The Mitten Brewing Company (Saugatuck)
329 Water StreetWe’ve done the whole beach sunset thing the past several years on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. J usually has it off so that means she doesn’t have to be in bed by 8:00, so we take advantage of the long weekend and gorgeous Lake Michigan twilight show.
We’ve always gone to South Haven, but this year it looked like we weren’t going to get a good sunset. There was rain in the forecast for the evening so we decided to go to the beach a little earlier than we normally would.
J and I were talking about plans when she said, “I want a pizza flight.” We had just talked about the pizza flights at The Mitten Brewing Company when we ate dinner at Long Road Distillers
in Grand Rapids. We decided then we needed to get to the Saugatuck location sometime. We figured now was as good of a time as any so we changed our typical beach plans from South Haven to Saugatuck.
The Mitten Brewing Company’s Saugatuck location is on Water Street just south of Main Street along the Kalamazoo River in downtown. The building looks like a house and was most recently a wine bar and bistro on the lower level.
The Saugatuck location is nothing like the Grand Rapids one. The space is small. You walk into a small room just big enough for one large table and some old baseball stadium seats along the wall to have a place to sit and relax on busy nights.
Through the large open doorway is the bar area. Again, a very small bar with just a half dozen seats. There are three tables in this area. Two pub tables and a six top along the door the leads out to the patio. We were lucky enough that large table was open so we grabbed it.
During the warmer months, there is a pretty large outdoor seating area as well. There are wrought iron tables on the wraparound porch and some picnic tables in the side yard. There are also several wooden benches and lawn games if you’re just hanging out and having a few beers.
The menus were already on the table and the bartender said she’d be right over. There are slips of paper alongside the menu both for the beer flight and pizza flight. I grabbed one of each and went to work.
J knew what she wanted while I was filling out the flights. They don’t have any ciders on tap but they did have Mango Gold which is a kettle soured Wheat Ale made with Mangos. J, who’s not much of a beer drinker, liked this one and didn’t share much with me.
They had a few options for the kids but J let them have pop since they had “Orange Pop.” Each kid got a can of Faygo. When we asked for straws, the bartender brought back some plastic cups with lids to make it a little easier on them.
The flight at Mitten Brewing is six beers. It’s served on a flight board shaped like the State of Michigan or “The Mitten.”
Most of the options were IPA’s which I was totally fine with. There was one dark beer on tap and that’s what I started with. The Caught Lookin’ is a coconut porter. Very smooth. Just a little bit sweet.
The next beer in line was Relief Session IPA. This is an American IPA with low ABV and low IBU. Very sippable and quite delicious.
One of the non-IPA’s I picked was Teddy Raspberry. This is an American Wheat Ale made with raspberries. That sounds like where they got the name from, but The Mitten also has a baseball theme….see…that name has multiple meanings. It’s not just about the State of Michigan. Teddy Rasberry (no “p”) is actually a real person and was a pretty popular Negro League player/manager. He helped organize the Grand Rapids Black Sox and managed the Detroit Stars and Kansas City Monarchs. This beer is a tribute to his contributions to baseball and racial integration in the Grand Rapids area.
The next selection was also not an IPA. I picked the No Pepper Gose. Now, I normally don’t like this style of beer but I’m trying to get myself to try more so I picked this one and I actually really liked it. I can’t explain why but it was better than one’s I’ve had in the past.
Now we get back in to the IPA’s with one of The Mitten’s flagship beers. Country Strong is an American IPA with a little bit higher ABV and IBU making this one just a little bit hoppy and a little bit bitter but nothing super overpowering. This is one of my favorite IPA’s and definitely a favorite from The Mitten
And finally, I finished up with the big, hoppy, Imperial IPA Dock’s No-No. This is everything an Imperial should be. It’s hoppy. It’s citrusy. It kicks you right in the teeth. Delicious.
The only things on the menu at The Mitten in Saugatuck is pizza and a few appetizers. We knew the kids wouldn’t eat anything we ordered so we got them a cheese pizza to split. The smaller pizza is simple. Just red sauce and cheese on their delicious fire baked crust. Each kid ate a coupe of slices and we took the rest home for dinner.
So…um….pizza flight. How awesome is this idea. It feeds up to four people. It’s six small pizzas with four squares each. There are eight pizzas on the menu so it’s just deciding which two you don’t want.
The one I really wanted was Da Meat Hook. I actually had this one when I ate in the Grand Rapids restaurant several years ago so I knew it was tasty. This pizza is the house made tomato basil sauce, sausage, ham, bacon, and mozzarella. Seriously…so many tasty meats piled onto a fabulous fire baked crust.
The other pizza I really wanted to try was the Westerdog. The name clearly comes from Yesterdog in Grand Rapids and if you know anything about Yesterdog, you know what’s on this pizza. The base is a chili bean sauce topped with all beef hot dogs, Colby jack cheese, white raw onion, shredded kosher pickles, ketchup and mustard. This pizza was interesting to say the least. We both enjoyed it in small doses but would be hard pressed to eat an entire pizza of just this. The pizza flight is definitely the way to enjoy this one.
J’s pick was The Curse of the Goat (see what they’re doing with the baseball theme here?) This pizza is the tomato basil sauce topped with sausage, goat cheese, fresh basil and peppadew’s. The sausage on this was amazing. J even liked it and she almost never eats straight sausage. She also liked the fact this had a lot of goat cheese. I was ok with that but I don’t like it as much as she does. The sausage, however, holy cow (see what I did there with the baseball reference?).
The next one that we agreed on was the Magherita Pizza. This one is simple. Roasted garlic olive oil, fresh mozzarella, roma tomato slices, basil, and hop salt. This is one that really lets the freshness of the ingredients shine through.
The last two both had some things that sounded delicious and some things that didn’t. There are no substitutions or modifications on the flight so we rolled with and actually enjoyed both.
The first was the Field of Greens. This one is topped with a house made pesto, artichoke hearts, broccoli, green peppers, roasted garlic, feta, fresh basil, cremini mushrooms, roma tomatoes, and mozzarella. It was the mushrooms that gave us both hesitation. I don’t like a lot of the veggies but somehow being cooked on a pizza makes everything better. B saw the broccoli and reached for it right away so I pulled most of that off and gave it to him.
The last slice we did was the Pesto Chicken. This one also has a house made pesto as it’s base. The toppings are pulled chicken, red onions, artichoke hearts, cremini mushrooms, and mozzarella. This was our least favorite of the six mostly because neither of us typically like mushrooms and onions. By the time we got rid of those, there wasn’t much left. If you do like those things though, this will be a pizza you will enjoy.
Our bill was just under $50 before tip. When I asked the bartender for some boxes, she said we could settle up at the bar whenever we were ready. I did so while J packed up the leftovers as the pizza flight was more than the two of us could eat.
The Mitten Brewing Company offers such a unique pub experience with this pizza flight option. The pizzas are delicious and getting a chance to taste so many makes this a great stop with a group or a very hungry family. The beer is just as good as the food here and they’re draft list keeps growing with new and unique selections. This isn’t the biggest restaurant in town but if you find an open table, stop and take it.
SW Michigan Dining 