While there may not be enough time left for a long summer vacation, there’s still time for a short excursion or weekend getaway. So, for those of you who love beer and are yearning to take a quick trip, here are a few beer-related destinations not far from Iowa City.
Before continuing, please remember: Be responsible and respectful, and do not drink and drive.
Downtown Des Moines
Des Moines’ downtown offers a number of European-inspired establishments. Billed as an authentic German bier hall, Hessen Haus (101 4th St.) delivers on the claim: It has communal seating, vaulted ceilings, stereotypical German fare (which, I believe, is more Bavarian than Hessian), and oodles of German beer on tap and in bottles. A few blocks away is The Royal Mile (210 4th St.), a British pub that offers 21 draft beers, 105 bottled beers and 115 single-malt Scotches. It even boasts a second bar upstairs: The Red Monk. Featuring church-inspired decor, the Red Monk is Central Iowa’s only Belgian bar and serves over 90 Belgian-style brews.
The downtown area is also home to a pair of brewpubs. Between Hessen Haus and The Royal Mile is the Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewing Company (309 Court Ave.). Some of the seven in-house brews include Honest Lawyer IPA, Pointer Brown, BlackHawk Stout and 21st Amendment Ale, a rye pale ale aged 90 days in Templeton Rye barrels. Court Avenue Brewing also offers two handcrafted sodas. The Raccoon River Brewing Company (200 10th St.) brews six year-round beers and also has a five-table pool hall. Though not inside the downtown core, the Confluence Brewing Company taproom (1235 Thomas Brick Rd.) and Exile Brewing Company (1514 Walnut St.) are nearby.
Last but not least are the “big three,” the establishments that I–a humble beer drinker with admittedly limited experience in revitalized downtown Des Moines–consider must-visits in Iowa’s capital city. Zombie Burger + Drink Lab (300 E. Grand Ave.) not only has a playful theme and a menu featuring poutine and shakes made from your favorite childhood breakfast cereal, it also has a massive selection of beer. And their menu even has a category for sours.
Another must-visit is the venerable El Bait Shop (200 SW 2nd St.) with a beer selection that is mind-boggling: 120 beers on tap and another 150 available in bottles. El Bait Shop, which has been included in Draft Magazine’s Top 200 Bars in America three times, is quite a place: Its walls are covered in beer signs, used bicycles, stuffed animals and there is an outdoor bar, a giant patio and a working shower. It also has a gem of a bar right next door: The High Life Lounge, a 1960s-style corner tavern reminiscent of the bars in a Martin Scorsese mob movie. Though the beer selection is true to the theme (mostly limited to classic American pilsners like Schlitz and Miller High Life), the High Life Lounge is a simple, classy place where lovers of all things retro will feel right at home.
The Twin Cities
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to great breweries, great bars and great beer stores.
Town Hall (1430 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis) is a Twin Cities institution that brews five year-round beers and five seasonals—many of which have medaled at the Great American Beer Festival. Town Hall also offers fruit-infused versions of their seasonal beers as well as a “brewer’s choice,” which is usually whatever seasonal the brewers feel like brewing at that moment.
Just a quick trip across the street is the 7 Corner’s location of Republic (221 Cedar Ave. S.). Recently named one of the Top 100 bars in the country by Draft Magazine, Republic features 56 taps and a traditional beer engine that serves cask-conditioned ales. According to the Republic website, “We hand-pick breweries and styles with painstaking care parallel to making a mix tape for a high school sweetheart.”
Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge (1900 Marshall St. NE, Minneapolis) is better known for eccentric cocktails, but it has a decent beer selection that includes brews from Surly, Summit and even Kona. Plus, it’s a tiki bar. Enough said.
Across the river in St. Paul is The Happy Gnome (498 Selby Ave.) features 76 rotating taps, 150 different bottled beers (including vintages of J.W. Lees Harvest Ale) and an astonishing array of 300 different whiskeys.
Speaking of the Twin Cities’ revered breweries, the Surly Brewing Company (4811 Dusharme Dr, Brooklyn Center) recently opened a public taproom and a food truck is usually stationed outside in the afternoon. The Summit Brewing Company (910 Montreal Cir., St. Paul) also has a taproom, but it is only open on Fridays. Both breweries operate tours.
For the return trip, stock up on beers unavailable in Iowa at The Wine Thief and Ale Jail (1787 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul) or Zipp’s Liquors (2618 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis). Haskell’s is a chain of liquor stores that offers a sizable beer selection, and there is a “last chance” location in Faribault just off Interstate 35 (2921 Lavender Pkwy.) in case you forgot to buy beer before leaving the Twin Cities. Be mindful, though, that liquor stores are closed on Sundays in Minnesota.
And, while you are in the North Star State, keep an eye out for “whiskey plates,” which are plain white, have blue or black lettering, and have a “W” as the first letter. Among the reasons car owners receive whiskey plates is because they have received multiple Driving While Impaired violations in the past 10 years, were caught driving with a blood-alcohol content greater than .16 percent or received a DWI with a child under the age of 16 present.
Northwood, Iowa
Downtown Northwood may not have skyscrapers or bars with hundreds of different beers, but it has free parking and is home to Iowa’s first nanobrewery: Worth Brewing Company (826 Central Ave.).
Opened in 2007 by husband-and-wife team Peter Ausenhus and Margaret Bishop, Worth offers a different seasonal brew every month and five year-round beers. Ausenhus, an award-winning and passionate homebrewer who has worked at Summit, brews each in the back room on a tiny 10-gallon SABCO brewing system. (By comparison, many small microbreweries use 10-barrel systems, which can brew 310 gallons at a time.)
Worth is located in a historic two-story building originally built for the Worth Country State Bank in 1886. According to the brewery’s website, the bar itself “was most likely the original bank teller cage.” Ausenhus and Bishop give informal tours of the brewery when convenient, but patrons can see the equipment themselves when they pass through the brewery to the outdoor patio behind the building.
New Glarus, Wisconsin
New Glarus is home to a revered icon of American craft brewing: New Glarus Brewing Company (2400 State Hwy. 69), which looms majestically atop a hill just south of the city.
A trip to New Glarus is like a religious pilgrimage–or at least it is for me. The brewery itself looks like a massive Swiss chalet, and New Glarus’ Founder and President Deb Carey said the Hilltop location has undergone a great deal of expansion over the last few years. Along with three outdoor and two indoor serving areas, there is a gift shop that can double as a taproom on slow days. With a sampler or pint in hand, enjoy the outdoor patio with picnic tables and the yard games set out on the lawn. Also check out the brewery museum. New Glarus allows self-guided tours everyday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Reservations are required for a three-hour “Hard Hat Tour,” which offers visitors a behind-the-scenes peek at the Hilltop Brewery and the Riverside Brewery on the north side of the town. (Carey said the next available tour openings are in November.) New Glarus brews are unavailable outside of Wisconsin, so stock up on Spotted Cow, Moon Man and Blacktop at the Hilltop Brewery Beer Depot, which is on the ground floor of the brewery.
Also, there’s no need to return your logo pint or sampling glass to the tasting room–they are included in the cost of your first beer. While standing in line for another sample, watching the tasting room workers open a new box of glasses, I asked one of the servers why they did not want the glasses back. “We don’t like doing dishes,” she told me.
Casey Wagner lives in Iowa City.
