Blind Island Brewery
68400 Klinger Lake RoadI’ve explained quite a bit over the last two blog posts about our weekend situation and figure skating so I won’t totally re-hash it other than to say we spent a lot of time at the Biggby Coffee Ice Cube in Ann Arbor last weekend.
When we signed the kids up for the Margaret Faulkner Springtime Invitational, we knew we’d be going Thursday and Friday with L for dance. We wanted B to skate too so we signed him up for free skate. After being told all the free skates would be on Sunday, we signed L up too. She needed to do that program in front of the judges and we were going anyway.
Except they moved B to Friday night.
They did all of the boys free skates Friday night. We could have just took the loss of money on L and not went back on Sunday but we were already signed up and, again, she needed to do that skate in front of judges.
B didn’t want to go back to Ann Arbor with us so we asked J’s parents if they would watch him. They, of course, said yes.
We didn’t want to take a detour to Sturgis Sunday morning so we took B to them on Saturday evening.
B wanted us out of J’s parents house so they could watch a movie. He’s been watching old Simpsons episodes with me so I suggested The Simpsons Movie. He wanted to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory again. Either way, he wanted us gone so he could watch a movie with Nana and Grandpa.
We hadn’t eaten yet and J suggested we go somewhere. There’s a brewery that just opened near Sturgis that she wanted to try. It was a little out of the way but not too much so that’s what we did.
Blind Island Brewery is on Klinger Lake Road and Hill Street right off Klinger Lake west of Sturgis. The brewery is in a small building that was a pizza place many, many years ago but has sat empty for the better part of a decade. It’s such a great spot surrounding by lakefront houses on Klinger Lake that it’s pretty amazing this building and the building across the street (also a former pizza place) have been empty for so long. There’s a little bit of a parking lot in front of the building but there is more parking in a gravel lot across Hill Street. This is actually the spot we went to last summer to grab food from MaMazzoni’s Italian Beef.
The restaurant is much bigger than you’d expect it to be looking at it from the outside. There’s a pretty tight squeeze right inside the door where the host station is. To the left of that is the bar. It’s a huge bar but there are several metal pub chairs if you’re dining alone or just looking for a drink.
The other side of the room is the main dining area. It’s a really looking space with wood floors contrasted with black solid wood furniture. There are a mix of tables ranging from two to six tops as well as booths along the outer wall for parties of four. That’s where we were seated.
There’s also a stage in the dining room that has seating when it’s not in use and a really nice patio area off the back of the building along the creek that runs through the property. We were offered a table outside but it was a little too hot and we were more interested in being comfortable at that particular moment. Not sure if they actually do table service or if this just a cool place to relax with a drink.
I was a little surprised when I grabbed the drink list to see only one of their own beers on tap. I didn’t look much in to the place but when they have the word “Brewery” in the name, I assumed they were brewing their own beers. They have a really good, big beer menu but there was only one beer that had their name next to it.
Of course, that one beer is the one I’m going to order.
The beer was the Brewery Doc Hopper and it’s listed as am Amber/Red lager. It’s not my favorite style of beer but it was tasty and refreshing. I wouldn’t have picked it had it not been the only one but I don’t have any regrets about picking it.
J picked from the cocktail list and ordered the Blackberry Lime Mojito. She made sure to dig out all of the fresh blackberries in the drink as they had soaked up all the booze and made themselves really tasty. She was happy with her pick of drink too and called it super refreshing on a hot day.
The food menu isn’t that big but they have some really solid options to pick from.
I picked the Naked Full Size Chicken Wings with Seasoning. The waitress said the order comes with four but you can get four, six, or eight. I chose the six. The wings are the full wing (wing and drummy) but they’re actually quite small. There’s about as much meat on the whole wing as I would expect on getting a Buffalo style wing. Despite their small stature, these things had a lot of flavor. The skin was super crispy and the season was a kind of lemon pepper salt made with what looked to be actual lemon peels and not just a dry seasoning. It was a little bit of a bummer they were so small because the wings were really, really good.
I picked the fries for the side. The menu says beer battered but these were more of the frozen skin on kind of fries I really like. I’m not a beer battered fry lover so I was happy to see these on my plate. They would have benefited from a little salt or even the seasoning that was on the chicken. I just grabbed the mustard off the table and used that to dip the fries in.
My entree also came with a cold pasta salad. J thought the waitress had said potato salad so she told mem to get that. It was a pretty decent pasta salad but again, cold pasta salad not really my thing. I ate a few bites of it and gave some to J as well. There was a little bit of a giardiniera thing going with some pickled carrots and cauliflower in there as well but it was pretty mild stuff.
J’s pick was the Pulled Pork Totchos. These are listed as an appetizer but there is enough there for an entree. The super crispy tots are topped with pulled pork, queso, and pico. I’m not a lover of tots so I didn’t try to steal any but J did pass over some of the pork and queso so I could try it and it was tasty.
We always have such a fight when it comes to getting the kids to eat at restaurants. L asked for just an order of tots…which is fine but we wanted to her to get something to go with it. The tots were the same super crispy tots J got which L then dipped in some kitchen. Both J and L really liked the way the tots were made and how crispy they were cooked.
After a little back and forth, we finally got L to order a side salad to go with her tots. The simple salad comes with tomatoes, cucumbers, and cheese. L took everything but the cheese off. As soon as the plate was sat down, J asked the waitress for a little more ranch because she knew the cup that came with it wasn’t going to be enough. The waitress was gracious and brought back two cups of ranch…and yes, L used all three on the salad.
Our bill for dinner, before tip, was a little over $50.
Blind Island Brewery is such a cool spot right on Klinger Lake. If you’re not familiar with that lake, the houses are all really close together so there’s a sense of community among the seasonal and full time residents just due to the closeness of the homes. Having a place like Blind Island Brewery that is walkable (or driveable in a golf cart) from a good portion of the lake is an added bonus. It’s a nice getaway for a drink and to relax after a day on the water and it’s a solid spot to make the drive to for dinner and a beer.
SW Michigan Dining 