s see how we do, we’re building traction,” Lutke said. “It’s fun to get local awards ... but to see the national recognition out of all the possible choices … I would assume that we are by far the smallest as far as production,” Lutke said.
Hop Lot has year-in and year-out been ranked for local awards including ‘Redhot Best’ which ranked the brewery as a top-10 new brewery in the State of Michigan when it first opened nearly a decade ago.
Some of Lutke’s favorite breweries included Stone Beer Garden in San Diego with Sierra Nevada down in Asheville, North Carolina as a gold standard for Hop Lot.
Hop Lot’s modest setting in the woods along M-22 features campfires, picnic tables, outdoor games, and more.
“One of the things that we talked about is we hope that the reason that we were able to engage so many people is not just a show of what you have, or how much money you spent, it’s about people connected with the place. Somehow they created a memory here. Somehow they were left with an impression that they cared enough to support us,” Lutke said.
Full story: https://www.leelanaunews.com/news/hop-lot-ranked-no-2-beer-garden-usa
