Dark Horse Brewing Company (Marshall, MI)

Traveling on I-94 on the evening before Thanksgiving was probably not the best idea but we were determined to make it to Marshall, Michigan, home of Dark Horse.

Wow... what a find! First of all it is non-smoking which makes it easy to sit, relax and taste the beer.

Tony and I started with the old favorite - the Crooked Tree IPA. A tasty, hoppy 5.8% alc. brew. This beer is an old favorite which we can purchase in bottles in Indiana. But tasting the fresh brewed beer, sitting in the pub where it was made was fantastic.

We started off with chips, salsa and guacamole but quickly realized that the pizzas looked amazing.

We split the Chicken Feta Pizza (red sauce, chicken, artichoke hearts, spinach, red onion, feta and mozzarella cheese).

Tony and I both rank the pizza as a perfect 10. If we had a mini fridge in the room we probably would have ordered a second one to eat for breakfast the next day.

We moved from IPA to the Reserve Special Black Bier. You can see it in my glass. Dark, tasty and heavy with a chocolate and coffee flavor. It was delicious. We brought back two growlers (one to keep and one for our beer aficionado friend, Steve.)

The unique mug club display caught our attention right away. The mugs appear to be hand-made. They hang on the walls and from the ceiling rafters in a numbered order. We saw mug club members coming and and grabbing their mug off the wall to take to the bar. We wanted to join but they are out of mugs right now. We may try to come back in mid-December when their new shipment of mugs come in and grab two for ourselves.

We couldn't leave without trying a few tastes of some of the seasonal beers. We sampled the Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock and the Too Cream Stout.

As always, we met some wonderful folks... a family from Kalamazoo (who we may see at Bells on Friday) and three gentlemen from Marshall. We talked about beer, hockey and the town of Marshall.

Tasting the different seasonal beers is fun and exciting but we're always happy to have a pint of our ol' favorites.