Mackinac Island Brewhouse

• 312 S. Huron Avenue
• Mackinaw City, MI 49701
• (231) 436-5940
• No Known Website
• No Online Menu

Thursday was kind of our short day while working a full week on Mackinac Island.  I say short because it was only 7 hours instead of the 12-14 we had been working.  

We got over to the Island on the first ferry which leaves Mackinaw City at 7:30.  We did what we had to do then rushed back down to the docks for the 10:30 AM ferry just as it was starting to rain.   

I still had a few hours of work to do but I could do that back in my hotel.  We really wanted to beat the rain since we had to walk from the Grand  Hotel to the ferry then from the ferry to our hotel in Mackinaw City.  

I had plans that day.  I was going to drive over to St. Ignance just to look around.  I did that and got lunch at Clyde’s Drive-In.  Then I was going to get fudge and some souveniers.  I did that at Mackinac Island Fudge Company.  I also thought I would go see a movie.  I haven’t seen Shang-Chi yet and there’s apparently a small movie theater in Mackinaw City.  I slept through that though.  There was only one showing at 6:30 and I fell asleep watching King of the Hill around 4:00

By the time I woke up, I would have been pushing it to make it to the theater in time. I said screw it and thought I’d go check out the brewery across the street instead.

Mackinac Island Brewhouse is on Huron Street across from Conkling Heritage Park. The brewhouse is part of the larger Mackinaw Bay Trading Company complex. The building is pretty large and going by old Google maps, this part of the building used to be a Harley Davidson apparel store.

This is going to be hard to avoid so I’m just going to address it right now. The only lights inside the building were red. It was a little weird but wasn’t distracting once you got used to it. I’m sure at night it’s nice because you’re not being blasted with bright light but there’s also enough light to read a menu.

I took a seat at the bar and grabbed a menu. There was only one group there and they were sitting at a table in the corner. The bartender came over and asked if I had any questions.

I said but in reality, I had one huge question. Is this a brewery? They have the large kettles along the back wall so I assumed this was a brewery. They had no original beers on the menu. They had a decent craft beer list but I was expecting a brewery when I walked in and I don’t think that’s what I walked in to.

There were still some good beers to choose from so I decided to stay and have a couple. I was contemplating driving to Cheboygan to check out Cheboygan Brewing but I was still kind of sleeping and just wanted a few beers before heading back to the hotel and fall asleep while watching Rick and Morty reruns.

I was trying to find a beer that I can’t get in the southern part of the state and there were only a few on the menu that didn’t sound familiar to me. The first one picked was Bum’s Beach by Ore Dock Brewing Company out of Marquette. This beer is a seasonal wheat ale made with water from Lake Superior. I typically go for really hoppy beers but beers like this are really good sippin beers. Yeah….I didn’t really sip though. I downed this one pretty quickly.

The second beer I picked was an Oktoberfest. It was Bridge Walker from Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord. I’d really like to check this brewery out some time and probably should have just made the drive south but this would have to do for now. I’m so-so on Oktoberfest beers. They’re tasty but I don’t drink a lot of them. This one went down pretty easily as well.

There was no food menu that I was made aware of despite being an offshoot of Nonna Lisa’s (that’s what showed up on my credit card bill). They did have some flyer cards for Nonna Lisa’s pizza delivery service Papa Zo’s which I assume means you can order a delivery pizza and have it delivered to the bar.

I’m really not sure what the appeal of Mackinac Island Brewhouse is. I really want to like the place. It’s a nice big space with a pretty good tap list. The red lights are…something…and the fact they don’t (or at least didn’t) have their own beer or a a food menu really drags the place down. You could go next door to Nonna Lisa’s or Mackinac Island Winery and have a couple of beers in normal lighting.