Great Baraboo Visit #2

Well, after the waiter at Copper Canyon said this was one of his favorite breweries, and we were in the neighborhood and in the beer-drinking mood (well maybe we're always in that mood..), Tim and I decided to stop by the Great Baraboo.

"Maybe it will be better this time," we thought. Walking in, it's your average sports bar with a TV in every corner, dark ambiance and music. The bar is a quite nice horseshoe shape and it had a lot of character. There are metal brewing canisters inside the room which at first looked like they were decoration but once I noticed the drains on the floor underneath, I realized they might actually be used for storing beer sometime in the brewing process.

We sit down at the bar and there are only advertisements about Bud Lite drink specials, food specials, and we didn't see anything about home brews. The bartender asked "what'll it be?" and when we said "can we see a beer list?" she was like "Oh.. you want to know about the house beers????" ... As with our first visit to Great Baraboo, we noticed this place is a sports bar first and brewery... third or fourth. It is just not the main attraction and it was obvious but the number of people who were drinking Bud Lites instead of the house brews.

With the house brew menu in hand, it was chock full of cleverly named beers and they seemed to cover all the main beer styles. Here is our review:

King's Peak Caribou Wheat

A] Not too shabby, but not the best wheat ever or anything 5/10
T] Just OK, not horrible offensive like the maple syrup P.A. 4/10

Hoppy Heartland Pale Ale

A] Too bittersweet for me 1/10
T] Tastes like maple syrup!! 1/10

As you can see, the Pale Ale didn't go over well, but the bartender was nice enough to swap out the P.A. for a Porter for free.

Boston Blackstone Porter

A] This could easily pass as cold coffee 4/10
T] Coffee taste lingers, heck of a lot better than the P.A. 6/10

This was all we were able to sample on our second visit. The price is right at Great Baraboo, their house brews were only $2.75 and if you really like the sports bar feel and the ability to have a Bud Lite as a back up plan, then this might be the place for you. We wanted to like this place but we felt the brewery portion of the business plan is somewhat of an afterthought.

Great Baraboo Brewing Company
http://www.greatbaraboo.com/
35905 Utica Rd
Clinton Township, MI