Bent River Brewing Company

September 5, 2008
It often depends on what time of day you are visiting Bent River. On a Friday/Sat night, it’s incredibly loud with a live band playing in a small area. On those nights, service can be kinda slow, especially with food. On an afternoon or early evening, service, food, ambiance is great. It has a cozy/homey feel and would be a great place for a casual meal. By far though, their beer outweighs any negatives. I am willing to wait on a Fri/Sat night for a pint of Uncommon Stout (brewed with espresso) anytime.

January 9, 2008 [ Updated August 27, 2008 ]
Get the Cuban Burger... awesome stuff... A fantastic brewpub that has a local clientele and a casual, almost house party atmosphere at night. Two visits in a week because the food was good enough to bring us back, and there were more than a few interesting/seasonal beers: Jingle Java Stout, Jalapeno Ale, Oatmeal Stout, Uncommon Stout, Schwarzbier, pale ale, honey porter... and most of these were really nice, garnering scores in the mid to high 3s. In the front door you see a long bar that stretches the length of the room, and a seating/pub-type area to the left, a larger room with space up front for the bands that frequently play here. Service was nice, and the food was excellent for a pub, with buffalo burgers and pork tenderloin sandwiches that would fall under the category really tasty pub eats. So good I went back for a second visit, and I’ll definitely visit again whenever I’m through the area.

October 23, 2007
Liked this place alot. My wifes family lives here so we are around at least once a year. Last year was my first visit there but wont be my last. Kind of place i could see hanging out at on a regular basis if i lived here.

August 5, 2007
Saturday afternoon visit. Somewhat "scruffy" looking, but in no way offensive. A simple bar and brewery type place. ie. This is what we do, sit down and have a brew! Big line-up of brews. Only two lagers, but both were well done and the ales I tried were also quite good. A neighborhood type brew pub that I wish I had. I would be here all the time. One negative is that they ran out of growlers. A return visit will be made.

June 27, 2007
Visted on a Sunday at noon. The place was empty except for the bartender, the cook, and us. They had about a dozen beers on tap, and they sold samplers in fours. The place was okay looking, as it looked like they probably had a busy Saturday night. It also has a beer garden which looks like it would be a fun place to hang out on a Friday or Saturday night. The burgers were awesome, as I had a patty melt and my friend loved his burger as well. The beers were all good, drinkable at the very worst. If driving through the Quad Cities on I-80, not a bad place to stop if your looking for a large and decent-tasting selection of beer.

May 2, 2007
Small-ish brewpub located in old downtown. Has sort of a retro vibe, with lots of tie-dye and dredlocks. Beer’s are generally prettty good, with one guest tap and a nice selection of bottles. Somewhat surprising that they don’t have a cask-conditioned pull. Food is decent pub fare. Service can be spotty, as they often seem to be understaffed. Would benefit from a more active management. Live music on the weekend.

January 7, 2007
Only eaten here once but the food was good. Beer isn’t always consistent, but you can usually find a couple good ones on tap. The dry hopped pale ale is your best bet IMO. $11 growlers, $7 refills. They’ll only fill Bent River Growlers though. Service is usually a bit sub par. Bartender was stoned one time, a couple others have just not seemed to care very much. The fridge at the end of the bar is usually well stocked with some interesting and sometimes hard to find beers. You’ll pay more for the bottles there than in a normal beer store, but it’s still a nice touch.

December 28, 2006
I like a joint that’s piping in Zappa/MOI music as I enter, first "Absolutely Free" then "Zombie Woof." Nice long bar with the brewing area right behind it. The eating area looked a bit cheesey, but so what. Nice laid back attitude here and the beers are fairly solid, although I could do without the fruit beers. I’ll definitely be stopping back in the future.

November 29, 2006
Love their uncommen stout- Great coffee flavor heavy stout YUM!! Great place in the summer when you can sit outside away from the smoke from inside- Although it was better the last time we were their!

November 24, 2006 [ Updated December 17, 2006 ]
Ambiance seemed pretty OK for what it intends to be; namely, a no-frills brewpub in a no-frills Midwest mini-metropolis. I rather liked the bar area with the fermenting and serving tanks right behind the bartenders without so much as a pane of glass separating the tanks from the serving area. Nice touch bringing the brewing aspect right into the same space shared by the beer consumers rather than keeping it separate and inaccessible.. They had some 10 selections on tap during my visit, showing some daring such as a jalepeno pepper beer and a honey porter. Beers were not mind-blowing but still fairly solid. They also had a decent bottle selection in their two stand-up fridges. Food was pretty bland and average, even by pub-grub standards. Nothing special on the menu. Ambiance took a hit or two because of the cheap mom-and-pop-burger-joint chairs/tables, the lung-clogging smoke even with a medium-sized crowd, and because all available tables in the dining area were filthy. We waited and waited and waited for them to clean a table and seat us, but we eventually had to seat ourselves and then ask the waitress to clean the table that we just sat at. Sorry, a customer just shouldn’t have to seat himself at a filthy table and then hope for the best. This place has a lot of potential, but it hasn’t lived up to it yet.