Pure Michigan Pints

Sister Lake Brewing Company

Dowagaic, Michigan

This place wasn’t on my radar at all. It turns out there’s a group of lakes known as “Sister Lakes.” This is a group of ten lakes within a 5-6 mile radius in southwestern Michigan. The first thing you notice when pulling into the parking lot—aside from the fact that it’s full—is that Sister Lake Brewing is directly next to the town hall. In fact, the two buildings are connected. I love shit like this.

Beer Selection—4/5

With around twenty drafts, there was quite a bit to choose from. Nothing really popped as far as the realms of creativity goes. (But I do see the industry leaning that way toward lower octane, safer beers, lagers, etc.)

When this happens, of course you have to get a flight to see what they have.

Vibes —3/5

I felt Eagles’ vibes here; in other words, a place the elderly go to hangout. Which in all honesty isn’t a bad thing, but I’m just not there yet in age (and hopefully I’ll croak before then). Not to toot my horn, but I felt young being here—not always a bad feeling. And you better believe if I’m still kicking it and breweries are still around, I’ll pull up and hobble along with my cane to get a beer.

Service—3/5

The service was average. The guy was friendly enough. A little confused at times perhaps? (Serving isn’t what I view as an easy job, and there’s no way I’d be able to hang doing it.)

Beer Quality—4/5

For the flight, I tried SPF (a tart Berliner Weiss cherry sour coming in at 7.5% made with Michigan cherries), King of the Raft (a Juicy hazy IPA coming in at 5.8%), Shady Shores Shandy (a 6.5% grapefruit shandy composed of their 12:00 session IPA and grapefruit soda), and Day Starter (a coffee brown ale with Nicaraguan coffee beans).

Overall, these were pretty solid beers. King of the Raft proved to be a lighter hazy and I got a 6-pack of the cans for their crushableness. Day Starter proved to be a nice twist on a brown—I love coffee in my beer. And even the SPF was a great beer; not one I could drink all the time, but a good sour that was everything it was meant to be.

Food—???

It’s hard to give a full account of the food as I only split an order of nachos with a few people. To score the food alone based on one item I only had a few bites of would be unfair.

Overall—14/20; Recommend

This probably won’t be the best brewery you’ve ever went to, but THAT’S OKAY. Not every brewery is meant to be this amazing special place of specialness. They each serve their niche. I’d return and try some of their food and see what beers they’re serving up. And it’s important to remember that breweries can mean more to the people around them—the regulars who go here—than they do to some stranger coming into town and giving it a rating from a one-off experience.

If I lived in town, I’d go to the town hall meetings/brewery meetings. Oh, and I definitely want to check out their lakes.