Pure Michigan Pints

City Built Brewing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

This is my own subjective review. I’m highly opinionated. It’s out of 20 total (based on Beer Selection, Vibe, Service, and Beer Quality; I grade harshly and my 4 is probably most people’s 5. Also, I don’t count food against breweries in the total because not all breweries need food to be good and some are in a partnership with nearby restaurants.

City Built Brewing has been on my radar of breweries to visit in Grand Rapids. Admittedly, I don’t venture to GR as much as I would like. Upon peer pressure, I decided to tag along with some friends to see what it was all about. (I mean, of course, I never drink beer unless I’m peer pressured.)

Beer Selection—5/5

City Built touches on quite a few beers. I felt having three “session IPAs” seemed a bit redundant when it came to styles. In conclusion: there could have been more or different beers on draft, especially in the darker regions of beer, but I felt satisfied with the beers overall. (More on this later.)

The names pop on these beers and they even sound interesting.

Vibe—3/5

It looks smaller from the outside. Inside there’s more depth. The artwork makes the building stand out. Where you get the beers is clearly marked—not all breweries do this—so the setup works. The seating proved more comfortable than expected with some softer chairs. (There were actually booths in this brewery.)

Service—4/5

I didn’t get much of a chance to chat with the servers, but they seemed friendly enough. One of the session IPA’s carbonation wasn’t correct, so they let me know and I let the server pick out one of my other beers to complete my flight, and he smartly chose their double-IPA to give me the full scope of their beers.

Beer Quality—5/5

Overall, the beers here do not disappoint and are surprising; they make me like styles of beer I don’t normally go for. Example: they had a Tangerine sour with lactose in it (I’m typically not a sour fan, but the lactose smoothed it right out), and they nailed the Octoberfest beer and the Elegant Elephant. My personal favorite this go around was the Prana—a Pina Colada beer—with pineapple and coconut that was both “tart” and “creamy” as promised by the description.

Every single beer was good in its own way; for a full flights you don’t get this too frequently.

Food—???

The brewery does have a food menu, and I hear they have AMAZING Puerto Rican food; I like this as a mix-up compared to pizza, a typical American menu, or only bar food. However, on this particular day the brewery experienced a staffing shortage and, therefore, the kitchen was not open. The disappointment was real. Luckily, The Mitten distracted me from the rumbling in my stomach, promising mouth-watering award-winning pizza only a short E-scooter (or E-Bike) ride away.

Overall

I’d strongly recommend going to City Built brewing if you haven’t done so already. I’d be a regular at this place if I lived in the area. I’ll definitely be back and their restaurant better be open next time! I don’t see many of their beers (if any) in distribution my way, but I’ll keep my eye out and hope they expand.

Total—17/20