Pike 51 Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

Neat taproom with both bottle and wine sales (shares space as Hudsonville Winery) - excellent beer here, barrel aged stuff is really well done typically. Very diverse taplist typically, one of my favorite stops in GR area.

 

 

 

For a small town brewery, Pike 51 has exceptional beers. My wife and I like going to this place because it has both beer and wines(Hudsonville Winery). The actual venue size is fairly small and can get loud and crowded on weekend nights; otherwise, it is a very nice atmosphere. Food is very good but the menu is limited because the food comes from an outdoor food truck.

My only major complaint about this place is that you have to order everything from the bar and carry it back to your table.

 

 

 

Stopped in on a Saturday afternoon with my girlfriend. She's not into beer, so she did the wine tasting and really enjoyed their fruity wine offerings. I had the Funk Buddies and it was a solid sour, although I must say I was saddened that my visit just missed the availability of their vanilla bean bourbon barrel aged stout (Sensual Bean)... the tape over the name with the word 'OUT' written in sharpie taunted me the duration of my sentence at the bar.

The place was decently busy while we were there; every bar stool was taken, and some folks gathered around the bar for conversation with seated friends. The seating area to the right was also moderately busy. Service was fast and friendly. They have a limited food menu, and good lord is it tasty. I would come again just for the food. Standard pub fare executed wonderfully. We shared a pulled pork sandwich and soft, warm pretzels with beer cheese.

I was happy with my visit for 2 reasons:
1) Just over a mile from my new house in Hudsonville, this is my de facto neighborhood brewery, and I enjoyed being there. I will definitely be stopping here for a pint after work from time to time.
2) Having a significant other who doesn't share my passion for beer, this is the perfect place to go together. Decent beer selection for me, and fruity wines she was raving about. Not to mention the incredible pub food.

I took a bomber of Sabotage home (which I thoroughly enjoyed later, a good stout), as well as a growler of The Rodney, which was easy drinking but not incredibly memorable.

Definitely the highlight of the new breweries I went to on my KBS weekend. Great selection of beers that I felt were better than their ratings on here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kind of hard to identify upon pulling up in the parking lot, as Pike 51 shares a space with the Hudsonville Winery (same owners, same space).
After deciding this is where we want to be, we walked into the bar. The bar room is pretty typical, about 10 bar stools, with 12 taps or so. They had a great variety for beers on tap, we tried a bourbon barrel stout (good), IPA (quite good) and a few others I don't quite remember.
Mike the owner was kind enough to show us around the brew house and give us a little background on history and how and why they share a space with the winery. As it turns out, they started as a wine produced and added the brewing facility later.
They have gone through many changes over the past few years it sounds like, expanding quite a bit, and continuing to grow their business. I think the owners are very smart, hard working individuals and this place will continue to improve.
The brews were solid, there was a cool, relaxed vibe in the tap room, and it was welcoming. We didn't try any of the food, but looked and sounded like good pub food. We will definitely make it back when in the area again.

 

This brewery opened in June, 2012, and shares a building with Hudsonville Winery. My wife and I stopped in briefly to sample their beers but were not able to stay long. Since no one has posted a review yet, I'll get it started based on the limited time that I was there, and add to it after my next visit.

There will be a next visit because we liked this place. We had time for only a sampler of 4 of the 12 beers that were available, and I'll grade them as average to slightly above average. (You can get wine too.) We couldn't take time to order food, but the limited offerings sounded good from the menu descriptions. The menu listed that the food is available only on Thurs-Sat.

Unfortunately this was a quick stop to check out this brewery, but we enjoyed our visit and we'll go back again.