Mishawaka Brewing Company

No Longer In Business

We had a rather nice, relaxing experience here on what was otherwise a crazy weekend (with one exception that I will mention below). The brewpub features warehouse ceilings, dark woods, muted paint, lodge-like decor, high-backed booths & an expansive layout which was divided into comfortable sections. Helpful, friendly waitstaff & bartender. Ample selection of house beers spanning a variety of styles, except they were either hit or miss as far as quality. Their Founder’s Stout & Indiana Pale Ale were both rather good, while their APA was confusing and their Raspberry Wheat & Pumpkin Ale were disasters. Food was pretty darn good... blackened chicken was spicy as hell while my Steak Pie was hearty and satisfying. (Although maybe it was just me, but does anyone else think their chili tastes eerily similar to Taco Bell’s mild sauce?) The only downer on this visit was that they let a bunch of high school kids jam some classic Rock which boomed throughout the entire place. Please stop doing this, people. Let the bands play at music venues, not at breweries and restaurants. (At least have them set up outside. Your restaurant was not designed as a live performance arena.) Let me be comforted by your atmosphere, satisfied by your food & drink, attended to by your competent staff and entertained by my guests. If we want a pleasant drinking and dining experience, we hope a good brewpub can offer all of this. If we want to see a band, we’ll go buy a ticket and see a goddamned band. Stop accosting my ears with your mediocre local ’’talent’’.

I love this place. The atmosphere is pleasant and the waitstaff/bartenders are good. The food is decent, but not the best, although I do LOVE their onion rings. The beer is excellent as long as you get it on tap, I’m not a fan of it when buying it bottled and at the store. If you are in the area and want a nice place to rest and have a good pint then check them out.

This is an example of what I call More of a Restaurant Than A Brewery. The food wasn’t that great though... the onion rings started out good, but left a huge pool of grease on the table, after which I wasn’t very hungry for them. The beers were all very boring, nothing special here.

The outside looks uninviting and much like a closed down bank but go inside and it’s cozy and much like a hunting lodge with wood decor everywhere and just a ton of stuff on the walls. This place was much bigger on the inside and had tables all over the place with just a small bar in the middle. Service was great and food was very good. Got a sampler, ate some grub and chatted with the bartender. We’ll come back after next years Dark Lord again. A must if travelling on I-80.

The interior is dark and not so inviting. I only ate here once, and it was an ordeal.. we got there shortly after opening, and were the only customers for the duration of our stay. It was more than an hour before any of us had food, and our waitress was not attentive enough to keep the beers flowing during the excessive wait (and there was nobody behind the bar... we could’ve poured our own, and nobody would have known). The food was decent and cheap. I found the beers below-average, but they had a couple interesting ones available. I’ll go back, but I won’t be too excited about it.

Decent sized brewpub, that recently went no smoking, which I like! Friendly staff eager to help and promote their product with lots of samples. Had the Resolution, bought a 8 pack sampler.

I’m writing this from memory, but I remember it pretty well from a summer I spent at Notre Dame. Strange layout and lots of dark wood. I think that would have bothered me had it been busy, but I went in the early afternoon in the summer, so there were a total of about 4 customers in the whole building, so I think it was kind of cool. The beers varied in quality, and nothing really stood out. But it’s still a decent place to visit and have a few beers. The bartender was very friendly and pleasant... she was probably bored. Stop by if you find yourself in the area.

Foreboding run down abandoned Denny’s outside with a seedy sign does not really scream, "great brewpub." And this place is not great, but it isn’t bad either. Interior is slightly more inviting with green walls and dark wood, but still a little dingy and oddly layed out. Super cheap food prices, with reflective mediocre quality based on my dishes. No guest taps or decent bottles available, some macros and then their lineup of 8 to 10 beers including some seasonals. Service was excellent, but it was pretty slow when I stopped in for lunch. Beers were served at near perfect temperature, maybe a tad on the warm side. Bears were average to above average, nothing really stood out.

This is an average brewpub. It has a large bar area and an adjacent dining area of about equal size. Pretty standard bar atmosphere with lots of green and glossy wood. They have a couple of pool tables and dart boards. The food and service were pretty ordinary. A bit slow. The food menu had a good sized selection with a nice variety. They had six of their own beers on tap, along with some macros. The beer was $4 a pint. Seemed a bit steep for an average brew. The beer was about the same as the food. Not bad, but nothing to make me want to go out of my way to stop back in.

Mishawaka is a pretty homely place with some nice beers. I got there at opening time, so it was me and a few older men at the bar. Bar service was relatively fast, and the bar staff was quick and heavy handed with the samples (great!). However, the food service was slow, even though what I’d ordered was pretty simple. Food quality was not very impressive, but I only had one item off the menu so I wouldn’t take that comment too seriously. I was surprised by how inexpensive some of the menu items were. Beer selection was good. A couple of different pale ales, a stout, a dry Irish ale, and another described as either an American Strong Ale or barley wine. I had two beers and sampled several more, and was impressed with what I tasted. I came into town from the Indiana Turnpike (I80). Mishawaka was pretty easy to get to from the turnpike, and was also easy to get back to the highway. This was important to me, as I was just passing through. I didn’t see much of the rest of town, but what I did see was a lot of TGI-Fridays, Applebees, Max&Erma’s, etc...and Mishawaka is definitely far and away better than those places. Worth a try if you’re in the neighborhood.