I’m the kind of person who likes to sit on the porch in the summer and enjoy a good beer or six. I’m not much of a “bar person”, in that I would much rather sit on a couch and converse with friends over drinks. Since I am a struggling student living in poverty, I do not posses a porch to do this on. This is where Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti comes in. Corner is a local brewery owned by the Arbor Brewing Company. They only serve beers that are brewed in house, with the majority of them being fantastic. They usually have 6-7 beers on tap, and have selections for anyone. I would recommend the Blonde or the Sacred Cow IPA, but you really can’t lose here.
From their website:
“The original promise of the microbrewery movement was one of wide ranging styles, beers of distinction and quality, served up by small regional breweries providing fresh beer with a unique local character.
That has always been the driving force behind every beer we brew. In addition to classic, true-to-style favorites like our Sacred Cow I.P.A., Bavarian Bliss Hefeweizen, Espresso Love Breakfast Stout, and Phat Abbot Dubbel and Triple; we also like to blend styles and add unexpected twists. Our goal is to respect styles and traditions without being a slave to them.”
A detailed list and description of each beer can be found here.
The beer that is served at Arbor Brewing Company and Corner all have exactly the same recipes. The beer at Arbor Brewing Company is served at Arbor Brewing Company and the beer brewed at Corner is served at Corner. The same four people brew the beer at the two places.
Besides the beer, the great thing about Corner is the atmosphere. This is unlike any bar I’ve ever been to. Inside are chairs and tables, but couches and large comfortable booths surround them. When you go out back, there is a large beer garden and a porch with more couches. They also have a large collection of board games and trivia. If you want to come challenge me at 90’s trivia, let me know. I will be happy to embarrass you. The idea of the bar is to re-create brew pubs you may see in Germany and you’ll likely see kids and families enjoying games, cards, WiFi, and beer(not the kids). Go there enough times, and you’ll likely run into a drunk hippie who wants to talk philosophy with you, which is usually fun for the first twenty minutes then gets old for the next two hours.
The real reason I write this is because Corner recently expanded their food menu. It used to be that you could order your own food from outside, whether it be pizza or even take out from Sidetrack. I believe you can still do that, but they finally realized that they could make a few dollars serving their own food. I’ve tried their menu the last few visits and haven’t been very impressed, but the food is far from terrible. They offer a lot of basic menu options including burgers, brats, dips and sandwiches. They also pledge to use local sourcing whenever possible and also choose ingredients that are fresh, natural, and sustainable.
For this particular visit, I decided to get the roast beef and cheddar sandwich with a Hungarian farm cheese spread. I was a little hesitant to order a burger, which I will probably do one of these days, so I went with the sandwich. Didn’t turn out too bad, but wasn’t great either. The beef was a little fatty and not tender enough to be on a sandwich. One bite took most of the roast beef with it. Much chewing was required. Can’t complain though, as I have had much worse sandwiches.
Stephanie is a nachos fanatic and decided to go with the vegetarian seitan nachos. These are locally made corn chips piled with black bean spread, 3-cheese blend, fajita seitan strips, onions, black olives, jalapeno peppers, and fresh salsa. I didn’t try these mainly because vegetarian food and me just don’t get along. She enjoyed them, however.
All in all, I’d say Corner is making great strides with their food but it needs a bit of improvement. It’s great that I can go and enjoy pretty high quality food while drinking their great beer, but I just think there’s a bit of room for improvement.
Corner Brewery
720 Norris St
Ypsilanti, MI 48198
(734) 480-2739
http://www.arborbrewing.com/index.php?site=cornerbrewery