Food & Grocery: Frugal Friday at Biercamp - try the rich, housemade jerky paté

Mary Bilyeu | Contributor

As soon as you walk in the door of Biercamp, you are immersed in the fragrance of the barbecue. The pork is spicy and tender, the onions are a perfect sweet and crunchy complement to the sauce, and the pickles are crisp and bright.  Whether you enjoy your sandwich on the picnic benches out front or take some home with you, you must try this!

There is also a wide variety of jerkies and sausage sticks to choose from; prices vary per pound, so you can choose as much or as little as you want to stay within our budget when buying a snack. One each of several varieties would be a great way to sample items.

All of these items are made in-house by the wonderfully friendly owners Walter Hansen and Hannah Cheadle, who told me that they use some family recipes but often just create foods that they, themselves, want to eat.  (And as you listen to them talk about their vocation, Walter's eyes light up with a passion for his work and his products.)  They were offering samples of beef jerky when I was there last, and it was so flavorful and even tender! It in no way resembled the desiccated leathery meats that we usually think of when we hear the word "jerky."

I highly recommend the rich and creamy Biercamp Jerky Pate, a cream cheese-based spread with lots of flavors shining through; beef jerky, green and red peppers, garlic, lemon, and Dijon mustard all dance in each bite.  At $9.99 per pound, I was able to buy a container of the pate for less than $5.  Thus I still had a bit of a budget to acquire crackers or vegetables to spread this on, though frankly I will admit to simply eating it off a spoon because it's so good.

There is a refrigerated case offering cheeses purchased from local artisans and smoked at Biercamp, a spread featuring corned beef jerky with my favorite Balaton cherries, baked beans and other side dishes.  

Products from Ann Arbor's own The Brinery are proudly sold at the store along with other Michigan items, such as Faygo sodas and Better Made potato chips. And another case offers an assortment of sausages, from Hillbilly breakfast sausage to Italian- and Indian-influenced varieties, that you can bring home to cook with.

So stop by Biercamp, where you can buy hand-crafted sausages and jerkies — and many other delicious items —  still within a frugal budget.

Biercamp Artisan Sausage and Jerky
1643 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734-995-2437
Monday - Saturday: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
Closed Sunday

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Mary Bilyeu writes about her adventures in the kitchen - making dinner, celebrating holidays, entering cooking contests ... whatever strikes her fancy. She is also on a mission to find great deals for her Frugal Floozie Friday posts, seeking fabulous food at restaurants on the limited budget of only $5 per person. Feel free to email her with questions or comments or suggestions: yentamary@gmail.com.

You should visit Mary's blog — Food Floozie — on which she enthuses and effuses over all things food-related. And be sure to look for her monthly articles about holiday foods and traditions in the Washtenaw Jewish News.

The phrase "You Should Only Be Happy" (written in Hebrew on the stone pictured in this post) comes from Deuteronomy 16:15 and is a wish for all her readers - when you come to visit here, may you always be happy.