North Peak Brewing Company
by Rebecca on August 9, 2012
While we were Up North, we went into Traverse City for a late lunch at North Peak Brewing Company. North Peak, in addition to its brewery, has a very large restaurant on Front Street right in downtown Traverse City. Since we were celebrating my birthday and I don’t care much for beer, I ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. Dave and my dad ordered the beer sampler, which included 5 different beers for only $6. They threw in a sample of the beer of the day for only a $1 more. The beer of the day was an espresso stout, in addition to that, the sampler included:
- Northern Light
- Diabolical India Pale Ale
- Siren Amber Ale
- Mission Point Porter
- Shirlyey’s Irish Stout
I think Dave enjoyed the Siren Amber Ale the best, but to be honest, he wasn’t really blown away by any of them. They were good, but not great.
To start, I ordered a bowl of white cheddar ale soup with mustard pretzel croutons, as did my mom and dad. I really liked the soup, especially the mustard pretzel croutons. They gave a nice crunch and had excellent flavor. The soup was very thick and creamy.
For my entree, I ordered the chicken fiesta salad which included greens with black bean salsa, pepper jack cheese, tortilla chips, chipotle ranch dressing and a chili-crusted chicken breast. The chicken was a bit spicy and was cooked really well, it was very juicy and tender. I’m a fan of Southwestern inspired salads so I’ve tried them at a lot of different restaurants, this one was very good. I would definitely order it again. Warning, if you don’t like cilantro I would recommend you skip this salad. I’m not sure if it was in the salsa or the dressing, but there was a strong cilantro flavor.
Dave ordered the herbed Monte Cristo sandwich, which was made up of turkey, bacon and dill havarti on sourdough, dipped in egg batter, and grilled like French toast. It was served with cherry preserves. Again like the beer, the sandwich was good, but not great. Dave has had fabulous Monte Cristo sandwiches elsewhere (Cafe Zola, Hudson Cafe) and this one came no where near those. The fries were very good though, nice and crispy on the outside with a bit of seasoning and nice and fluffy on the inside.
Even though we were already pretty full, we still ordered dessert! I ordered the root beer float that was made with North Peak’s homemade root beer and vanilla malt ice cream. It was HUGE! The root beer was very good, but oh my! That ice cream was fantastic. It was super creamy and the malt added great flavor. I totally want to try to recreate it at home sometime.
Dave ordered the black & tan brownie, a homemade chocolate brownie with New York-style cheesecake baked on top. It was served with more of that fabulous vanilla malt ice cream along with some chocolate ice cream and hot fudge.
Overall, we were very happy with our meal at North Peak brewery, though I ate WAY too much.
