Today I will be reviewing the Great Turtle Brewery and Distillery on Mackinac Island. Great Turtle was the last brewery that I crossed off the list. Established in 2019, the brewery opened it’s doors in June of 2020. It became the first brewery and first distillery to be located on Mackinac Island.
The beer here is not brewed on location. Where the beer is brewed, I am not 100% sure. On their menu it said it was brewed by Big Buck Brewing out of Gaylord, but their website said it was brewed by Right Brain out of Traverse City. So I am not sure if that changed recently and they haven’t updated either their website or the menu, or if it is done by both places.
We went there the week of Fourth of July, which made for them being extremely busy and getting a seat was a little challenging. Crystal sat at the bar while I stood next to her. I usually like to walk around every brewery and check out the settings and the decorations on the wall. This proved to be very difficult here because of the volume of business they were doing at the time we visited.
They did have a very big bar that easily sat about 20 or so people. An expansive outdoor patio that had about 15 to 20 tables on it, and another couple dozen tables on the inside in case you want to beat the heat of the island but don’t want to sit at the bar. All of the areas were completely full at the time of our visit.
Great Turtle also has a general store attached to the front of it. They sell cans of their beer, bottles of their spirits, and all sorts of various merchandise out of it.
When we sat down at the bar we decided to get what they call the “tortoise”, which was a flight of all 12 beers that they had on tap. This will set you back about 35 dollars, but after the ferry ride to the island, we were both very thirsty. The flight included a couple of IPA’s, a couple of amber ales, a couple of lagers, cream ale, stout, porter, wheat ale, and a peach cider. All the beer was really solid, but my favorites were the Big Aft Double IPA, The Two Bluffs Barrel Aged Red Ale, The Hoban Street Stout, and The Shell Yeah Peanut Brittle Porter. I ended up getting a four pack of the Peanut Brittle Porter to take home with me.
If you happen to go with a non-beer drinker, they are also a distillery, so plenty of liquor options available. They even do flights of their signature craft cocktails. The people next to us did that, and they looked very interesting. I gave up liquor 12 years ago, so I did not partake myself. In addition to their beers, they also have a couple of various guest taps available in case your looking for something a little more familiar to you.
If you are headed to Mackinac Island and in search of a good beer while you are there, I would recommend stopping by and giving Great Turtle Brewing and Distilling a try.
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