Illinois Brewing Company

No Longer In Business

A dump. How it remains open is a mystery.

Dirty says it all- even the brews gave a dirt taste to them. Don’t use the restrooms!!

First visited in 2010. IBC was just a dirty bar with a sticky dance floor. No IBC beers were on tap or in the bottle. Bad experience here.

It’s sad that I can’t recommend a brewpub in my home state. This is not really worth stopping in for more than a sample if you must. There is a completely apathetic approach in this place, it is dirty, the beer lines are dirty, there is no talent or technique. Hopefully someday someone with a little motivation will take the place over. Until then, not worth the time.

First of all, I’m just going to say that I don’t recommend visiting this place if you happen to be in the area.

The ambiance is not good. The place is dark, dingy, and literally dirty. Though I can’t be certain, I’m pretty sure the only other people in there were literally hobos. The place offers up free food (nachos, chips, etc.), so there were 4 or 5 guys in there in very shabby clothing and none of them were drinking any beer at all. They weren’t hurting anyone or anything, but it’s just not a good situation.

The service was fine. The place was dead and there was only one bartender. She was friendly, attentive, etc., but she spent just about every second on her cellphone. No harm, but annoying.

The selection is fine. Mostly their beers on tap with a random collection of Miller Lite, Woodchuck, etc. A fair amount of bottles, including some high end stuff like 120 minute and a fair amount of seasonals.

I didn’t try any of the food they have for sale or the free food. It smelled good, though.

The value was actually decent. $3 pints and I got a flight of every beer of theirs for $5.

Overall... if you want good beer in the Bloomington/Normal area - go somewhere else. The worst part about this place is that the beer is almost all awful. Some of the samples were so bad that I couldn’t even finish the little glass - and that’s saying something.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.