Rochester Mills Beer Company

Rochester Mills is located on Water St. at Fourth in downtown Rochester.

Anyone up for a game of pool?

Rochester Mills gets it's name from the fact that it is located in an old knitting mill building.  The decor keeps to it's origins with the original brick walls and wood floors, beams and posts.  Several arch top double hung windows fill two walls and nearly run from floor to ceiling providing plenty of natural light during daytime hours.

There are plenty of entertainment options and other amenities at Rochester Mills.  I counted no fewer than seventeen televisions, mostly big screen, throughout the building.  Between the raised main dining area and the bar, you will find five pool tables, and flanking the main entrance is a nice patio area for swilling a summertime pint or two in the fresh air. Nestled in the corner directly in front of the glassed in brew kettles, is a stage area where live bands play during special occasions and on weekend nights.

The bar is a long P-shaped design that stretches a good half of the width of the building.  The main bar area that resides in the U portion is where the best service tends to be had and in addition to the house brewed beer and guest selections, you'll find a full bar.  The straight section of the bar tends to suffer from sparse service due to it being a bit of a distance from where the bulk of the action is, but I've been to a number of places with larger staffs and fewer patrons with much worse attentiveness.

Calamari and Double IPA

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy a good plate of squid, and I'll make it clear here that I'm a complete fanboy of RMBC's take on it.  Here they serve calamari steaks rather than the smaller variety complete with tentacle clusters.  It is lightly fried and served on a bed of lettuce and garlic butter and topped with thinly sliced peppers.  Usually the peppers are a tangy and slightly spicy pepperocini pepper, but occasionally they will offer it up with a different type.  Today they were a little drier and packed a little more heat than usual.  The calamari is served with a amogue sauce that is very tasty and a welcome departure from plain marinara sauce.  I have been ordering this for years and it is very consistently good.  I highly recommend this appetizer.  It runs $9.99 and you simply cannot beat getting it for half off during happy hour.



On this visit I also sampled the Asian Spring Rolls filled with sprouts, cabbage, pepper, onion, ginger and garlic served with an Asian stir-fry sauce.  Both my companion and I found the sauce to be a little too oily for our taste and it didn't really impart much flavor to the rolls after dipping.  She did say that she has had the spring rolls before and enjoyed the sauce more when it had cooled and the oil had separated more.  $7.95

Chuck from Fermentation Nation and his girlfriend ordered the Brewhouse Nachos sans meat and as usual it was piled high and covered with melted cheese, tomatoes, onion, sour cream, guacamole, and plenty of jalapenos.  Not much different than your typical Nacho you can get just about anywhere, but it sure does go well at happy hour with some beers and is perfect for sharing.  $9.95 add chicken for $2.95 more.

Other Appetizers run $6.95 to  $9.95 and are all half off during happy hour.

Rochester Mills also offers Beer Cheese soup and Clam Chowder in cups, bowls and beer grain bread bowls for $3.95, $4.95 and $8.50 respectively and a selection of salads from $5-10.

The selection of entrees and sandwiches is varied and eclectic and there are some excellent pizza options as well.  As this visit was primarily for a quick snack and to meet up with the rest of our group, I will write more on the rest of the menu at a later date.

Today's beer selection consisted of: Lazy Daze Lager, Harvest Lite, Rochester Red, Brickshot ESB, Water Street Wheat, Wits Organic, Cornerstone IPA, Pleszures Pale Ale, Imperial Stout, Paint Creek Porter, Sacrilicious Stout, and Double IPA on the rotating special tap.  The Michigan Guest Tap was Short's Chocolate Wheat.  Rochester Mills also has a selection of import taps pouring Stella Artois, Lindeman's Framboise, Woodchuck Amber, and Guiness.

"The Princess of Ales" described the Pleszures Pale Ale as:

Citrusy with a strong hops backbone.  Perfume flowers in the nose.  Think field of wildflowers on a warm spring day.

Rochester Mills Beer Co. is one of my favorite places to unwind after a long day at work and catch a Tiger game with mug number 134 filled with a fresh tasty beer.

www.cplanet.com/destwindow.aspx?destid=pleszurefoodgroup47D209D9AFECD84F8E7453FDB5DE19FFD

Photographs compliments of Fermentation Nation