Spend Locally: Ellison Brewing + Spirits

If the thought of making a handcrafted crochet hat or gloves doesn’t seem like a feasible gift idea, perhaps handcrafted beer, wine, or spirits sound better? Make a visit over to the “beer scientists” at Ellison Brewing + Spirits in East Lansing.

While the clubhouse is closed for dining-in, there’s still plenty of sour beers on tap, 4-pack cans, bottled spirits, growler fills, and more to go around.

General Manager Lindi LaDrig says the most popular menu item is currently an option they introduced in the pandemic – adult juice boxes. “It’s basically just all of our cocktails in to-go form, and they’re basically these little Capri Sun pouches,” she said.

LaDrig’s favorite menu item is their new line of hard seltzers, including pina colada, key lime pie, and plum marshmallow. LaDrig said one of their “best kept secret” menu items is their Bloody Mary.

“They’re usually only available on Saturdays and Sundays, but since we got shut down again, we’re doing them everyday we’re open.” 

Ellison welcomes guests to place to-go orders at the counter inside, or “dine-in” on the outdoor patio. “It is covered, we have a bunch of propane heaters, but we also have a heater that comes out to it, using the heat from the building, pushing extra heat out there,” LaDrig said. “It’s a lot warmer than most people’s patios. We have seven tables out there right now, we can probably fit up to about 30 people out there.”

Guests can order merch, apparel, gift cards and special releases for pick-up or shipping on the Ellison square site page. For to-go orders of food and drink, you can view the entire menu on Clover. Curbside pickup is also available. Delivery (through Slice, DoorDash, and Grubhub) is for food only. Food options include brick oven pizza, cheese bread, and soon chicken wings and mac ‘n’ cheese will be added to the menu.

“Michigan is a little bit behind other states right now, where they’re not allowing Uber or Doordash to deliver alcohol, which is kind of frustrating,” LaDrig said, “because that would help so many businesses if that happened.”

Ellison is open Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Make sure ELi is here in 2021 to provide this support to your local community.