Guide
Lake Michigan Day Trips from Grand Rapids
Four very different towns sit within forty-five minutes of downtown. Picking the wrong one for what you want is the most common way a Michigan beach day goes flat.
5 min read
Theo Brandsma
Food & Brewing Editor
Beat: Breweries & Distilleries, Restaurants & Dining, For Adults
Theo covered West Michigan hospitality through the years the taproom count doubled, and he writes the brewing and dining pages with the turnover in mind: a recommendation here has to survive the year. He maps the three walkable taproom districts rather than ranking beers, tells you which places seat children, and corrects anyone who calls Bell's a Grand Rapids brewery.
2 guides · 1 news post
Last updatedTheo's most recent update to this site was .
Long-form
Guides by Theo Brandsma
Reported guides to Grand Rapids, each with its own publication and last-updated date.
Guide
FeaturedThe Grand Rapids Beer Guide
Eight breweries inside one downtown walk, a district of converted warehouses north of Michigan Street, and a list of closures that most beer articles have not caught up with.
7 min read
News desk
News under Theo Brandsma's byline
Shorter, dated pieces about what is changing in Grand Rapids.
How this was written. News published under Theo Brandsma's byline was drafted by machine from primary sources — operator notices, government and municipal releases, published schedules — and every factual claim in it was matched to one of those sources before it published. A Grand Rapids Guide editor can change or pull any of it. Our editorial standards.
Closure
Check Before You Walk Over: The Beer Map Has Changed
Four familiar names have gone dark since 2024. The city's beer scene is still deep, but published brewery lists are increasingly fiction.