Day Two Assessment - Corner Brewery (Arbor Brewing Company) and How Catholics Drink

Hey, this is Neil.  Before our review, let me make a second disclaimer...

It’s an issue that needs to be addressed - we are Catholics trying to live our faith, and we are drinking eight days in a row and publicizing it proudly.  Some of you might think I’m prudish even bring this up.  Others may think that I, a director of religious education and youth “minister” at a local church, am causing scandal.  Allow me an Ad Homines Scrupulosus...

Why didn’t we bring this up earlier?  Well, things should be done in order.  First priorities come first.  First, we need to note that beer is a gift from God.  I’m a firm believer in virtue based morality - meaning we aim for more than just purity.  We aim for excellence first and foremost.  Obligations fall from virtue, not the opposite.  Love precedes law.

... and I love beer?  No, let’s stay on the ground here.  What I want to say is beer is good.  We can say that much.  We’ve all heard the quote from Benjamin Franklin - “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”  This quote shows Benjamin Franklin had a very limited idea of God, so I prefer the quote from G.K. Chesterton - "The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar."  I seem to remember another quote from G.K. relating that one reason he became Catholic is because there is no contradiction between a cigar, a glass of scotch, and the cross.  Now there’s a good start.

I’ll just say that if we lived in Spain, Southern France, Italy, Austria, Bavaria, Poland, or any other culturally Catholic country, this question wouldn’t even come up.  That’s because the way they drink is different.  Drunkenness is abhorable.  But children start “drinking” at age 5.  It’s like being potty trained - it’s a part of social life.  In America, age 21 is a rite of passage and drinking before that is exciting and subversive.  When minors drink, they do it to get drunk.  And that’s how we learn to enjoy beer.  That explains the quality of beer we’ve had in America until the Micro-Brewery trend began (I happen to enjoy cheap beer, but not because “it get’s the job done”).

I could go on about this but let’s get to our review of Corner Brewery.  If you want more, I recommend this article (in which Chesterton has yet another quote about beer- he’s great) The Lost Art of Catholic Drinking.

So here is our Catholic review of Corner Brewery...

I came to Corner Brewery tired and irritable.  Time with friends is usually a remedy for this state and beer certainly helps as a salve.  As the article above states, I came for the conviviality that gatherings with beer can give.

Sitting there with 20 people within arms length yelling at the top of their lungs just to exchange pleasantries did not help.  Add a couple beers to that situation and you’re driving home at the end of the night getting angry about your fiance turning the heat down two notches in your car on the ride home because she doesn’t have a right to touch the buttons on a car she is not driving!  (Ruth, I’m sorry!)  I don’t go to any restaurant where I can’t relax, and until Corner Brewery opens up the outdoor beer garden in the back, I think I’ll need to stay away.

We experienced our first Octave of ___ miracle however.  One reason the place was so full was that corner brewery was hosting some kind of brewer’s guild.  The breweries came to us!  There were representatives from every Washtenaw Co. brewery and also some brew masters from other notable Michigan breweries, including Original Gravity and Liberty Street which are Tuesday and Thursday’s events respectively.  We met met Brewmaster Joe from Liberty Street who offered us a tour when we get there Thursday (don’t miss that one!).

To me, Corner Brewery has the most flavorful and thus most undrinkable beers of any brewery I’ve been to, but what do I know?  I’ll leave you with some reviews from fellow Octavites =

Kevin on the Bollywood Blonde - “Smells like smarties, tastes like roses.”

Ruth on the Bollywood Blonde - “Smells like a bucket of unwrapped halloween candy.”

Anonymous on RyeClops - “Tastes like a field.  In a good way.”

Anonymous on Sacred Cow - “Supposed to be an IPA, but some ne’er-do-well froggy must have hopped off with the hops.”

Neil on Fat Abbot  - “Clams and bananas.”

? on Phat Abbot Tripel - “The monks must intercede heavily for he who drinks too many of these!”

? on Buzz Saw - “On a scale of Peter Pan to Bane, this falls just short of arm wrestling a grizzly bear.”

Anonymous on Apple Cider - “Not beer. Blooms in your mouth like the first buds of Spring.”

Anonymous on Phat Abbot - “ After a few of these, even a fat Abbot would look attractive”

Anonymous on Bollywood Blonde - “ Tastes like just setting out of work at a soot covered belgian car factory on a Thursday before a long 4-day weekend where you and your buddies go to Mumbai to praise the virtues of waffles and chocolate to Indians who have never seen “Manneken Pis.”

Excerpts from Chris on the Irish Stout - “Let me...touch...the stout...Irish...WOW...right when...I started...I fell...and said...the...is that you?...statement...at the Corner.”

Thus saith Kevin:

Overall, I would say Corner Brewery has a fairly good selection of enjoyable brews and a welcoming atmosphere, and apparently every hipster in Washtenaw County thinks so too.  It might as well be like one of those pretentious restaurants that provides you with a dinner jacket if you are without one, only at Corner they hand you a pair of dark thick-rimmed glasses, a vintage ironic t-shirt, and a fixed gear bicycle.  These bohemian vermin occupied nearly every available space making it difficult to move comfortably or engage in any sort of conversation with those around you without relying on various nods, winks, and occasional semaphore.  They do have a fireplace which always adds bonus points in my book.  Plus, if any of the 90lb new-agers become too annoying they’d work great for kindling.  Even among the beatnik riffraff and their boardgames, there were plenty of average Joes and young professionals to make it a representative cross section of the Ypsi scene.  I like Corner Brewery despite its oft crowded nature (which is somewhat alleviated in finer weather by its spacious outdoor patio area).  It’s the same beer you’ll find at ABC in Ann Arbor so if the beer suits you it’s just a matter of choosing whether to drink it with hipsters of the city mouse or country mouse variety and whether or not you want to do so whilst playing Settlers of Catan.  By the way, I actually love hipsters.  It’s an opportunity for grace-filled humility to be around people who’ve done all the things you’ve never done, before it was cool.