Grand Rapids was known as “Furniture City” for more than a century, and though much of that industry has now moved down to North Carolina, office furniture giants such as Steelcase, Haworth, and Herman Miller still have major operations in the area.
Readers of USA Today have voted Grand Rapids as “Best Beer Town,” beating out such better known craft competitors as Ashville, N.C.; Portland, Ore., and Denver. And in nationwide polls run by the Great American Beer Festival, the city has won the title of Beer City USA two years in a row.
The dozens of microbreweries and brewpubs here run the gamut from big, gleaming fortresses to hole-in-the-wall joints.