Disclaimer

Not one yard of drunk driving occurred during this story. Photographer Mike Shaffer and video dude Corey Denomy were forced against their will to stay sober during the entire affair. The same cannot be said for our former videographer Gordon Green.

I've got a crazy idea. You've seen "Smokey and the Bandit," so you know in that Pop-Tart of a cult classic Burt Reynolds and his trucker buddy have to haul 400 cases of Coors from Texas to Georgia. Only thing is, due to this county's capricious liquor laws, making that run was illegal. But that didn't stop the Bandit, no sir. He done did it, and outsmarted Smokey along the way. More than three decades after the Bandit, plenty of dumb alcohol distribution laws still exist. Meaning that out here in California, we can't get certain beers from certain states and vice versa. And some of that undistributable beer is really good. So I hatched a plan: Fill our new long-term Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon full of not-sold-in-California craft suds and smuggle it back to Los Angeles. Seemed like a totally far-fetched, ain't never gonna happen long-shot story pitch to me. The amazing part: My boss bought it!

Of course, I couldn't do it alone, so I decided to bring along my good pal Drew Beechum. Here's his quick and dirty resume: Drew graduated from MIT with a computer engineering degree, was a one-day champion on "Jeopardy," catches pedophiles online for the FBI during the day, and by night he's a published and prolific beer author with a couple of monthly columns in various beer periodicals and a book called "The Everything Guide to Homebrewing." He's also a governing member of the American Home Brewers Association; was the first four-term president of the Maltose Falcons, the nation's oldest homebrewing club; is a nationally recognized beer judge; and for many years has been my brewing partner.

Oh, yeah, I've been brewing my own suds for 18 years, and get paid every once in a while to judge beer competitions. No, really. Of course, I couldn't care less about Smokey and his Bandit problem. I thought that film was a goofy marshmallow when I was 5 years old (Big and Little Enos, get it!?). No, my interest in this beer run -- besides the purely epicurean -- is twofold. One is to explore a small part of our nation's beer regionality. American beer brewing has absolutely exploded over the last few decades, ever since Jimmy Carter legalized homebrewing in 1978. At that time, the U.S. was down to only a handful of breweries. As of July 31, 2010, we were up to 1640, and I can think of four breweries that have opened up just in Los Angeles since then. While Budweiser and its ilk would be happy to forever maintain the belief that all beer is gold, cold, and fizzy, that's simply not the case, and never has been. Not only are there over 150 recognized styles of beer, but certain regions specialize in specific varieties. America's "third coast" -- specifically the upper Midwest region of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota -- has without question turned into an important and thriving region for craft beer. We had to check it out.

The second reason for this beer run gets into a bit of American exceptionalism, but hear me out. I've long felt that, given the chance, we Americans are uniquely able to excel at whatever we put our minds to. Japan bombs Hawaii in late 1941, and three and half years later we hit back with nukes. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik in 1957, and a dozen years later we're waving Old Glory back at them from the moon. America actually had a wonderful and diverse beer culture before Prohibition hit (remember, 53 percent of us are of Germanic origin), but that stupid amendment ruined everything, and, for a generation or two, beer came in exactly one flavor: boring. However, the moment President Carter made it legal for professional brewers to talk to amateur ones, American ingenuity took over. America's lack of beer tradition and love of innovation has made our beer scene the most diverse of any country. And, if you'll allow me to keep waving this flag for a moment, people who know beer know that the United States now brews the best beer in the world, end of story.

But what about cars? You can argue -- and I will -- that for a time America made the greatest cars in the world. Then, in the mid-1960s, Detroit let all that success and those filthy stacks of cash get to their collective head. For the four decades since, American cars were (for the most part) not as good as the cars from Germany and Japan. And sometimes they were just patently awful -- Buick Somerset, anyone? About a decade ago, certain brands started pushing back. Rising from the humiliating ashes of the Cimarron and -- let's be honest here -- the zigging Catera, Cadillac has established itself as a real player on the admittedly Herculean strength of just one car, the mighty CTS-V. I was recently interviewed by an advertising agency about German cars and how they're perceived by the general public. When asked, "What's the best German car on the market today?"

I replied, "The Cadillac CTS-V." I meant it, too.

If you're not familiar, it has a 556-hp, 551-lb-ft supercharged V-8, can be had with a six-speed manual transmission, and is offered as a station wagon. But, perhaps more important, the CTS-V comes with GM's licensed-by-Ferrari magnetorheological dampers. Moreover, the car (and those fast-acting shocks) were tuned on Germany's vaunted Nuerburgring. Besides the obvious marketing hoopla of that particular fact, getting developed on top of such a cauldron yields real-world results for the top-dog Caddy. Other cars ride better, and still other cars handle better, but no car rides and handles as well as a Cadillac CTS-V. The balance between those two all-important attributes is superb, putting the non-knuckle-dragging Caddy into what very well might be a class of one among midsize performance sedans, and what certainly is a class of one when it comes to sporty wagons. Or at least, so I thought. The proposed 3000-mile trip from Detroit back to Los Angeles packed to the gills with beer would for certain answer that question.

Day One: Michigan

First stop: Grand Rapids, Michigan, or as Drew deemed it, "The biggest surprise of the run." Not only does it feature two first-class beer bars, Hopcat and the Green Well Pub, but we accidently stumbled upon a brewery while parking! Brewery Vivant semi-sacrilegiously resides in a former church. Happily, Vivant's beer is pretty good (especially its farmhouse ale, French Hand), and, even better, they stick it in cans. So, we bought six four-packs and shoved 'em in the back of the Caddy. As a beer-loving Californian, I could totally move to Grand Rapids were it not for the grim and frostbitten winters. Drew concurred, "I'd be happy to live there if they could solve the whole winter problem." But the reason Grand Rapids was on our map in the first place is Founders Brewing Company, maker of a legendary beer called Kentucky Breakfast Stout. I was not only impressed by the massive yet homey taproom, but owner and president (and seriously nice guy) Mike Stevens was wearing the exact same beach bum shoes I was. A good omen if there ever was one. Mike gave us a tour of the always-expanding brewery, explaining that the recent surge in craft brewing has forced them to expand, and expand again. He then sat down to taste some beers with us, including the exceptional Devil Dancer and our favorite, Dirty Bastard, a wonderfully malty and boozy yet hoppy Scottish-style ale. It was while drinking those beers with Mr. Stevens that we first heard the B-word.

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Balance. We visited seven breweries in five Midwestern states and, without fail, each brewer we talked with described their philosophy and approach with one word: balance. Out here in California, our beers (and some will no doubt argue our other attributes) are out of balance. Case in point: West Coast IPAs. The word IPA stands for India Pale Ale, a style of beer from England that on the other side of the pond tends to be copper or amber in color and malty, and contain more hops and a touch more alcohol than a standard pale ale. Out here in, say, San Diego, IPAs are blonde, bone dry, and seriously bitter. Malt is almost an afterthought. The term we use is "hop forward," and these are my favorite beers. This isn't the case out (Mid-)west. Their IPAs tend to be much maltier, less hoppy, and, yes, more balanced. But is balance always a good thing? Drew explained, "As a West Coast beer guy, maybe I'm just too unbalanced, but all things in moderation, including moderation!" Looking back to my initial goal -- discovering a brewing region's specific traits -- the notion of balance seemed of the utmost importance.

But is balance important in cars? The easy, intuitive answer is yes, of course. Who wouldn't want a balanced vehicle? It's a good theory, except for one thing. Close your eyes and think about your favorite cars, the ones that excited you as a child. Is a Cobra balanced? What about a Countach or a LM002? Would you ever describe a McLaren F1 as balanced? Would you want to? Balance is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but in reality is actually in the middle of the road. Especially when it comes to cars. A Honda Odyssey is balanced. A Cadillac station wagon with a supercharged Corvette engine and three pedals that gets 15 mpg and runs the quarter mile in the mid-12s is absolutely bonkers. I'm very thankful for that fact; more yin than yang, please. Of course, I'm from Los Angeles. Extroverted cars are basically a birthright.

We swung by the legendary Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo on our way to Indiana. Sad to say, no one from the brewery was available to show us around, but the beers we sampled were excellent. Bell's most famous offering is called Two Hearted Ale. Very similar to a Founders' beer called Centennial IPA, Bell's Two Hearted is a copper-colored, medium-bodied ale bittered and flavored with a hop called Centennial. The general rule of West Coast thumb is that you want to keep "C hops" away from "C malts." Roughly translated, the pine tree and citrus flavors you get in hops such as Cascade, Columbus, Chinook, etc. do not play well with the sweeter, fruitier, candy-flavored esters that come in caramel/crystal malts. But for every rule, there's an exception and the less grapefruit-flavored than most other C hops Centennial goes very well with caramel maltiness. In fact, each brewery we visited made some version of an IPA that was copper in color, pretty malty, and finished off with Centennial hops. I'd describe it as the region's signature style.

Day Two: Indiana and Illinois

The only brewery of the trip I'd previously visited is Three Floyds. In fact, when I first pitched the idea to Drew, Three Floyds was the first brewery we both thought of. Its legend is large and well-earned. A self-described heavy-metal brewery, Three Floyds makes loud, style-free, and (dare I say it?) wonderfully obnoxious beers. "The first priority," says brewery vice president Barnaby Strube, "is try not to suck."

And suck they do not. One beer in particular that's a favorite of both Drew and myself is called Gumball Head. It's a wheat beer flavored with a very orange-flavored hop called Amarillo. No other brewery makes anything like it, to the point that Drew has for years brewed his own version called Gumball Head Thoughts. Three Floyds is famous for another, more sinister reason: Dark Lord. I'd need a separate article just to kind of explain the mania behind Dark Lord, a huge Russian Imperial Stout weighing in at 13 percent alcohol by volume that sells out the same day it's released, and routinely sells on eBay for $300 a pop.

Imagine how hard our jaws hit the floor when Barnaby handed Drew and me four bottles of the black stuff, including two special editions (one made with hot peppers and one aged on vanilla). We promised him we'd drink it, not sell it. And even though the Three Floyds boys paid lip service to the notion of balance above all else, their notorious Dark Lord is more like the black-on-black Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon than not.

Next came Chicago and relative newcomer Revolution Brewing. I got into a little bit of verbal sparring with owner Josh Deth. Turns out he's a bicycle guy who's not particularly interested in cars. He wasn't thrilled to be talking with some dude from Motor Trend. I reminded him that most cars are union-made, which seemed to put him at ease. As for Revolution's beer, it's quite good, though squarely and, I believe, proudly Midwestern. For instance, they make a copper-colored, Centennial hopped IPA called Anti-Hero. Mr. Deth went on for some time on the importance of balance in their brews. Speaking of balance, they had a wonderful pilsner on tap called Riot, a craft style we could use a lot more of in California.

And speaking of lagers (pilsners are of the lager family), the stereotype of Midwestern suds is exactly that. Laverne and Shirley, Old Milwaukee, Miller, Pabst -- stuff like that. Many of the Revolution beers we sampled were lagers, but they were hardly the dull yellow stuff you're used to. But don't go thinking Revolution is all about subtle flavors. Josh handed us a glass of Barrel-Aged Sodom, a 13-percent monster of a stout that's a kissing cousin to Dark Lord. Not only did Revolution's brewmaster, Jim Cibek, once work at Three Floyds, but some of the FFF boys helped brew Sodom. What a great beer.

Day 3: Happy Birthday

The previous day happened to be my birthday, and, as fate would have it, Revolution's bar manager turned out to be an old friend I hadn't seen in 10 years. Moreover, two friends I do keep in touch with live within blocks of Revolution. What happened next is best left unsaid. Nothing to see here, people. Move along.

Day 4: Wisconsin

We rolled into the great state of Wisconsin a little fuzzier than when we rolled into Illinois. However, the second we set foot in the New Glarus Brewery, in the town of New Glarus, Drew and I stood in rapt attention. I'll let him explain:

"Walking through the gleaming beer holy ground that is the 'new' New Glarus Brewing, I was simply dumbfounded. I dare Detroit to make anything so magnificently functional and gorgeous as the pipework and kettles at the heart of that place. Don't let the quaint-looking Swedish ski chalet exterior or earth-toned gift shop fool you. The interior is full-tilt mechanical magic that crosses Willy Wonka and Carroll Shelby and beats them both in the sheer wonder department."

And the beer lives up to the hype. New Glarus' Wisconsin Belgian Red has long been a unicorn of the craft beer scene. It's harder to get your hands on than even Dark Lord, and a pound of cherries is shoved into every bottle before it's aged for one year. The results are out of this world. So good, in fact, that if you're ever even kinda-sorta near Wisconsin, search out a bottle. Or, as we did, eight bottles. Brewer/owner Deb Carey took time out from nursing a sick dog to not only let us try several of her offerings, but to explain to Drew and me exactly how awful and unbalanced all West Coast beers truly are. One thing I love about the craft beer scene is how the various brewers' personalities come through, and I'm not just talking about the physical beer. The car world needs more people like Deb and her husband, Daniel. After all, Enzo Ferrari, Henry Ford, and Soichiro Honda weren't exactly shy about their passions.

Providing great, if not extreme, contrast to New Glarus is a little brewery on the Minnesota border called Dave's Brew Farm. Powered by one man, Dave Anderson, and a windmill, the Brew Farm is home brewing on a grand scale. Dave, who refers to himself as his own worst boss, doesn't feel the need to follow the crowd. Even a seemingly non-traditional crowd like modern day American craft brewers. "Why brew what everyone else is brewing?" he semi-rhetorically asks. There is no good answer. Even still -- and Dave's a guy who makes beer with red clover and dandelions -- like every other Midwestern brewer, he's very concerned with balance. With his windmill providing all the power for his tiny brewery, I actually began to feel guilty about the gas-hog Caddy wagon. For about five minutes. Then some of Dave's Rauchen Lager, a great smoked lager, took over, and all seemed right with the world. We tried to visit Surly Brewing in Minneapolis, but due to those silly laws I mentioned earlier, you can't buy beer from a brewery in Minnesota. Lame -- so we skipped Surly. We did, however, buy some Surly from a wonderful Twin Cities beer store named Zipp's Liquors.

Days Five and Six: Home

Drew and our video crew flew home leaving me, the world's most sinister Cadillac, and photographer Mike Shaffer to schlep all 20 cases of beer back to Los Angeles. In true Bandit fashion, we left Minneapolis with the Escort Passport 9500ix radar detector set to stun, and one goal in mind: Get home as fast as we possibly could. I'd seen enough of the upper Midwestern brewing scene to last two lifetimes. Now was the hour for the Caddy to make some haste.

I wish you could've seen it. This rolling Dark Lord, this sinister black steed, this chrome-tipped, obsidian arrowhead slicing across America's heartland in the pitch black of night. Remember the Nazgul from "The Lord of the Rings"? Those black-hooded, hobbit-hating evil horsemen? That's how it felt to ram the CTS-V Sport Wagon across South Dakota and down rural Wyoming's throat. The Caddy didn't even notice the extra 1000 pounds of beer and video equipment it was now burdened with. There's just so much engine, so much torque, so much continent-conquering power. Slotting the stick from sixth to fourth while mashing the throttle resulted in triple digits before I even got my hand back onto the wheel.

I lost count of how many times I paraphrased the Simpsons as I shouted, "God bless this rocket car and all who dwell within it!" pretty much every time I stomped the pedal. Some 1100 miles and 15 hours after Minneapolis, I finally got out of the driver's seat and let young Shaffer take over until we found a motel somewhere south of Salt Lake City, Utah, at 3:30 a.m. At noon the next day, we woke and made it back to Motor Trend HQ in El Segundo by nightfall. In about 36 hours, we'd completed a 2000-mile run in a fully loaded station wagon with only one speeding ticket to show for it (screw you, Minnesota!). Much more important, all that yummy beer was home safe and perfectly sound.

We picked the black beast up in Detroit with a full tank of gas. It took 17 fill-ups -- 197.36 gallons -- to complete the 3032 miles back home. In layman's terms, that's 14 mpg at a total of $825.18. Gulp.

People who know beer know that the United States now brews the best beer in the world, end of story.

Favorites

At each brewery, Drew and I picked our favorite beer as well as the beer that's most needed at home back in California.

Founders Brewing Company

Our favorite: Devil Dancer (triple IPA)

Most needed: Dirty Bastard (big Scottish-style ale)

Bell's Brewery

Our favorite: Hopslam (double IPA), Two Hearted (IPA)

Most needed: Oberon (spicy wheat beer)

Brewery Vivant

Our favorite: Zaison (large saison)

Most needed: Farm Hand (French farmhouse ale)

Three Floyds Brewing

Our favorite: Topless Wytch (Baltic porter)

Most needed: Gumball Head (hoppy wheat ale)

Revolution Brewing

Our favorite: Barrel-Aged Sodom (Russian Imperial stout)

Most needed: Iron Fist Pale Ale (American pale ale)

New Glarus Brewing

Our favorite: Wisconsin Belgian Red (cherry Belgian ale), Raspberry Tart (raspberry Belgian ale)

Most needed: Back 40 (Maibock)

Dave's Brew Farm

Our favorite: Matacabras (who knows?)

Most needed: Rauchen Lager (smoked lager)