Paddle Hard Brewing

 

 

Stopped by while staying the night in Grayling. Had passed by several times over years but never popped in. Thursday night, not too busy but still busier than expected. One side of the building is tables and a bar with about a dozen taps. Most are taken up by outside breweries, a few are Paddle Hard's own. The other side of the building is merchandise and a small bar with wine on tap that evening. Got a couple of howlers filled. Service was fast and friendly. Prices are reasonable.

Actually there are 2 places, blocks from each other, One is the brewpub; with food and guest beers, the other is the expanding Micro-brewer; with a nice tap room with just their beers. The selection is great, 16-20 of their own beers, many porters and Stouts, which i like to see. Staff a new location and brewer are very knowledgeable.

First of two Grayling, MI places visited on a Thursday afternoon (so not crowded). Went to the Taproom so didn't try the food, which is available at the main location across the street. At least 12 Paddle Hard brews on tap and (according to the board) more coming soon. Son and I did two separate flights of four. Good mix of styles - tried the bourbon barrel stout, the Aussie lager, the summer ale, the cherry wheat, the pilsner, a coconut orange porter and a cinnamon stout. Nice size location with a couple of couches off the main entrance. Typical bar chairs which are okay for normal people but not so much for my short wife. Friendly helpful staff. Might not get back this year but will stop again when we come up for the summer.

 

 

 

 

Nice cozy taproom, cool vibe with some couch seating. The two house beers were very meh but nice selection of guest taps. Service was good and food was small but excellent.

 

This was stop #16 on a 6-day pub crawl that would take my wife and me to the Brewers Guild UP Beer Fest and back. This is one of two new breweries in Grayling that we visited this day. The pub is located in a downtown storefront setting. A small patio area has been blocked off on the sidewalk at the front of the building. The interior has a good vibe to it for its décor. Food is available, but we did not order anything.

We wanted to try all of the brewery's beers, but only three were on tap. We ordered a sampler flight of 6 beers (served in a muffin baking tin) which we filled out with three other breweries' beers that were also on tap (20 taps total plus a dozen or so bottles). The three beers are brewed to style, although the black IPA was a bit too roasty to me and masked the hops a bit. We gave an overall grade of C+ to the beers, although two of them were given a B- grade but the black IPA dropped the overall score. It's a place that is worthy of a visit, and maybe if they had more of their own beers on tap the overall score would not be so affected by one average beer.

 

This place is cool. Its cool because there is 20 beers on draft all the time right in downtown Grayling. We did not try the food.. so can't rate that. The beer that they brewed was not impressive. Actually looks like they brew only beer from malt extract judging by the huge vats of LME in the brew room. Which was an eye opener. The beer we tried was a honey wheat beer from them. We actually didn't like it and they took it off the bill. Hope they brew better beers in the future / take off and are able to brew beer that tastes good.

Other than that beer everything was great. service was just O.K. as it was a slow night and not much going on.. took a while to get refills etc.

But location and selection wise you can't beat the place ! Will definitely be back.

This was a nice unexpected find in Grayling Michigan. It's very easy to find and it's right in the middle of town. It's nice looking place, the bar area was long and it had a nice vibe, you could tell they put a good amount of thought and work into it. The highlight was their awesome 20 tap system that had 2 flat screen tvs that displayed the beer, serving glass and size, ABV, price and how filled the keg was, I thought that was really cool and I haven't seen that anywhere else. They had a good selection of beer with a good amount of different styles and some beers that are a little harder to get. They had three of their beers on tap, I tried two of them and wasn't too impressed, but I was told that they just opened up at the end of 2014 so they may still be working out the kinks. One of the brewers told me they brew on a one barrel system. Overall it was a nice place, especially for that part of Michigan and next time I'm passing through Grayling I'll make sure to stop in.