Pure Michigan Pints

Newaygo Brewing Company

Newaygo, Michigan

Places change.

I’ve gone to Newaygo Brewing Co. plenty of times over the years with friends (one time in a snowstorm), family, girlfriends, etc. I only remember it being great. Top notch service. Good beer. And amazing pizza.

But this was well over 6 years ago—a pre-COVID time; none of these times were in recent memory. I visited again in October 2024 (my rule is to only write about breweries I’ve been to in the last year; I keep in mind places change)

This time I had a drastically different experience.

Beer Selection—3/5

There were 9 beers to choose from, one hard seltzer, and three ciders. I tried 7 of the 9 beers and two ciders. They lean darker (even their IPA is a black IPA). For having nine beers they did fairly decent on having variety. Could they have had a regular IPA? Probably. But overall, I wasn’t disappointed with the selection of beers. (The execution of these beers is another story; that I will get to later.)

Vibe—3/5

It’s a nice little restaurant. Nothing too fancy going on to distract or take away from it; overall, it’s pretty average and what you would probably expect.

Service —1/5

I am being generous giving Newaygo Brewing a 1/5 in this category. (And I don’t do 0’s.)

I got the worst service I’ve gotten at a brewery in a long time. There were only two people (when I first arrived) to host, work the bar, and all of the tables. It simply didn’t work. We had to wait about 10 minutes before even being asked what we would like to drink.

It’s a good place to go if you want to watch other people drink. The plus here is you don’t need to worry about drinking and driving; you won’t get served quickly enough to feel the effects of the alcohol.

Expect to wait 20-30 minutes after you finish your beer to be asked if you’d like another one. When I asked for a full pour I asked for my bill as well because I honestly didn’t know if anybody would be back to our table. (Make sure to specify you want napkins and silverware as well with your meal.)

Perhaps they were understaffed, and it was a management problem? Maybe the waitresses weren’t properly trained?

I hope they figure out their problems. And I hope even more I just happened to catch them on an off day.

Beer Quality—2/5

The Coconut Brown is a phenomenal beer (provided you like coconut). I remember this beer from a long time ago; it’s great.

Unfortunately, the other beers fell a bit flat. The espresso stout, the milk stout, and the pecan porter were all drinkable. Would I order a full pour of any of the three? No. The milk stout tasted bland, you didn’t get any “pecan” in the pecan porter, and the espresso had good coffee flavor but simply not enough coffee in it.

The fruity pebbles milkshake IPA proved inventive and sounded like a good idea. However, I didn’t taste any of the fruity pebbles in it; I’ve had far better milkshake IPAs before.

Food—2/5

Their crab Rangoon pizza just didn’t hit right; I hope the other pizzas are still good. I used to LOVE their pizza, but it seems that’s gone downhill a bit too. The sauce tasted super artificial, and it was not one of the better crab Rangoon pizzas I have had. (Three Blondes has the best one I’ve had.)

The Rueben seriously lacked meat (I thought the thin bread would be the breaker but that actually turned out good). Overall, it was a pretty poorly constructed Rueben sandwich. Put frankly: I’ve had better.

Overall— DO NOT RECOMMEND

I didn’t set out writing this review to dislike Newaygo Brewing. In fact the opposite: I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight a great brewery. I thought it would be a layup.

This only proves to be a reminder that places change and sometimes not for the better. I cannot recommend Newaygo Brewing to anybody; I do not recommend going if you want good service, food, or beer.

Instead, I’d tell someone to check out Cedar Springs Brewing. Newaygo is not worth your time in the current state it’s in.

Rating: 9/20