The search for the best bean soups in Michigan

Some of the bean soups, like this one, are "chunky," while others seem to offer little more than beans. SPECIAL TO THE BLADE/MIKE KELLY Enlarge | Photo Reprints

HOUGHTON LAKE, Mich. -- The adventure began in northwest Ohio, and as such things often do, it involved a bunch of guys sitting around reminiscing about the old days. A friend who's a former snowmobiler recalled the many trips he had made up to this area in years past, and he said that one of the highlights of those trips was the chance to savor the different bean soups served in the taverns of Roscommon County.

"What's so great about bean soup?" another guy said.

Two weeks, a few phone calls, and some 230 miles later, three of us rolled into town on a quest to find out.

There's probably no better place than Michigan to test drive bean soup, a venerable concoction that's as inexorably linked to the state as Motown music, automobiles, and the Great Lakes. Michigan produces more dry beans than any other state, with more than 165,000 acres harvested last year. And according to the Michigan Bean Commission, for more than a century the bean soup served in the U.S. Senate dining room has been made with Michigan's own navy beans.

Bean soup is a classic cold-weather comfort food that provides loads of fiber and protein (a good thing for snowmobilers, apparently). Sometimes the soup is creamy, and sometimes it has more of a broth base. But broth can boost a soup's salt content a lot, as do canned beans, which is why the best versions are usually made with dry beans that have been soaked overnight in water.

Bean soup. SPECIAL TO THE BLADE/MIKE KELLY Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Our home base was the Riviera Resort, a family-owned place that's been here for 120 years. And because the resort's year-old bar, Liz's Lounge, had bean soup on the menu, it became our first official stop along the Bean Soup Belt.

Over the next 30 hours, we would circumnavigate Houghton Lake, a fairly impressive feat inasmuch as it's Michigan's largest inland lake, with 30-plus miles of shoreline. Along the way we would drop in at all manner of lakeside taverns, from little hole-in-the-wall dives to sprawling joints with big dance floors and elevated stages for entertainment.

For the record, in addition to Liz's Lounge, our stops included Spikehorn Restaurant and Lounge, the Long Branch Saloon, the Backdoor Saloon, the Anchor Inn, Limberlost, the North Shore Lounge, and L.J.'s Kilcare Inn.

To provide our soup sampling with a veneer of legitimacy, I devised a scorecard for each place, with space for comments or complaints, and a rating system in which each of us could award a particular soup from 1 to 5 stars.

As we worked our way around the lake, the taverns' offerings ranged from watery to thick, from bland to extra salty, from "forgettable" to "I want the recipe." Some of the soups tasted like they were from a can with a few random items tossed in almost as an afterthought. Others appeared homemade, densely packed with stuff that enhanced the overall flavor.

By our second day in town, word had apparently gotten around via the tavern hotline that a trio of soup sippers from Ohio was making the rounds. When we walked into one place, the bartender took a look at us and asked, "Are you the bean-soup guys?"

One fairly serious omission that we found universally: While bean soup can be a meal by itself, it's often served with crusty bread, cheddar beer bread, cornbread, or biscuits -- all great for dipping. But not one place in Houghton Lake offered us anything of the sort; instead we got saltine crackers, or sometimes oyster crackers.

At the end of each day's tastings, we unwound at a place called the Zone 18 tavern, formerly the Family Bar and Grill, in nearby Prudenville. Zone 18 doesn't serve bean soup -- kind of a blessing after a long day of sampling -- but it does have the best shuffleboard table and the most rocking jukebox in the area. Owner Debbie Gross invited us to try the bar's Stadium Burger Challenge, but we declined. We were here for bean soup, and we weren't about to be sidetracked.

Good thing, because the challenge entails eating a Frisbee-sized, three-pound burger, topped with eight slices of cheese, eight slices of bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes, along with a pound of french fries -- all in 45 minutes. More than 135 people have tried it so far, Debbie said, and only one has succeeded.

When our two days of sipping and slurping were finally concluded, the winner of our Best Bean Soup competition turned out to be the Anchor Inn (average score 4.75 out of 5 stars). The soup there was more like a stew, packed with big chunks of ham and potatoes, as well as mini-slices of savory bacon. It was rich, hearty, and nicely seasoned -- truly a meal in itself. Manager Ronda Spears told us it was made from her late father's recipe.

Dad would be proud.

Second place went to the Long Branch Saloon (4.25 stars), whose flavorful soup included cabbage, shallots, generous hunks of ham, and bay leaf. Chef David Geddis said he tries to use exclusively Michigan ingredients in all his soups. Whatever he uses, it works.

As we headed for home Tuesday morning, we'd all gained a new appreciation of bean soup -- though we weren't too anxious to try any more for a while. And I'd gained a new appreciation of Houghton Lake, wondering what the area must be like when the weather is warm and the place is jumping. Maybe there's another road trip to Roscommon County in my future.

Information: 800-676-5330 or visithoughtonlake.com.