Dunagan Brewing Company

This place has a lot of positives working in its favor, especially on paper. Let’s take a look at those first.

They scored a really cool location on Commerce, next to a kickass new dumpling house, with an interesting-looking tea house on the other side. I could probably spend most of an afternoon between these three businesses. There’s a parking garage right across the street, and they’re right on the light rail line.

Their space is cool, too: A long shoebox with minimal frontage. Brewhouse in the back with tables out front at the bar.

They’ve finished it out well, with an attractive bar and nice matching tables and chairs, plenty of room to maneuver. They’re attacking an ambitious array of beer styles that are interesting and easy to drink—lagers and Belgians in addition to the bigger anglo ales (like IPAs and stouts). On paper, there’s everything to like about these guys. Great first impression.

Unfortunately, they need to completely rethink their approach to recipes and processes in the brewhouse. Everything we tried was watery—no aromatics, minimal flavor, under-carbonated. There seemed to be residual flavors of cleaning solution in the glass, too. The brewer was behind the bar, and he had to pour entire glasses with runoff before he could pull schooners of the beers. He served them in frosted glasses, which is also a mystifying choice for a serious brewery. It’s hard to understand how he can taste these batches of beer and choose to serve them, let alone charge for them. It’s devastating to your brand. Odder still, I think I heard him tell another customer that a normal 4-pint growler fill was $36. That’s outrageous for these beers. The most expensive growler fill I saw at any other brewery Saturday was $18…and that came WITH the growler price, not just the beer itself.

I’d love for this place to find its footing and start doing great things, but there still need to be some adjustments before that happens.