Michigan continues to expand its craft beer offerings. For the past year or so, I had been hearing
rumblings about a brewery opening just north of Ann Arbor in Brighton,
Michigan. Indeed, I finally got word that it had opened
in early July, 2014. My wife and I
headed over to the Brewery Becker after a nice day of golf at Whispering Pines
Golf Course (which by the way offers an impressive variety of Michigan craft
beers, but that is another post).
Brewery Becker (http://brauereibecker.us/)
is located in an historic building on Main Street. They have really done a great job with the
building that was formerly the Western House Hotel (1873). The space is done in hardwoods and brick. It has an Olde Town feel. The staircase up the three stories is cast
iron and pretty cool. A beer garden is
planned next to the brewery, but this is still under construction.
We arrived late afternoon on a Sunday. The place was surprisingly empty. The waitress was very friendly and answered
our questions about the beer and brought us sample tastes. Brewery Becker had nine beers available (the
hefeweisen was sold out). We tasted a
couple of stouts, the saison, the Belgian triple, and the English IPA. All were very good and represented their
respective styles admirably. I
particularly liked the farmhouse style Saison.
The brewery also had what they called a Viking style beer (I don’t
recall the name) that looked interesting.
I’ll try that the next time I visit.
The brewery does not really offer much by way of food. It has popcorn, hummus and pita, and what looked like pigs-in-a-blanket (those
did not look too appetizing). You can,
however, bring in food and many of the local restaurants will deliver. Our waitress even walked across the street to
get a menu for us. We ended up ordering
a pizza from a place right across the street but had to go pick it up
ourselves. Good food with good beer.
It is clear that Brewery Becker is just getting started and
I expect the place will continue to expand and attract beer-lovers from around
the area. Becker Brewery has two solid
pillars on which to build: a very cool
building and excellent beer. I look
forward to a return visit.
Cheers,
Zymus
