I can think of maybe four reasons that you would ever find yourself in the city of Midland, MI. First, like me you were born and raised in the area and you eventually settled down and started a family (or not) in the same area.
Second, you work for Dow Corning, or Dow Chemical, or whatever they are called these days and they asked you to travel to the corporate headquarters for some kind of training or assignment, or something like that.
Third, you wanted to visit the Alden B Dow museum that is part of the Dow Gardens complex which sits next to the Midland Center for the Arts. Alden B Dow was a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright, so his style appeals to a lot of architecture buffs.
Finally, Midland has a hot air balloon festival every fall and you like watching the big bags of gas float through the air.
Whatever brings you to Midland, Midland Brewing Company is definitely on my list of must visit places.
Turns out we got there about five minutes too early, so we had to sit in the car and wait until they opened the doors. While we were waiting, a bus from one of the local retirement communities pulled up and a whole slew of elderly people got out.
I'm sure I made a comment to
Knowing the indoor seating area can be quite loud, we opted to sit outside on the patio. The patio area wraps around the building. We sat on the side, but the back portion overlooks the local "rail trail" and has a garden area where you can play yard games.
Despite the fact that it was only 11 AM, it wouldn't have been right to not get a beer, so I got this delicious cream ale, and
I noticed the other day on their Facebook page that they have an Oktoberfest out now, so I need to get over there and try that sometime soon.
We decided to get an appetizer to get our meal started. Despite what you might think from following my posts, we don't really eat out that much, so when we do, we like to get an appetizer to try new and exciting things.
In this case, it was a "street corn dip" and tortilla chips. It was quite good if not a little heavy on the mayo or combo of mayo and creme fresh. It had good flavor though and we finished all of it before our main dishes arrived.
She enjoyed the sandwich, but again she felt they might have went a little overboard with the mayo. You can see it dripping out of the side of the sandwich in the picture above. The chips (crisps) were crunchy and delicious. I think she ended up eating half of the sandwich and taking the other half home as a leftover which is what she generally does.
I got the brisket melt sandwich that you saw in the opening photo and the one above. It consisted of smoked brisket, kimchi, cheese, a garlic aioli, and some bbq sauce of course. One of the things I enjoy about MBC is the fact that they smoke all of their meats on site.
While some places do that, not all of them do. Some do a "faux smoke" where they simply cook it in a commercial kitchen, but the use tricks and shenanigans to impart smoke flavor. I don't appreciate that. There is something to be said for using real wood and real fire and doing things the old fashioned way.
Thanks to the BBQ sauce, Kimchi, and Aioli, this was one quite messy sandwich. As you will see in the next photo, there was a point where it just basically fell apart on me and I had to use a knife and fork to finish eating the thing.
That's not uncommon, but it's still a little disappointing because it becomes harder for all of the flavors to mix together the way they intened.
Like I said, it just basically became a bit of a hot mess by the time I was finished with it. This was the first time I have ever had Kimchi and I have to admit, that it was quite good. They added some red pepper flake to make it a bit spicy and it went really well with the fattiness of the brisket.
In all honesty, I am not much of a brisket guy, I would rather have tri-tip when it comes to beef bbq, but on this day, this item appealed to me and I wasn't disappointed that I got it. I've actually never had anything at MBC that wasn't absolutely delicious. If you do happen to make it there and you aren't opposed to eating some cow or pig, I highly recommend their meatloaf. It's fantastic!
As I said before, Midland Brewing Company is a must visit place for me if you are ever in the area. I'm actually having a hard time finishing this post now because my pictures have me so hungry. It's impossible to focus!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or