Iowa Tap Room - Opening Feb/March 2016 - downtown Des Moines
- Thread starter capitalcityguy
- Start date
Based on what Full Court Press has done in the past, I expect this will be a huge hit.
^ yeah...these guys aren't exactly rookies. Just about everything they've touched turned into gold.
Not everything. Fongs in Ankeny isn't the hit they were hoping for yet. The new management at Mullets is a joke, also. They absolutely know what they're doing when it comes to businesses downtown, but they also have a touch of an ego. el Bait is great for hundreds of beers, you don't need that at every single one of your bars. Hundreds of beers is what makes el Bait special. Once every other bar downtown has all of those beers, it loses its luster.
My problem with The Iowa Tap House is the Iowa beer. While there may be enough breweries and beers to fill the handles, most of the beer made by breweries in Iowa is garbage. Yes, we have some amazing breweries here in our state, but the majority of them are not putting out a quality product. So when you've got a wall of 99+ Iowa beers, the problem becomes moving the product and keeping the product fresh. Fresh meaning not spoiled, and new and exciting. Not many breweries have expansive rotating lineups in Iowa.
Like I said, I hope they do well, but I think the task at hand is a mighty one.
El Bait Shop-One of the best selections in the midwest. I've been to a lot of the great bars in the midwest and the selection is the best I've seen.Always busy
Fongs DM-Good beer selection and excellent pizza. Always busy
Buzzard Billys-Always seems to be busy. Good selection of beer. More for the Wells Fargo crowd.
High Life-Cool concept and always busy. Good bar food.
Hessen Haus-Excellent selection of German Beer. Not sure how busy it is normally.
Mullets-Not a big fan so I don't know busy they are.
Royal Mile-Excellent selection and always busy
Red Monk-A true hidden gem that we don't appreciate enough.
Library-OK selection of beer. Excellent Nachos. Always busy but that has to do with it's size.
Fongs Ankeny-Every time(5 or so) I've been there it's been busy.
I'd say that's a pretty good track record. IMO the best 5 bars in Des Moines are run by these guys.
Fongs DM-Good beer selection and excellent pizza. Always busy
Buzzard Billys-Always seems to be busy. Good selection of beer. More for the Wells Fargo crowd.
High Life-Cool concept and always busy. Good bar food.
Hessen Haus-Excellent selection of German Beer. Not sure how busy it is normally.
Mullets-Not a big fan so I don't know busy they are.
Royal Mile-Excellent selection and always busy
Red Monk-A true hidden gem that we don't appreciate enough.
Library-OK selection of beer. Excellent Nachos. Always busy but that has to do with it's size.
Fongs Ankeny-Every time(5 or so) I've been there it's been busy.
I'd say that's a pretty good track record. IMO the best 5 bars in Des Moines are run by these guys.
You must always go on the weekends :wink:
I'm not trying to poo poo them. Shoot, I worked for them for 2 years and loved every second of it. I just think 120 all Iowa beers is a bit ambitious.
Any news on this place? It's Feb and it still isn't open......
They have a website up but it's just a place holder with broken links to FB/Twitter: http://theiowandm.com/
They have a website up but it's just a place holder with broken links to FB/Twitter: http://theiowandm.com/
Can't find 10 good beers? Bull ****.
10 world class beers? I'd agree with you. There are easily 10 good Iowa beers.
I love EBS, but everytime I go they are oUT of 20 or so beers. It's hard to keep them full all the time I understand, especially since they probably only use the 5 gal kegs. I assume they will have the same problem at the ITR.
Out of 20 of 185 beers? That's a little more than 10%. On any given week when I would work there, we could go through between 30-60 1/6th barrel kegs (5.2 gallons). I understand how this could frustrate some people, but seriously, there are still 165 beers to choose from. Of course this is also different for events. Sometimes we would have events and would have to clear out the wall to make room for those lines, or if there was a launch of a new brewery and there would need to be 15 lines open, we would have to leave those off.
Bottom line is this, with such high keg turnover, you are almost guaranteed your beer is fresh (the lines are meticulously cleaned as well), so your beer is in best shape it can possibly be. There aren't many bars around town who can say that. We would hear horror stories from distributors about other well known bars who rarely clean their lines or don't properly maintain them. It's pretty freaking gross.
I've heard Olde Main doesn't clean their lines which might explain the rip roaring headache drinking 2 of their beers gives me.
That wouldn't surprise me at all. You can tell pretty obviously when they've cleaned their lines. The beer is actually decent when they give a ****. Line cleanliness is probably second only to freshness of the actual beer in terms of what you taste, IMO. I personally love the fact that the turnover at EBS is so high. As Cybyassociation points out, you're always getting fresh beer on a clean line due to that. Plus, one of my favorite things there is just picking the bartenders' brains about what's new and good.
On the topic of the thread, here are 10 good (at a minimum) Iowa beers that they could probably keep a keg of at all times:
TG Psuedo Sue
Confluence IPA
515 Mediocre/Passe
Alluvial Oxpresso
Lion Bridge Worker's Compensation
Big Grove Arms Race
West O Coco Stout
Peace Tree No Coast
Pulpit Rock Pour Over
Singlespeed Blanco
That's without repeating a brewery
Looks like the name options between "The Iowan" and "The Iowa Taproom" have settled on Iowa Taproom.
Newer sites...tweets but no inside pictures yet:
http://iowataproom.com/
https://twitter.com/iowataproom
https://www.facebook.com/iowataproom
Still just says "opening Spring 2016"
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Is it just me, or are we in a avalanche of brew pubs in and around Iowa. I thought it was more fun when there was just a few and you had to seek them out. And it was pretty good beer. Now it seems like people are just brewing beer and making a quick buck. I don't think we can sustain all the growth. You can't swing a dead cat and not hit a new one popping up.
It's got nothing on Minnesota right now. Their proliferation is ridiculous, and there are a greater number there that are just terrible. Most of the ones in Iowa, so far, put out beer that's at least better than BMC and not infected (although there are a few notable exceptions). Some of the bad breweries have already come and gone. Hub City, went under a long time ago, but oddly enough (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that's where Mike Saboe (TG) and Bob Slack (Pulpit Rock) learned to brew commercially. Raccoon River went under as well, and while they weren't making infected beer, it was pretty damn boring beer. I think there was one in Ankeny that sucked and bit the dust as well.
