The Filling Station’s Union Street Vanilla Brown Ale

Bottoms Up

By Craig Manning | March 11, 2023

The brown ale has fallen by the wayside a bit as far as beer styles go, a victim of the wild popularity of IPAs and some impressive growth in the specialty barrel-aged stout market. These days, it’s not even a guarantee that there will be a single brown ale on a brewery’s tap list, let alone a superb example of the form. Traverse City’s The Filling Station Microbrewery is an exception, with the Union Street Vanilla Brown Ale standing as easily one of the most well-rounded beers on the menu. For this one, Filling Station brewers took their existing Union Brown Ale—already a solid beer—and added Madagascar vanilla beans. The result has all the malty, flavorful goodness of a nice, smooth, drinkable brown ale with the added dessert notes of chocolate and vanilla that you get from a good stout. And at 5.6 percent ABV, you can even enjoy a few of them in a row! Find it at 642 Railroad Place in Traverse City. (231) 946-8168, thefillingstationmicrobrewery.com