War Water Brewery: St. Clair Michigan
This past weekend while my wife and I were camping down in Algonac, Michigan, we decided to head out and do a bit of exploring on Friday. We got up and after making breakfast we took a nice mile walk through the different loops of the campground. After relaxing for a bit and then taking showers, we hopped in the truck and headed north along the East coast of Michigan on the St. Clair River.
I actually forgot to mention this in my post on Monday, but from where we were sitting at our campsite, you could look across the river and see Canada. The border is actually right down the middle of the river and those houses you see in the photo above are Canadians living their happy little lives.
Anyway, we headed North through Marine City, which is a cute little town on the shores of the Saint Clair River, and continued a bit further North to the town of St. Clair.
We got stopped on our way through town by a drawbridge that was letting a boat pass through. The traffic was backed up pretty far and by the time we got up to the bridge there was no boat in sight, so I don't know if it just opens on a regular schedule or if there was an actual boat. We are very familiar with drawbridges like this, our first home was in a town that has four of them.
Our destination was a place called War Water Brewery. It took us a little bit to find it because it is kind of tucked away in an open air mall. It reminded me a lot of the old style arcades that you find in historic downtown areas.
I know the photo above might be kind of hard to see, but that is the mall area and War Water sits right in the middle of that open area with other stores flanking it on the right and left. There were also several other restaurants and bars in the surrounding area, which gave it a kind of cool bier garden feel. I would imagine on a Friday and Saturday night in the summer this is a trendy place to hang out.
I didn't get any shots of the inside of the establishment because it was such a nice day out we decided to sit outside and watch the ships go by on the river. Given how hot it had been recently, it was refreshing to enjoy such a beautiful day outside.
We had agreed we were just going to get some appetizers and beers and call it a day. The food on the menu looked delicious, but we had just eaten breakfast a few hours ago and we had dinner planned back at the campsite, so we didn't need anything huge.
Of course, since it was a brewery, we had to try some of the beers. @mrsbozz is a sucker for a good Hefeweizen, so that is what she got, and I tried out their marzen. It was a solid marzen, but not as good as a traditional feist beer. Sometimes you are never quite sure what you are going to get when a brewery does their take on a marzen. Being honest, I don't usually drink a lot of heavier beers like this in the summer, but since they had it on their menu, I had to try it.
Like I said, all the food sounded really good, but we eventually settled on the hand made mozzarella sticks and their queso dip. This is where War Water failed us a little bit. We specifically asked if it was possible to get the queso without the ground beef in it. They said sure that was no problem, so we get the queso, eat a few bites, and then suddenly I realized they had buried ground beef down at the bottom. I didn't mind, but @mrsbozz doesn't really eat beef, so it was kind of a turn off for her.
Our server was great though, and we politely if not timidly pointed it out to her and she immediately took it back and got us some more without the beef. I liked both of them and if I am being honest, I preferred the beef one, but I'd do anything to make my wife happy...
As we were sitting there, more people started to show up to the brewery. We quickly started to realize that St. Clair might be a bit more upscale town than we are used to. Ladies in tennis or golf skirts like they had just come from the country club, men in suits, etc. Granted, it was the middle of the day on Friday, but still, my wife and I are more blue collar than white collar, so we felt a bit out of place.
However, that didn't stop us from getting more beers! @mrsbozz got another hefeweizen, and I decided to get a few 5 oz pours of their amber beers. I got the Boston Brawla, the Chuggernaut, and the Rose Tattoo. I have to say, the Rose Tattoo was my absolute favorite. It was pretty amazing. Sadly, as we were getting ready to leave they didn't have the Lil Hef in cans for us to take to go, so we ended up getting La Playa which is their take on a light Mexican lager.
On our way back to the campground, we stopped at this ramshackle joint in Marine City called Foxfire Fixin's to get some BBQ sides like baked beans and some cornbread. The beans were good, but the cornbread was pretty dry. I can't say I would recommend it. I think you would be much better of continuing north to St. Clair for War Water. If I am ever in this area again, I will definitely be heading back to War Water Brewery.
Given the alcohol content of this post, I am tagging it with @beersaturday sponsored by @detlev.
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This must be one of the funnier semi-German loanwords I discovered today.
this word hasn't really been on my bingo card for German words in an American post.
Sounds like I would feel like at home on a visit to the US. 😆
Like I said, my wife loves a good Hefeweizen. I thought sure if anything I would get some props for using feist beer. That was really just me trying to be classy. Most Americans just call it a "beer garden" in about the most American accent you can imagine.
I appreciate it!