Brewvine: 1668 Winery & Lockside Brewery

Starting Monday, some restaurants in downtown Sault Ste. Marie will be offering great deals on great meals as part of restaurant week.

Whitney Amann and photojournalist Jeremy Erickson take you to for this week’s Brewvine.

“For the longest time we were basically burgers, pizza and paninis but over the past year we revamped our menu and we now offer legit dinner entrees.” said owner and brewer Ray Bauer.

in downtown Sault Ste. Marie are excited to show off that revamped menu at this year’s “Soo Restaurant Week”.

“We’re featuring our gourmet, hand tossed pizzas along with two Caesar salads and two desserts for $22,” he said. “We’ve been doing pizzas for going on four years now and it’s good; I would stake my reputation on that.”

Of course, you’ll want to pair your pizza with a glass of wine or one of their signature brews like their popular blonde ale called “Goldilocks”.

“It’s a favorite among people who don’t necessarily like hops,” said Bauer. “It’s kind of a malty offering and on the other hand we run with Ojibway IPA and Ojibway is a very nice classic IPA, it finishes with Michigan grown cascade hops.”

He says “what we’ve got on tap now for dark beer is ‘kiss of bourbon’ which is a bourbon barrel stout. It was in the barrel for not very long so it’s got that hint of bourbon to it, but you don’t have to really like bourbon to appreciate this beer.”

Switching from grains to grapes, 1668 Winery has been busy serving up their reds and whites along with their very popular fruit wines.

“It’s been very hard to keep up with demand here especially coming out of summer because with wine, you don’t just blink your eyes and there it is,” he says. “So it does take time but we have our three most popular reds. Laker Red which is our Merlot, we offer a Nebbiolo.”

And if you’re looking to spread some holiday cheer…

“A Christmas special that we like to run every year is that we run a case of wine for $120. So basically, you can come and buy 12 Christmas gifts for people for $10 apiece and where can you do that?”