Today is the 66th birthday of brewing legend, Larry Bell, the iconoclastic former owner of Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A few years ago, Larry was on a quest to attend every Chicago Cubs home game. Three years, there was the Bell’s 35th Anniversary I had planned on attending, but in the end could not due to that pesky pandemic. Sadly, now Larry has retired, but hopefully he’ll still be around.a beer functions. Bell’s doesn’t often get the credit it deserves for being the spark for craft beer in the midwest, having started in 1985, well before almost everybody else inside the two coasts. Join me in wishing Larry a very happy birthday.
Larry with Alan Sprints, from Hair of the Dog at the Full Sail Smoker during the Oregon Brewers Festival a few years ago.
Larry, with Ed and Carol Stoudt, from Stoudt Brewing, and Ken Allen, from Anderson Valley Brewing at the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas, in 2007.
Larry accepting the BA Recognition Award at CBC a few years back.
At OBF in 2008.
Four years ago in Portland for CBC, wearing the Belmont Crown for a Bell’s event there.
