Brew Bus — Local services in Elmwood Charter Township

All in all it was a successful trip, however, there were a couple miscommunications which led to stressful moments during the trip that could have been avoided entirely (more detail below). I would possibly book with them again, but I wish I had looked around a bit more at other options.

The Good -The driver was easy going, on time, and very knowledgable about the area. -Bus was clean and there was lots of room for the coolers (2005 Chevy (#9) -They were able to drop us off downtown by the parking garage where we had a car parked and were able to drop everything there before heading to dinner/bars. -The driver called the afternoon before to confirm stops + pick up time

The Bad/Disappointing -I had to reach out to the women I booked with, a couple days before to request that they process the remaining balance and follow up to confirm that everything was handled/good to go. -The day of, our first stop ended up having an event going on with a $15 cover charge when we arrived. The women at the winery said that she emailed all the busing companies about this. Not sure if this was true or not, but regardless the company should have called the winery prior when I booked and would have been told about this. Instead we had to pivot and select a different location on the spot which was beyond stressful with so many people and a lot of other wineries requiring prior reservations the options were limited. (Our bus driver thankfully was able to suggest other stops and called ahead to confirm before we left.) -For our planned second stop, the bus driver took it upon himself to call and cancel our reservation because he thought we should stop at a different spot where we would be able to stay longer. (He had brought up the idea the afternoon before when he called to confirm stops, but I had told him that I wasn't sure that's what the bride wanted and I needed to check with her. He said we could make that decision day of when he picked us up.) -Our bus (2005 Chevy (#9) was listed as being able to fit 14 comfortably, we had 11 people (average size ladies) and it was a bit tight, no way it would have fit...

I booked the Brew Bus for a bachelorette party for my little sister last weekend. This was the best decision I could have made! Our driver was Dan who we later named "Dan the Man" because he was just downright awesome. He shared his knowledge of the history of the different locations and wineries which was great because we were all from out of town and knew nothing about the area. The best part was that he stopped at special places specifically for photo opportunities which was great since everyone loved taking big group pictures with the beautiful scenery of Traverse City! The Brew bus makes it easy for everyone (including the host) by setting up the appointments with the wineries ahead of time so there was no waiting in line. The wineries were prepared for our group to come in and get straight to the wine! That really helped to keep the groups vibes up and not get bored/tired. Dan also helped by walking us into the wineries and pointing us in the right direction which is great when you have never been there before to know where to go. Dan would then go back to the bus and wait while we drank and then would come find us when we had 5 mins or so left before we had to leave, to keep us on track. (Since we were visiting 4 different places it was important to keep us on time schedule). The bus itself was very clean, had a cooler and plenty of room. It had Bluetooth speakers and Dan let us play our music from our phones loudly! Everyone was dancing and yelling and having fun and he was not distracted or visibly annoyed. We were having so much fun that Dan offered to go for an extra hour to a bonus winery and we took him up on that offer! On the way home he took the long way because he knew we were all enjoying ourselves and we didn't want it to end. Thank you Brew Bus for an experience that we will...

My hubs and me went on the Snowshoe Wine & Brew tour on our anniversary which was a Sunday in January. The tour and the establishments we went to were extremely slow. Bad for them, great for us! :-)

We met and ended at Jolly Pumpkin. Our driver, Doug, was friendly and a good driver. The tour started with Doug taking us to Bry's Estate. Keven met us at the door and was awesome. This place was really cool. Bry's had drink specials for those on the tour which I thought was a nice touch. I really enjoyed the dry riesling. The snowshoe trails at Bry's were beautiful and longer than the others. Keven gave us a bigger map to take different routes if we wanted.

Doug left us at Bry's for a little over an hour so we could enjoy the spot, our drinks and snowshoe. He picked us up and then drove us to Old Mission Distilling, which Troy Dailey owns as well as he owns this tour company. Old Mission Distillery had drink specials for us on the tour as well. My hubs got a hot coffee drink from Mission Proper which was inside of Old Mission Distillery. We stayed about 40 minutes then snowshoed to Bower's Harbor Vineyard.

At Bower's I ordered the pinot grigio, which was ok, not one of my favorites. This location was really cool because there was a cork made frame to take pictures in, the property was beautiful and there was an outdoor firepit. Definitely worth a stop in the wintertime just as much as summer.

We then snowshoed back to Jolly Pumpkin and smashed some pizza and beer after our 2 mile long snowshoe trek.

I didn't understand why the communications about this snowshoe tour kept repeating that we may be outside the whole time. This was not true at all. We were welcomed inside and sat down in each place for a while.

Great tour! I'd recommend and go...