Rochester Mills is still a new brewery, only having opened earlier this year. They are a sister brewery to the Royal Oak Brewery, which has been around since 1995, and the head brewer at Rochester came over from Royal Oak. Anyone familiar with the Royal Oak brewery will find some similarities here. The menu is similar with some of the same items and the beers have the same quality. Rochester Mills is a former factory that has been made over with the all so common industrial style of many brewpubs. The only difference is that here the atmosphere is fitting because of the former tenant. The bar is laid out nicely and they have pool tables and plenty of televisions for entertainment. Rex Halfpenny of the Michigan Beer Guide also hosts special beer tastings at Rochester Mills that I definitely don't want to miss. For an appetizer, I tried a cup of clam chowder, which was excellent. Many large chunks of clam that were tender and tasty instead of the common pot of potatoes with rubbery clam bits. Dinner for me was the Jambalaya Pie Pizza, which was very tasty. The Chef at Rochester Mills has good judgement with seasoning and doesn't overpower the dish with herbs or spices. Chuck and I chose to sample each of their seven beers by ordering the 5 oz. samples. The Lazy Daze Lager was a lighthearted beer, which tasted like Labatts Blue with a more pronounced hop character. The Big Horn Bitter was anything but. I found it somewhat bland and not really bitter at all. The Rochester Red was my favorite. It was well balanced and had a nice color and a slightly fruity nose. The Cornerstone IPA was very mild as IPA's go. It was not nearly as heavily hopped as the typical example of the style. The Water Street Wheat was very wheaty and had an impressive color. Basically, it looked like someone served up a glass of grapefruit juice. This was definitely not a filtered brew like so many brewpubs seem to do with their wheats. The flavor was smooth and pleasing. The Sacri-licious Stout was mild and a little too thin, but had a nice coffee bean finish. Finally, I disliked the Michigan Mild. It tasted like heavily watered down stout and had a metallic taste that hit me almost immediately and turned me off.
Rochester Mills on Water Street in downtown Rochester is kind of a toss up. Either what you get will be outstanding, or it will be unremarkable. The building was constructed in the late 1800's and has kept a lot of the original character. The buildings outside looks great with all the stone, brick and many windows. The inside is your typical wood ceiling beam industrial themed microbrewery but at this location it is appreciated becasue of the buildings history. The pool tables are a nice touch, if you can afford to pay the hourly rate or show up on free pool Tuesday. They do have a martini/cigar room and an outside patio, which is nice when the weather permits. After four visits, I must say that the beer is for the most part mediocre. Nothing all that distinctive or outstanding but still drinkable. We tried all seven of the house beers (red, wheat, mild, lager, stout, IPA and bitter) All are brewed in the English vein. I do give props to the head brewer for making a bitter and a mild 2 mainstays on the menu. Both styles are all but forgotten in other breweries. The only seasonal beer I have tried was the extreme IPA, which seemed very harsh and metallic compared to even the hoppiest of American IPA's. As for food, the Thai pizza was creative and delicious as was the clam chowder. I have never had clam chowder with such tender clams and such a rich thick stock. The nachos are also really good and big enough to feed three people. I have also tried the whitefish pate, sautéed mushrooms and baba ganouj which were all very good. The only disappointing food item I had was the fish tacos. They were basically a really skimpy portion of mahi mahi fajitas. The wait staff has always been very good at Rochester Mills. I can walk to this place from my house so I'll definitely be back for the food and the guest taps which have included Bells Old Ale, Bells Oberon, Lindemans Framboise, Boon Cherry Kriek, and Rogue Lager.