Pure Michigan Pints

North Grove Brewers

Montague, Michigan

New year, new blog. These reviews are broken up into different criteria: beer selection, vibe, service, beer quality, and food. The three possible ratings are “Yay,” (meaning “yes”) “Nay” (meaning “no”), or “Ehhh,” (meaning “so-so”, or “okay”.)

As I sometimes do, I decided to explore a couple new—well, new to me—breweries north of my hometown of Muskegon, Michigan. In my head this is the north Muskegon area, but really the lines aren’t always clear between Montague and Whitehall to me.

The first stop: North Grove Brewers. Many people spoke highly of this brewery which led to my Sunday adventures.

Beer Selection—Ehhh

Despite having a few different styles, they didn’t exactly have anything that hit the mark for me personally. They had a few IPAs, a fruity beer, a few odd-ball beers as well, but nothing crazy unique to put them on the map.

But there were enough beers to build a flight—a necessity when visiting any new brewery. I sampled beers such as their IPA, dark beer, and their grapefruit Radler (my mom liked this one). So there’s enough to try here. According to workers at the brewery, they constantly change their draft list. So some of this may be the luck of the draw and your personal taste.

Vibe—Yay

There are 20,000 pin ball machines in this brewery. Okay, not really, but they have a substantial amount. The place is reminiscent of Craig’s Cruisers or an arcade you may, or may not have, visited when you were a child.

The best part? On Sunday it’s free pinball. Keep this in mind if you have kids and are looking for cheap entertainment in the Monatgue area. Not to mention: You can’t really go wrong with pinball!

Aside from arcade-like vibes, this place gives off slight industrial vibes. Cement floor. Not a completely finished look. However, there’s a decent sized bar.

Service—Yay

The server at the bar was more than friendly and worked with us on getting samples and flights while attending to others as well. Even one of the owners took time to talk to me (I don’t openly announce I’m writing a beer blog to them, and this was before I even started the blog). He was a friendly guy. Told me about the history of the brewery.

Beer Quality—Nay

The downfall of having too many beer styles on tap and in the brewing process can sometimes be: Not enough effort is devoted to the quality of a handful of beers. This is completely the case with North Grove Brewers. When stretching out and trying so many beer styles—boasting 50 in the first year—it’s unclear what their identity is without a single flagship beer to boast about.

None of the beers necessarily stood out among the bunch. But there’s still time for them to make some all-stars somewhere down the road.

North Grove even boasts about how they have different beers on draft all the time. It’s great to have variety, but without mainstays it’s hard to pull it off. If you do go there and find a beer you like, realize it might not be on draft at all the next time you’re there.

Food—???

Since I only got an appetizer here (fish dip), I can’t judge the food too harshly. I already ate breakfast before coming, so was only in the mood for a snack. The menu didn’t look crazy refined, but I would have loved to try more if I had been hungry because their pizza menu looked pretty solid. :[

Overall— Ehhh

If you’re in the area, I think you should form your own opinion of this brewery. However, I probably wouldn’t travel out of my way exclusively for this brewery (then, again, maybe I would to try their pizza).

Now, if you’re looking for free Pinball on a Sunday … that’s another story.