Royal Oak Brewery
Royal
Oak, Michigan
November
1, 1998
-
Royal Oak Brewery is
basically Rochester
Mills Brewing’s older brother. Both places are owned by the same
group of people and both places are extremely similar. The menu is
almost identical and the quality of the food is very good. The wood
fired garlic cheese bread is a steal for the price being that it almost
a small pizza. The smoked salmon pate and pasta dishes are all really
good. The beer is almost identical to Rochester Mills also but with
less variety. At any given time, they will only have five of their
own beers on tap. I have tried the wheat, porter, red, pale ale,
ESB and IPA plus some of the seasonals such as the Scottish wee heavy,
Irish stout, Irish red ale and English bitter. All were decent drinking
beers but nothing outstanding to talk about. Good place to go if
you find yourself in Royal Oak and need to escape the trendy meat market
atmosphere of Main Street.
-
Today was my sixth
visit to Royal Oak Brewery. They had a brew called Drunkin' Druid
Red which I presumed was a special for Halloween (the little pumpkin and
Happy Halloween that they drew on the title board on the tank helped my
guess along as well.) This was probably one of the best beers I have
tasted at either Royal Oak or Rochester
Mills (Royal Oak's sister brewery.) The Drunkin' Druid was a
deep red in color with a wonderfully malty nose and taste. While
not nearly as hoppy as many reds it appealed to me greatly. It went
down smooth with no discernible aftertaste. The Brewery itself is
pretty nice inside with stained oak barstools and common brewpub decor.
The menu is refreshing, with a number of selections that you don't often
find like a very tasty shepherd's pie and a number of Cajun dishes including
jambalaya and lamb chops with Cajun spices. Chuck and I also find
the salmon pate to be very tasty served up with crackers, capers, and red
onions. Like Rochester
Mills, I often find the beers to be somewhat lacking. They tend
to have a good flavor and nose but seem too watery to be totally enjoyable.
One major drawback is the parking situation. Parking is available
on the street but it is limited and metered. Directly adjacent to
the building is a nice lot covered with signs stating that the lot belongs
to the neighboring building and brewery customers will be towed but many
brewery patrons disregard the signs. Overall, the good food and decent
beers are worth sampling if you find yourself out in the Royal Oak area.
Legend: Chuck
in
burgundy and Joe
in
blue
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