The Filling Station Microbrewery – Good Beer and Great Pizza in Traverse City
When we were up in Traverse City late last fall and staying at the Great Wolf Lodge, we also made it a point to get out and try a few of the local breweries. While in town, we visited Right Brain Brewery, Brewery Terra Firma and on the advice of a friend who used to live up north we visited The Filling Station Microbrewery.
Located in a historic depot that was built in the 1920s, this brewery with a slogan of “Ales By The Rails” delivered a handful of good beer options and some amazing pizza. As mentioned, the food here came highly recommended by a former local resident and in addition to that we keep hearing people talk about The Filling Station when we’re out and about visiting breweries in the Grand Rapids area.
We ordered two flights to try out all 11 beers that were available. As far as flight presentation goes, these miniature train cars were a great touch and did a good job of keeping the theme going. We tried out the Dover Pale Ale, Berkshire Brown, Bacharach Golden Ale, Walla Walla IPA, Huntington IPA, Omena Harvest Ale, Empire Imperial IPA, Cadillac Pale Ale, Bentley Oatmeal Stout and the London Porter. As you can see, the beer menu was heavily slanted to pales and IPAs, which we found to be a pretty common themes in Traverse City. The Walla Walla IPA and the London Porter were our favorites of this bunch, with the imperial IPA, brown, and oatmeal stout all impressing as well.
Now for the food! We knew we had to try the pizza here, and there were a lot of choices to pick from. There are 12 options ready-to-go for these flatbread pizzas, and if that doesn’t work you can build your own. Pizzas are prepared in a wood-fired oven, and we soon saw why they come so highly recommended. There are also several salad options, and a couple of kids menu items.
One thing that caught our eye on the pizza menu was the S’More Caboose, which was described as “Nutella spread on a pizza crust with graham cracker crumbs, marshmallows, topped with a caramel and chocolate drizzle, and roasted to perfection.” This sounded amazing so we ordered one despite already being pretty full, and it ended up being one of the best dessert pizzas we’ve ever tried. We’d definitely come back here for the food any time we’re in town, and it would be nice to see what other seasonal beers pop up from time to time.
The Filling Station Microbrewery contact information:
642 Railroad Pl., Traverse City MI
http://thefillingstationmicrobrewery.com/
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