El Bait Shop

August 20, 2008
They must be an official rogue tap because they have a wide Rogue selection including some special brews, it looked like 15-20 taps of Rogue. Selection is obviously huge a lot of depth on some breweries and some not widely distributed locals, not much in the way of big styles aside from the Rogue line. Kitschy beer signs all over the place. Good value on food and drinks. Almost entirely american micros make up the draught selection, a few basic german and belgian offerings in bottles. I was one of 3 people in there at the time so hard to judge the service, but the bartender did his job.

July 15, 2008 [ Updated August 12, 2008 ]
This has very much become the spot where my wife and I hang. It has a fantasic tap selection, or at least they work damn hard to have a great tap selection. Sure they have everything you’re sick of seeing at the hy-vee on tap, but they really do a great job of working to bring in some surprises every week/month or so. The bottle selection is very good too the only place I know of where I can order a Gose!!!! The food is pretty much always awesome and cheap UNDER 2 BONES FOR CHIPS & SALSA, and the salsa rules. You can hang out in this place for two years and still find yourself distracted by all the random stuff on the walls, it’s pretty wild. The Where the Wild Things Are mural is pretty awesome too.

December 16, 2007
This place serves great food with good beer. They got a John’s Locker Stock last time I was there, I loved the beer! They have great swag all over the place and stuff is mixed all around like the garage door in the wall that opens up and the shower on the other side of the bar. Never go late Friday or Saturday nights as the music will be more than deafening and the place will be packed with drunken idiots (my bias). Great for a quiet midweek supper with great beer!

October 23, 2007
105 on tap. Mostly good stuff as well. Theyve got all the standard microbrews offerings available in IA that we all get sick of seeing at the grocery store when looking for something new (Yea, you’ve got GI, but I want something OTHER than the 312 ). However, with 105 taps and 90some bottles they do have a fair amount of harder to find stuff as well. The Rogue selection is pretty impressive. They typically have 7-8 regulars and and few XS/JLS on tap. Solid rotating Bells selection (2H). 3F as well, I don’t remember what the selection was though. You can get good deals specialty beers as well. $5 for a Rogue Imp Pilsner sure beats $15 for one of those ceramic bottles. Haven’t tried the food yet.

June 13, 2007
Went here after going to Court Avenue, the waiter sugested going here for dessert. The service wasnt all that great, had to wait a while to order our beer, and he didnt know very much about the beer on the menu. But, the selection was amazing. I never saw a bar with so many taps, it was amazing. The atmosphere was pretty cool, a ton of beer signs all around. I cannt say anything about the food, I went there for dessert. I got a Old Crusty, something that is very hard to find where I live, so that was a very good experience.

May 4, 2007
When El Bait Shop opened under a claim of 105 tap beers, I figured 30 Bud, 30 Miller, 30 Coors, and the rest are out of stock. Wrong. These are almost all microbrews, including over 20 Rogues at a time. They keep the beer fresh by clearing them out by as low as $1 a pint (Anchor Christmas, Sierra Nevada Porter). I’ve had Bigfoot Ale at $3.75 a pint and Old Crustacian the same. The Unibroue Belgian White is currently about $5 a pint on tap. More amazing is the fact the bottles are even more interesting, with Goose Island Pere Jacques and Demolition under $5, etc. I’ve found most of the staff to be well versed, with favorite Bell’s etc. You could run into an occasional person who isn’t, but this place also owns a Belgian bar, an English pub and a German fest hall within 3 blocks in downtown Des Moines. The area is exploding right now, so help is in demand. As for the food, how about a half rack of ribs for $6 or a fish burrito for about the same. The nachos are a work of art. And, uh, sorry, but when the place is great, and the baseball park is 2 blocks away, it will get busy at times. It’s worth the wait, especially when the garage door is open

May 3, 2007
Service was spotty - some bartenders knew their stuff, others seemed clueless. Our waitress, who knew nothing about beer, seemed offended when we went to the bar to make our selections - a choice we found logical given she was unable to figure out the age of the beer list. note: the lunch and dinner specials are tasty and an excellent value.

May 2, 2007
Good selection on tap and bottled, but always way overcrowded, filled with young singles looking to get loud and drunk, and way overhyped in local media as a ’cool spot’. It might be cool if I could ever find a place to sit down and enjoy my beer. Standing around in a noisy room with lots of beer spilled on the floor makes the whole place just seem like a frat party, though. Ugh.

March 11, 2007 [ Updated July 2, 2007 ]
Thanks for listing this place Sledge. After speaking with Sam, it sounds like its been open for about a year. Service was very good. They easily have the best draft selection in Iowa. The list includes Boulevard, Rogue (including the Locker Stock series), Stevens Point, Bell’s, Flying Dog, Goose Island, Breckenridge, Summit, 3 Floyds, Anchor, and Saranac. They also have some local offerings from Millstream, Old Capital, Raccoon River, and Sutliff Cider Company. I visited on a Sunday, and there was a small, but ample (for Iowa) crowd there. No frat atmosphere worries on Sunday. Nobody was smoking when I visited, so the COPD factor is also low on Sundays. I didn’t eat anything, but next time I’ll try the food. Great place for Iowans looking for decent draft beer.

March 7, 2007 [ Updated March 9, 2007 ]
Over 100 taps is great. Has a good selection of Bells and Rogue on tap. Has locals such as Sutcliff Cider, Old Capitol Brewworks and Olde Main on tap. Staff knew nothing about beer. Very very smoky. If you want to taste your beer go at a low traffic week day. The mexican food was very cheap and very tasty. Neat vintage beeriphernalia on the walls. Attached to this place is a bar called THE HIGH LIFE LOUNGE. Since you will no doubt walk into this bar to check out the amazing beeriphernalia, I’ll include my Admin-deleted review here: I include this place for 2 reasons. 1) It is connected to the excellent "El Bait Shop" so you don’t have to go out of your way. 2) The 1970’s motif is centered around an excellent beeriphernalia collection that collectors will enjoy. With that said, I was disgusted by the elitist attitude of the bartenders who felt they were doing you a favor by taking your beer order. You’d think that a place that attempts to have a "Regular Joe" bar feel would want normal friendly waitstaff. Nope, this place likes to hire the Kings and Queens of Attitude. Good luck getting a beer from the Illustrated Man. The beer selection is TERRIBLE, unless you want to drink a 7 oz Miller in the pony bottle. Food highlight is a fried Spam sandwich. The cigarette smoke level is guaranteed to cause COPD.