Unexpected Finds

On our second full day in Rogers City, MI at Hoeft State Park, I realized we needed to get some more firewood for that night, so we decided to take a bit of a road trip and do some exploring. Although @mrsbozz was happy just to stay back at the campsite and relax, I talked her into going with me and it turns out I am really glad I did. I had a bit of an ulterior motive besides firewood. I had been doing some research (shocker!), and I found this little place that I thought might be checking out called Knaebe's Apple Farm and Ciderworks.

I didn't really know what to expect, but the reviews online were pretty cool, and this fit with our previously mentioned routine of going out for lunch and then spending the rest of the day at our campsite. Knaebe's is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Rogers City isn't that big of a town to begin with, but you have to head a good fifteen minutes or so into the country to actually find the place. Then you have to turn into this pretty nondescript driveway before things open up and you realize you are there.

Michigan has a ton of apple orchards like this all over the place, but for the most part they solely cater to families and kids. It's only recently that some of them have started to branch out a bit more to become trendy places for adults to hang out as well. Likely due to the popularity of hard cider and a general move away from traditional drinks which seems to be the trend.

The tasting room is actually the building off to the left from the main building. We didn't even bother going into the main building, we simply went to the tasting room. It's actually a really impressive facility. I think it's amazing the vision this family had to turn their apple farm into something more and hopefully that vision is paying off well for them.

They do have a really cool outdoor space as well, but it was hot the day we visited, so I just tried to take a photo through the window and clearly I failed. The tasting room is counter service, which means there are no waitresses floating around taking care of you. You go up to the counter, order what you want, pay, and then when it is ready you pick it up and go back to your seat. It makes sense for a place like this to keep staffing costs down. They also have a pretty limited menu, so there isn't a ton of overhead there.

Besides the cider, the main draw of this place is the woodfired pizza. They have two big ovens that they keep going with wood and even though it wasn't super busy when we were there, it was a constant rotation of pizzas going in and out of the ovens.

Of course we had to try out the cider. I got the Just Peachy that you see in the top photo and I think @mrsbozz got the Tangle Up In Blue. Looking back at the menu, there are a ton of options I wouldn't have minded trying, but these two we got were pretty good.

If I ever went back, I would probably try a flight to give myself more options. Cider is a lot like wine in that you get different levels of dryness and stuff like that. I don't hate cider, but I would honestly rather visit a craft brewery. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy Knaebe's. It was still a really cool experience and I am glad we visited.

The pizzas weren't very big, so we decided to get a couple of them. The funny thing is, we still ended up with one whole pizza to take back to the campground with us and enjoy as a snack later in the evening. We got The Funky Chicken which has house made garlic ranch sauce topped with five cheeses, chicken, smokey bacon, and buffalo ranch drizzle. Then we also got the Veg Out pizza that was basically just a traditional pizza with veggies on it.

They were both pretty decent, but I think I liked the chicken one a bit better. We have a wood fired pizza place in the town I grew up and I think their pies are a bit better than these ones were. It all comes down to the crust. The place near where we live uses a sourdough crust and I think that just works better with the wood fired oven than the crusts they used here did.

Our veggie pizza was almost a little underdone if I had to be critical.

After boxing up our pizza and finishing our cider, we headed out trying to find some wood. We eventually did, but it took us far longer to find some than I had anticipated. We didn't get back to our campsite until well after noon.

Knaebe's is definitely a cool place to visit and if you get the chance I highly recommend it. It might not be life changing for you, but it is still a really cool place with a lot of atmosphere and some decent and creative food and drinks.