Bar Lupulus Is the Best Beer Bar in Ann Arbor. You Might Not Know It Exists.
On the ground floor at 311 South Main, a sour beer cocktail program and the deepest Jolly Pumpkin tap list in the state operate under a name most people walk past.
Most people who walk into 311 South Main Street think they are walking into Jolly Pumpkin. Technically, they are. But the bar program at street level operates under its own name, Bar Lupulus, and has enough independence to justify the distinction. The beer list overlaps with the taproom. The cocktail menu does not. The sour beer cocktails, in particular, are why this bar earns a separate conversation.
Lupulus is the Latin name for hops. The bar named itself after the ingredient and then built a program around a brewery that is famous for barely using hops at all. Ron Jeffries' sour ales are oak-aged, wild-fermented, and decidedly not hop-forward. The tension between the name and the product is either ironic or honest, depending on your reading. Either way, the beer is excellent.
The Drinks
The tap list is the deepest Jolly Pumpkin lineup you will find outside the Dexter production facility. La Roja, Bam Biere, Calabaza Blanca, and the seasonal rotations are all represented, plus limited releases that appear and disappear without announcement. On a recent visit, nine of the twelve taps were pouring Jolly Pumpkin beers, with the remaining three covering Michigan craft from other producers. If you want to drink your way through the Jolly Pumpkin catalog without driving to Dexter, this is the spot.
The sour beer cocktails are the differentiator. A sour ale mixed with citrus, simple syrup, and a float of amaro sounds like a drink that should collapse under its own complexity. It does not. The tartness of the base beer gives the cocktail a backbone that a spirit-based drink handles differently, and the amaro adds bitterness that rounds the whole thing out. Order one if you have never tried a beer cocktail and think the concept sounds wrong. It will change your position.
The michelada is the other order worth knowing about. Built with one of the house sour beers instead of a standard lager, it is bracing, complex, and nothing like the tomato-juice-and-beer version most bars phone in. Lime, hot sauce, Tajin on the rim, and the sour ale underneath doing something that a Corona cannot. I ordered it on a whim and have ordered it every visit since. Cocktails and beer cocktails run $10 to $14. Draft pours are $7 to $10.
The Room
Bar Lupulus shares the ground floor of 311 South Main with the Jolly Pumpkin dining room, which means the boundary between bar and restaurant is more conceptual than physical. The bar itself anchors one side of the space: a long counter with stools, the taps lined up behind it, and enough room to spread out without bumping elbows. The noise level is high on weekends, which is fine for a beer bar and wrong for a whisper.
Upstairs, Bori Korean Kitchen & Bar occupies the second floor. The building at 311 South Main has become a vertical food hall of sorts: sour beer and pizza at street level, Korean fried chicken and karaoke above. It is one of the more interesting single addresses in the city.
The rooftop space opens seasonally, and when the weather cooperates, drinking a La Roja three stories above South Main while watching the block below is one of Ann Arbor's better free entertainments. The view is not dramatic. The combination of the beer and the altitude is.
South Main's Beer Block
The 200-to-300 stretch of South Main has earned its reputation as Ann Arbor's strongest dining corridor. Echelon at 200, Pretzel Bell at 226, Black Pearl at 302, and the Jolly Pumpkin/Bar Lupulus/Bori stack at 311. Add Spencer a block east on Liberty and The Last Word around the corner on Huron, and the area has a density of quality drinking that rivals neighborhoods in much larger cities.
Bar Lupulus fits into this corridor as the casual option. Echelon requires a plan. The Last Word is a destination for cocktail precision. Spencer is a wine shop first. Bar Lupulus is the bar where you sit down with a friend, order a sour beer, realize you are hungry, ask for the pizza menu, and end up staying two hours longer than intended. That role, the accidental anchor of an evening, is harder to fill than it looks.
The name on the sign might say Jolly Pumpkin. The bar program says something more specific. The sour beer cocktails alone are worth the distinction.
Bar Lupulus is at 311 S Main St, Ann Arbor. Open daily. Walk-ins only. Rooftop seasonal.