Down on Water Street, tucked away just past Court Street, is a restaurant-brewery that offers unique dishes and a large variety of beers brewed right inside the building.

Water Street Brewing Company opened in 2011 and has a classy but friendly feel to it. The seating area is spacious and the dark wood of the tables and chairs are lit only by the sunlight and a string of christmas lights, giving it an intimate vibe. A Halloween skeleton is hung from the high ceiling and a group of rubber ducks sits perched on one of the brewing vats visible from the spacious seating area. As soon as I walked in, I was curious about what type of food a place like this would have to offer.

For this year’s Restaurant Week, the brewery is offering a three-course dinner that includes a drink, entree and dessert for $20. The drink options were all Water Street Brewing Company-brewed beers, which included a pilsner, Saison du Ciel, Thousand Year Porter, Orcish Black Ale, Lucky Corbie, Little Philphy, Helicat Brown Ale, hefeweizen, Hadrigan’s Dry Stout, cream ale, Bonnie Knees and Beyond Blonde. I tried their most popular beer, the hefeweizen. The beer was close to perfect in its simplicity. It was smooth, fresh, crisp and didn’t have any extraneous flavors to distract from the quality of the brew on its own.

There are three options for the main course: barbeque pulled lamb, The Plate or a vegan burger that comes with a choice of soup, fries or salad. The restaurant offered me and my date a sampling of all three of these options.

The barbeque pulled lamb first caught my eye on the menu as I had never tried lamb served in a barbeque style before. Despite my curiosity and expectations, the pulled lamb didn’t taste any different than pulled pork — although it was very good nonetheless. It came on a bed of cabbage and was served with triangles of pita bread on the side and crumbled feta on top. Feta was a smart addition, as it lent a flavor that barbeque generally doesn’t offer on its own. Overall, this dish was fine, but, for better or for worse, it was the least memorable of the three.

The shining star of the three entrees was the mysteriously-named second option, The Plate. It consisted of a pile of fries topped with guacamole, pico de gallo, Water Street Brewing Company “secret sauce,” beer queso and Buffalo chicken (there was also the option of a burger instead of the chicken). The fries on their own were pretty good, and the tender, well-flavored Buffalo chicken was excellent. The beer queso and secret sauce were mostly masked by the Buffalo chicken flavor, but when they did get through, the slightly-sweet secret sauce worked well with the spicier Buffalo flavor. What elevated this dish before simple bar food, however, was the addition of the guacamole and pico de gallo. They gave the dish a fresh take on the “loaded fries” genre and worked fantastically, making this dish both unique and delicious.

Water Street Brewing Company’s vegan entree option was highly disappointing. The black bean, quinoa and dried field-mushroom burger itself was fine, but the “home-made spicy drunken whole grain mustard” brought the whole dish down to a point where neither I nor the photographer wanted to take more than a couple bites. The choice to use full mustard seeds as a way to give their veggie burger some flair instead resulted in an overpowering, almost chemical taste that drowned out the rest of the burger. The unfortunate mustard can be left off if asked, so if you’re vegan or vegetarian I would recommend trying it out with your own choice of condiments.

The final course offered the choice of one of three cupcakes: pumpkin pie, chocolate stout or French apple. Of course, I tried them all. My first impression was that they were a bit on the smaller side for supposedly being their own dessert, but on the first bite of the pumpkin-pie cupcake, I realized that what they lacked in size, they made up for in flavor. All three of the cupcakes were absolutely delicious, boasting rich and unique flavors while being perfectly baked and frosted. They managed to achieve the very rare golden ratio of frosting to cake, adding just enough sweetness on top to balance the natural dryness of the cake without making them too rich.

Overall my experience at Water Street Brewing company was good, and there were certain dishes, like the plate of fries and the cupcakes, that made me want to return. Whether it be for the beer or the food, Water Street Brewing Company is definitely worth checking out.