GRANDVILLE, Mich. (WOOD) — Sometimes the best accidents make for the best stories. At least that’s the case for one beer found at Osgood Brewing in Grandville.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Ronald Denning, the owner of Osgood Brewing, to try three beers unique to the West Michigan brewery for this episode of Hops with #HeyLuke.

The beers sampled this time around included the Ohana Imperial Brown Ale, the Mary Fire bloody mary beer and the Bayliss English Brown Ale.

The taps at Osgood Brewing in Grandville

Up first, the Ohana. An easy sipping (surprising) 9.5% brown ale. This beer was made completely by accident.

“We had a beer that was being brewed one time and they came to me and said, ‘I screwed up on that, I added the wrong grain,'” said Denning. “So, we looked into it and were like, ‘oh my goodness, we can’t have it be the beer we intended it to be,’ and we’re looking at it like man, that’s a brown,” Denning said.

Denning said despite the hiccup, it tasted awesome and packed a punch at 9.5% ABV. Another employee recommended adding coconut to give it some flavor and voila — after toasting some organic coconut, the Ohana was born.

Second, we sampled the Mary Fire. Before I dive in, the Mary Fire gets the Hops with #HeyLuke Certified Story — the highlight beer, or in this case, story, of the episode — thanks to its uniqueness and creativity.

To keep it simple, it’s a bloody mary beer. Instead of vodka, Denning says they use their pale lager. I’ve heard of people mixing their beer with tomato or clamato juice, but I’ve never had a bloody mary that includes beer and tastes about as identical as you can get to a bloody mary with vodka.

“It’s a nice light simple beer, it’s about 5%,” said Denning.

Osgood Brewing’s Mary Fire

​And lastly, we have family ties with the Bayliss English brown ale, keyword “English.”

Denning says this beer is made with English yeast and a lot of English malts as well. Why so much English? Well, the Bayliss is named after Denning’s grandmother’s maiden name. His mother’s side of the family is from England. 

“I always try, when possible, to incorporate names, whether it’s here in Grandville, we try and incorporate things like that with our names as much as possible,” said Denning.

Ron Denning with his mother. (courtesy Ron Denning)

For more Hops with #HeyLuke, head over to WOODTV.com’s Live Desk page. Also be sure to follow our Instagram page (@woodtv) for exclusive clips. If you would like your brewery featured on an episode of “Hops with #HeyLuke,” you can reach out to Luke via email at luke.laster@woodtv.com or find him on Facebook or Twitter.