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Des Moines-New Taprooms

dmclone

dmclone

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Oct 20, 2006
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So excited to see all these new places opening over the next year.
www.desmoinesregister.com

Big Grove Brewery brings a giant taproom and restaurant to Des Moines this week

The long-awaited Big Grove Brewery & Taproom opens in Sherman Hill on Wednesday with a restaurant and massive patio.
www.desmoinesregister.com

Big Grove is opening Wednesday.
Backpocket should be opening this fall in Johnston. I really hope they continue to improve. They are one of the few breweries that have actually improved over time.
Singlespeed should be open next Spring (I think)
Toppling-TBD

While vacationing, I almost always try to check out the local tap rooms and Des Moines is killing it for it's size. Better than similar sized places like Omaha, Wichita, Madison, etc. Even beats some bigger cities like Nashville, OKC, etc. Hell IMO Austin was behind Des Moines.
 
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I was at Lua on Saturday. I decided to drive by Big Grove to see the progress and it looked like they were having a soft opening. Was anyone on here lucky enough to attend?
 
The new Big Grove in Des Moines is pretty awesome. Huge bar area with lots of seating, probably 3-4 times as much indoor seating as Lua and a huge dog friendly patio with gas fire pit’s and bag boards. Easily the new #1 taproom in DM.

I’d personally rank their beer in the top 5 in the state. Haven’t tried much of the food yet but if it’s anything like their other locations it’s solid.

Iowa City Lager is one of my favorite year round beers, Richard The Whale is a good barrel aged stout and their Batch 1000 Barley Wine is fantastic. A great addition to the metro.
 
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Big Grove was insanely busy last night. Line to get in the door. I saw either a worker or a patron come outside and hand out beers to those in a line waiting to get it.
Lua pretty busy too.

Great to see.
 
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Also noticed hopping around last night, just East of Peace Tree is something called Barrel House.
 
JP4CY said:
Also noticed hopping around last night, just East of Peace Tree is something called Barrel House.
Click to expand...
Saw that too but pretty sure it’s not open yet. The new Twisted Vine taproom is right down the street to the south of that and it’s pretty nice too. You can watch the I-Cubs Friday night fireworks from the patio.
 
Big Grove Des Moines. It's a cool place but a little different. It's like the Iowa city location where the seating really focuses on dining. Singlespeed in Waterloo also has a similar setup. So if you just want to go and drink, head to the bar area anger you'll be good. If you are in the dining areas, it was filled with babies. Apperantly bringing your 4 month old to the taproom is the thing to do.
We finished day heading over to Lua, which will probably be the norm for us. The good news is that Big Grove does pretty decent beer.
 
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Checked out Big Grove after dinner last night. Really impressive, but we didn’t want to wait for a table, so headed over to Lua for some Gil’s Pils. We’ll try BG another time as it may be the place to relax on that huge patio once the temperatures drop. I’d like to do an all-day pub crawl on Ingersoll between Greenwood on the west end and Lua/BG on the east. Just have to figure out which direction to start and where to have lunch and dinner along the way.
 
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Tried out a couple new places yesterday.

Tried out the Beer Garden at Water Works park. They have 6-8 taps. Decent place to just sit around and have a couple of beers. I'd recommend brining your own chairs since seating is limited. Open 4 days a week until the end of October.
dsmbeergarden.com

Des Moines Biergarten

Des Moines Biergarten is a free family-friendly popup German-theme beer garden offering steins of beer and German inspired food. Join us in Water Works Park every Wednesday through Sunday in May to October.
dsmbeergarden.com dsmbeergarden.com

Twisted Vine. Very cool building and nice patio. Unfortunately, the beer doesn't seem like it changed much. The good news is that they had beer from some other local brewers available that was decent. In the that area of town I would say that it's better than 1717 and a little below Piece Tree when it comes to beer. Once SingleSpeed gets built over there, it will be my place to go.
 
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dmclone said:
This story is right, it's not always just about location, it's also timing. Madhouse was just early to the area although their taproom was also embarrassingly small.
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Pretty sure Madhouse closed because the owner wanted to devote more time to his other business-Jasper Winery.
 
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dmclone said:
Except when it wasn't. El Jefe, Carpe Diem, and VIP all were excellent beers. Once in awhile they also did a decent sour.
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Loved Carpe Diem. They definitely excelled at stouts and sours and that was before sours really got popular.

If you like bourbon and wine at all I recommend the bourbon barrel aged wine at Jasper. Pretty good stuff. They also have some decent canned wines.
 
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