Saturday 24th of July 2010 09:52:30 AM

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I had heard about Hopcat from people I met at Founders, so I had to try it.

The atmosphere was nice. There is plenty of wood, a large bar, and it wasn't covered in TVs. Unfortunately, it was very busy on the Tuesday evening that I visited and I was not able to get a spot at the bar.

The beer selection is certainly respectable. I was surprised to find that they had some Hopcat beers. I didn't realize they brewed their own in addition to the many others on tap. But a closer inspection revealed that they were styles that I wasn't really interested in. Well, except for the IPA, which they were out of at the time.

I liked the concentration on the Michigan craft brewers but they somehow didn't seem to have a lot of my favorites. Perhaps they were playing it safe and I tend to like the more unusual beers.

Never fear, I did manage to find several beers to satisfy me.

I of course had to try the often mentioned "crack fries". They were french fries covered in a mix of herbs and spices I guess. They were pretty good, but I am not addicted.
I cannot remember what else I ate, but I remember liking the food.

Overall, Hopcat was a nice experience. If it was in my beer desert of a neighborhood, I would be raving about it. Unfortunately, it is very close to one of my all time favorites, Founders, so if I am making the trip to Grand Rapids, that is where you will find me.

Thursday 24th of April 2008 12:59:29 PM

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Hopcat is the must stop beer bar in Grand Rapids. They do an excellent job of promoting the beer of Michigan. It's a one stop MI brewery tour from the comfort of your bar stool. Drink multiple ales from Short's, the Livery and Dragonmead all in one stop.

Man cannot live on beer alone. Thankfully, Hopcat has very good food to keep your beer from getting lonely. The menu has sandwiches, pasta and vegetarian. I've tried thier fish & chips, crack fries, and mac n cheese (with chorizo & roasted red pepper). All were delicious.

Service is friendly and knowledgable. I'll be back next time I'm in the area.

Monday 25th of February 2008 12:47:14 AM

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the hopcat...

this place had been hyped up a bit for me. I was eager to go visit a place with 48 taps, a firkin and a whole buncha bottles, just to see what's what...

the beer selection is a good 50% michigan beer, 30% other american craft beer, and 20% other drafts from europe and canada. It was nice having 4 shorts taps and 2 livery taps to choose from... I would have liked to see more Dark horse on tap that wasn't the amber. A lot of safe choices on tap... ambers, pilsners... not a lot of ipa's or hoppier beers. Most of their taps are safe, but there are some really outstanding and less seen around the state taps here too..

The atmosphere is nice. Bathrooms are my favorite... pinup girls as you stand at the pisser and rock stars and icons as you leave... before you open to door to go back, check out john ritter... that's awesome. The bar itself is a saloon type seating sideways... large main room to the right of the entry way with booth seating along the left wall and high chair seating in the back with an upstairs smoking section... The bar itself is prolly 30 stools and is really nice to just sit and study with it's detail... from the bottle displays up high, to the tap dispensers along the bar, it's a really good place to get a drink... if this place was 3/4ths full it would be comfortable, full up was the situation on my first visit... wall to wall people. On the second visit in the same weekend it was much less and better getting around making it a more relaxed experience... I'd love to visit during the week.

Service was attentive and asked and answered questions.

You can get growlers tho I didn't ask if there were any restricted beers... they do have nice swag, t-shirts and belgian tulip glasses with the logo on em. The D.r.a.f.t club is a bit pricey at 90ish bucks to join, but if you live there you could easily make that back by going often... I'm assuming the taplist'll rotate but with that large number I would expect some stinkers on the occasion.

I had the crack fries with cheese and they are awesome... bartender mentioned that they were made with founders ipa, but the chef switched up to bells 2 hearted for the cheese sauce recipe on that...

the chalkboard also indicated that a brewery would be forthcoming for the hopcat people so there's that too.

Saturday 23rd of February 2008 08:28:38 AM

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Hopcat is a pretty cool place. I visited while it was insanely packed (there was a line at the door) right after some athletic event next door. There are 5 or 6 tap towers, each holding 7 or 8 individual tap handles. If you don't want to do the math, that is a lot of beer.

While I feel that there is a lot of great beer here, I also feel that in many ways they have played it safe selection wise on some brewery offerings. They had a bunch of Dark Horse beers in bottles, but only the Amber on tap. There is nothing wrong with this, but it seems that for some of the breweries they are picking the best seller rather than the most interesting beer. I would just prefer to see the Amber in bottles and a more interesting stout or the IPA on draft. But since I have only visited once, I have no idea as to whether this is a normal tap list. Regardless, it is still a great list and I would be here a lot if I lived locally.

I only tried the Crack Fries with cheese dip and they were great!

The main bar/restaurant area is non-smoking. They do have an upstairs smoking lounge. The atmosphere was pretty cool with a great wooden bar and a cool back bar. They have made the ceiling cool by hanging cool antiquated beer/wine/liquor advertising (if they allowed smoking the pictures would all be black in a couple of years).

Overall this seems like a pretty cool bar that I would definitely suggest visiting if you are anywhere nearby. I saw a bunch of busses and there are lots of fairly cheap (from my perspective) parking decks nearby.