Illinois Brewing Company

December 20, 2007
An interesting place. It was pretty dead when I showed up on a Wednesday night. It was only the bartender, I, and a couple of other drunks sitting around. The beers were generally disappointing. There is some food available upon request. (I saw a pizza.) Several ’good’ beers in bottles as well. I saw some Lindeman’s and a couple of others in the cooler as well. The place is dirty... especially the bathroom. Good service. It actually would be an all right place to hang out and shoot some pool, as long as you aren’t going for the beer selection.

October 8, 2007
Seems to have declined significantly since my last visit, appears to be be going downhill. Limited offerings, none of which were terribly interesting. Quite a few of the clientele were drinking macro-swill during my visit. Needs a thorough cleaning. Seems as though the owners might have lost interest? A disappointment.

August 18, 2006
I almost missed the place. All of the neon signs in the windows were for piss-water brews. Big place with an old bar and lots of beer signs, mainly for the crap stuff, all over. The place was near empty, so the service was good. Beers are approaching par for a small brewpub. They only had four of theirs on tap (rather than six) for some reason. May as well stop by if you’re in the area.

July 19, 2005
well, its been a few years since i went to this place with my good frend from college (he is from bloomington). I remember having 2 beers there-the porter and the pale ale. I thought the pale was pretty good but the porter was very lactic/chalky. Service is good, but the frequents that go here are less than desireable bmc drinkers/drunks.

July 15, 2005 [ Updated March 24, 2008 ]
Nice enough place, but must be hard to run a brewpub in a university town, because all the frat boys want is Bud Light or PBR. Otherwise, the brewers here could run some more brews and improve their quality. I sampled all the beer they had on tap, and most of it was yeasty and cidery. The Brown Ale was okay, though. I think they know what they’re doing, since they also had a homebrew shop, but they need to work out some kinks yet. I arrived just as they were opening, so there was no food yet, but when in Bloomington, you must at least have Beer Nuts. They get extra points for having guest taps, one of which was serving Two Brothers Domain DuPage. Still, I encourage you to check them out. It’s a work in progress.