Liquid Bread Brewing Company

June 1, 2009
This is Hays Kansas??? A great space, good food and the stout and IPA were very passable. Worth a stop for sure!

August 17, 2008 [ Updated November 28, 2008 ]
I am going to mirror everyone’s sentiments: this place is incredible. Definately stop if you are driving on Interstate 70 between Denver and St. Louis. Beers were incredible and the food well, I had the grebble for an appetizer and buirock for dinner and both were outstanding. It was very busy and the servers were frazzed but we had a great time. This place is in the middle of nowhere but it’s nice to see people coming out to try what, if it were in Chicago, would be just as busy. Great work guys.

August 3, 2008
A true high desert oasis in the vast nothingness that is Western Kansas. It is always a pleasure coming here, stop everytime I drive through town from Kansas City to Denver or vice versa. Post industrial within an old downtown revitalization. This place has really grown since the last time I was here. Some strange people in this particular evening. Come to find out WWE was in town. Nicely structured just like their beers. Lots of open ceiling and exposed brick like you would find in a big city loft. A very nice view of the brewing area from behind the bar. Very clean and well thought out. Great crafted beers and well done comfort foods. Kansas is a brewing state to watch, you heard it here first. Oh and try the chicken fried chicken and garlic fries. They are to die for!

March 9, 2008
Holy oasis in the middle of nowhere! Visited while driving cross country in September 2007 on the recommendation of a few people here. Maybe it was the fact that I was driving a convertible with no a/c and it was pushing 90, but fuck if their rye ale wasn’t the sexiest thing that has ever graced my lips. Atmosphere is very post industrial, lots of exposed beam, very high ceilings, food was above average. Am I missing something? What is in Hayes? College town? What is this gem doing in the middle of Kansas?

June 27, 2007
Visited for lunch on a Wednesday. Located in a very cool part of town, the inside of this place was beautiful. There were three sections of the place: one a deli-like place, another a plain seating area, and the last, the bar with plenty of seating and a nice window over-looking the brewing tanks. They had 12 beers on tap, and their samples were pretty generous. The beers were very good, much better than I had expected. The food also was very good, and the garlic fries are a must. The price was about as expected, although it was great considering the quality of the food and beer. The only issue was that they appeared to be understaffed and it took us a long time to get our bill. The waitress seemed a little overwhelmed, so I’ll cut them some slack. Also, the head brewer came out to say hi to us and even made and gave us a sticker for our RV. If you are ever traveling on I-70 and going through western Kansas, a stop at Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company should be a must-stop for beer lovers.

March 10, 2007
A very very pleasant place to visit, and worth the 3 hour drive to get there. The beers are all solid, even though they do the typical brewpub color spectrum of pale (wheats) to copper (pale ale) to amber to brown to black. Nothing adventurous but still solid and well made beers. Further the food was really very good. Garlic fries: holy cow! Also tried the fried bologna sandwich (which they took to a level I didn’t know existed for such a thing!), the ale & cheddar soup, and the bread pudding: all great. But the garlic fries! Man, the garlic fries! The atmosphere was really nice here, very clean and modern, open spacious layout. Cool bathrooms too. Oh, and garlic fries! Moderately kid friendly, at least in the middle of the afternoon - we left just as the Friday night dinner crowd was thinking about arriving. One more thing, try the garlic fries.

June 6, 2006
What a pleasant surprise! I never expected a place like Liquid Bread out in the middle of nowhere. Everything very well thought out. Multiple eating rooms with a great view of the brewing equipment in the main room. Clean and inviting appreance. Well rounded menu and everyone in our party enjoyed what they ordered. An excellent selection of their own brews; nine year around brews with a few seasonals. Most important, they emphasize quality before quanity. I’ve been in too many brewpubs where they have 15 beers, but only 4 or 5 are worth drinking. This will be a great stop going out or coming back (or both) from the GABF.

May 17, 2006
I noticed mjames’ post for Liquid Bread back a few months, and made a mental note to stop next time I made the cross-Kansas trek to Denver. Finally got a chance to go last week, and what a great place! A really well-thought-through and implimented look for the brewpub. Clean, bright, comfortable. From a designer’s perspective, the logo, the menu, and general choice of decor were all really nice. The reproduction Goodform chairs were a great finishing touch. The food was well made, with excellent, understated flavor. Our waitress recommend the chicken fried chicken, and it was unusually good. (I can’t think of the last time I had chicken that tasted like this: actually, like chicken, instead of some kind of industrial tofu sponge for sauces.) The beer was all unusually solid interpretations of traditional styles. Nothing with any bombastic flavors to scare the constumers here, which seems like a saavy plan for a new brewpub so far from any hub of beer activity. I got to spend an hour or so chatting with Gerald the brewer, who is doing all the work of brewing by himself, all the way down to driving out of town every brew day to a well with a good water profile. I was really impressed with his attention to detail, and I felt like I could taste it in the beer. This is a place worth going out of your way to visit. And I suspect, one that will get even better with time.

October 3, 2005
A gem located in an otherwise barren area of central Kansas, the only brewery in a 540 mile stretch from Topeka to Denver. The lineup was somewhat plain, recipe-wise, as is common with small town breweries, but up and down the line you’ll fine every beer brewed exceptionally well. I couldn’t help but repeat my comments to my wife a number of times while visiting: "Simple recipes, but almost perfectly brewed." There’s some skill behind this place, some formal training would be my guess. If you’re passing through the area, it may be worth your time to visit. I got the feeling that there was some big time restaurant money behind this venture, but the brewer and the staff were all beer. I couldn’t help but think that if this brewery finds success in central Kansas and begins to experiment with unique styles, they could become something very big in the craft beer world.