Well after visiting the Islands of Michigan over the last few days, let’s come just a little closer to home and visit one of the newest convicts on cell block O, Barrister Brewing Company in downtown Owosso, Michigan. After having just opened in May of this year, this place is on its way to becoming a big, new player in the Michigan beer market.
Barrister Brewing Company is a law themed brewery that is owned by former state prosecutors and attorneys……..what an odd coincidence………Everywhere you look there are law themed decorations. For instance instead of a mug club, they have a mug-shot club, where everyone in it gets a polaroid picture taken and put on the wall in a line-up. All the tap handles are gavels. Even the flights are served on wooden planks that were decorated to look like legal books that you see in a lawyers office, or in a study that smells of rich mahogany. Their logo also consists of a dog wearing a powdered wig, like all the pictures of old presidents and supreme court justices that you probably remember seeing in your ninth grade history books.
They are somewhat of a smaller place, but they have a long bar that could probably seat around 20 people or so. They also have about 15 to 20 tables throughout the place if you don’t want to sit at the bar or are with a group of friends. If you haven’t noticed yet, I like to sit at the bar when I go places. The staff was very friendly and willing to answer any questions about the beer, the building, or the town of Owosso that you might have.
As you can guess the beer also has law themed names. I’m assuming that all of them have law themed names, but some probably went over my head. I am not a lawyer, and if I am a lawyer, I think I might need a pay raise. They had a total of nine beers on tap, so I sat down to be Judge, Jury, and Executioner, and had my obligatory flight that I have at every place. After my first flight I realized the verdict had come in and this place was guilty of having extremely delicious beer. One member of the jury didn’t agree with me, oddly enough, it was My Cousin VInny. So I had to have a retrial, get a second flight and go back to the deliberation room to try the rest of the beers on the menu. All nine of their beers were outstanding and Barrister Brewing Company was acquitted on all charges.
As far as the beers themselves go they had an IPA, Belgian Strong Ale, Blonde, Hefeweizen, Baltic Porter, Brown Ale, Mexican Lager, Kolsch, and a Witbier on tap. All ended up being very good representations of their styles and there wasn’t a single beer that I would turn down a full pint of. The Razor Sharp Wit, The Recidivist German Ale, and La Tribuna Cerveza all ended up being outstanding. But the star of the show was the Honest Blonde. On a personal side note, I generally don’t care too much for blonde ales. Not every beer is meant for every person, and most of the time I pass on drinking blonde ales. But this blonde might have been the most exceptional tasting blonde ale that I have had in my entire life. It was light, crisp and refreshing but also had enough teeth that it didn’t feel like you were drinking a blonde at all. I would drive over an hour to Owosso just to drink this beer, and take as much home as I could possibly fill my car up with.
So on your next beer trip if you are driving through Owosso, and you think about skipping Barrister Brewing Company, I object. You may end up with multiple felonies on your rap sheet that will send you directly to beer jail for the next 25 to life.
Was that enough law puns for one beer review? Overruled.
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