Reed City Brewing Company
141 Upton AvenueWe always plan our trips to Traverse City around beer and water slides. It’s not unusual for us to hit up breweries along the way and even while we’re in town.
We didn’t have a lot of time on our most recent trip home from Great Wolf Lodge. We had to get the kids back for their ice skating lessons at 4:00 so we had a very small window of time to stop and eat along the way.
I did a Google search for “Breweries along my route” and actually got a couple of hits of places we haven’t been to because I didn’t even know they existed.
We picked Reed City Brewing in Reed City (duh). The brewery is in downtown on the corner of Upton Avenue and Higbee Street. The first thing you notice about the place is the sign. It looks like they took and old city limits sign and crossed out “city limits” and replaced it with “Brewing Company.”
We got to the brewery right as they were opening. There was another group of construction workers that looked like they were taking a break to eat lunch who walked in right before us. It’s a seat yourself situation so we found a four top away from them and waited for the bartender/waiter to finish up with them and bring us some menus.
The space is nice but pretty small. There are old hardwood floors underneath and solid wood furniture all around. There’s a small seating area with leather couches and board games if you’re just looking to relax. The kids took their tablets and went over there while we waited for our food.
There’s also a pretty good size bar in the back corner of the dining room. It’s not super fancy but it gets the job done. The taps are all off to one side with the mug club mugs lined up on shelves right next them.
We started with drinks. I skipped the flight and just ordered the Double Zeus IPA. There wasn’t a lot on the menu that really jumped out at me so one drink was fine. Double Zeus is a Double IPA. The menu listed this beer as a 6% ABV but it’s actually double that. The bartender made sure to point that out before I ordered. The beer is strong and very citrus-y. These are the kinds of DIPA’s I really love but probably shouldn’t drink more than one of.
J ordered the Sour Blood Orange. There were no ciders on the menu so she went with a sour. The beer had a little bit of a citrus flavor to it but it was more sour than I can handle. She’s a fan of sours. I am not. She liked it…I thought it was fine but likely would never order on my own.
The food menu at Reed City Brewing Company was much better than I would have expected it to be when I randomly found the place online. They don’t do burger but they have a pretty large list of sandwiches, wraps, and salads to choose from.
I picked the Cuban Sandwich. This sandwich has slow roasted pork, Bavarian smoked ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and brown mustard. The sandwich is kind of constructed like a grilled cheese with a deliciously brown, golden crust on the bread. There is a pretty large portion of the roasted pork with a few slices of ham and cheese on top of it. I got fries with my meal too. They were out of the bag steak fries but delicious and filling.
J did the Soft Tacos off the appetizer menu as her meal. The tacos comes with seasoned beef but she substituted pulled pork for an extra dollar. The pork was topped with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sour cream. The meal comes with corn tortillas chips on the side with a choice of nacho cheese or salsa. She picked the salsa. There was a lot of pork in each of the flour tortillas. The pork is clearly roasted but it’s soft and tender. I prefer corn tortillas over flour..but I wasn’t eating them so my opinion doesn’t matter.
Reed City Brewing Company did have a kids menu but my picture of it didn’t turn out. L didn’t want to order off it though. She just wanted a salad so we ordered her the tossed salad which comes with lettuce, tomato, onion, green pepper, shredded cheese and croutons…but left off everything but the shredded cheese. She chose ranch as her dressing and ate the whole bowl.
B did order of the kid’s menu and got chicken strips. These may have been frozen chicken strips but they were really good. They were big, plump, juicy pieces of chicken in a dark golden brown coating. His plate came with chips which looked home made. He asked for some ranch with his meal too and actually ate about a strip and a half alongside some chips.
Our bill for lunch came out to just under $50 which included two drinks.
Reed City Brewing Company is a great small town brewery. They’re one of those places that doesn’t have 30 beers and variants on tap but they have s a solid line up to serve alongside some delicious food.
SW Michigan Dining 