When beer is too yeasty and wine is too much, a glass of hard cider from New Holland Brewing Company is the right choice.

I love hard cider. I have loved it since I sneaking glasses of it from
my neighbor's barrel way back in 1978. The neighbors honored a lot of
Irish Traditions on their farm in Burns Township, Shiawassee Country,
Michigan. Cider making for Halloween was one of those traditions. I
wish I knew the entire details. I'll call for them. But the steps
probably involved picking up gallons of cider from a September
pressing, filling up the old oak barrel and allowing the apple juice
to sit and ferment until Halloween, when the family tapped it and
offered it to parents of Trick and Treaters. I have no idea how I got
so close to the tap to pour myself a glass, but I remember its
intoxicating effect.

I have enjoyed a number of local ciders. The cider pictured here is
served up by the New Holland Brewing Company, and I think it's the
only variety. Vander Mill fields several kinds, including a very dry
wit I almost always pick. Nicer, you can drink it right at the cider
mill in Spring Lake, Michigan. The Livery in Benton Harbor, Michigan
is the Bonny Doon of Michigan cider, experimenting with different
types of apples and styles. I believe I had a cider made from the
elusive honeycrisp apple there, a cider both very tart and very dry.
New Holland won't sell their cider by the growler, but Cherry Creek on
US-12 gave me a very reasonably priced grower from their tasting room
near Cement City, a cozy room in the hayloft of a barn. I even bought
a growler for the band picking and strumming on the cement porch of
that barn. One guy even was playing a wash tub cello. I think Cherry
Creek Winery & Cider house has moved sales to a renovated school house
of US-12. The barn in Cement City still houses the cider mill store.