Vintage Brewing Company - Whitney Way

Imagine a swank TGI Friday's or Applebee's with a brewery operation as the featured design element. If you're interested in the beer, and you should be, sit at the bar. Each of the bartenders wandering through our area knew their hops and malts -- good chatter and plenty of offers of tasters before purchases. Vintage has a respectable dining menu and plenty of folks were there to eat, but we were there to drink.

Super glad I came here. Probably the best brewery in Madison. I visited around 5pm on a Thursday and easily found seating at the bar. The place was fairly busy but the staff kept up. One bartender I dealt with was curt and not very friendly, and another was super-helpful and friendly. Did not try the food. Probably should have. Comfortable place. Dark, dark woods, booths, sofas. Brewery visible, kind of a big one for this size of a place. Beer is amazing. I tried 7, 6 full tasters and an amply sized small taste. I had a sahti and IPA that were very good, a sour that was even better, and a schwarzbier, altbier, and sweet stout that was amazing (and I'm planning to get a keg of that stout next month). Lots of different styles, all well made, and it's nice to see a lot of low ABV selections. Dirt cheap. Crowlers are $7.50 for stuff under 7%, which is most, and $5 off if you get 4 crowlers. All my samples were $1.75, so I got 4 crowlers, 6 tasters, and after tax and tip paid an even $40. Overall, it's well worth going out of your way to get here.

A nice place. Big U shaped bar with plenty of seating. A nice restaurant with a fireplace. The beer, food and service was all good.

Nice selection of beers and good service

This place has a "Supper Club feel" to it. They always have great food and the beer selection is great. Definitely worth checking out.

(October 2016) two more visits have both offered significantly better service, overall better beer choices, and I finally had a food entrée - a salmon salad with roasted veggies, almond butter, bitter greens - which was excellent. So time to update and uprate; this is indeed one of the best spots in Madison at the moment and I’ll keep going back.

First visit, August 2016. I’m not sure why I took so long to finally check out this place, but there it is. I had gone to the old JT Whitneys a few times in the middle of the last decade - mixed feelings about that place, not really surprised it died, because Madison is getting pretty competitive for beer and brewpubs. Anyway this newer place strikes me as an improvement overall, though I’m a bit tentative in my enthusiasm over both service and beer. No complaints about the ambiance - they’ve done all they possibly can to make a 90s-era "family restaurant" building look cool, dark and comfortable and pub-y. Dark enough that you may have trouble reading the beer menu or writing stuff down if you’re at the bar, actually. I had 6 samples or pints - out of the 17 they had on - and every other one was meh while the other half were all good or at least interesting. Food: I just had the pretzels, not going to give a rating based on those; I will say that the menu looks just OK, not as creative as some of my other semi-local brewpubs. As to the service - I think I got there right at changeover time; my first bartender seemed distracted (others near me were also somewhat ignored), but half an hour later there were fresh servers who were paying a bit more attention. I should also note that prices aren’t listed on the beer menu, and single samples can be over 4.00 for some strong beers. So overall - mixed to positive on one visit. There will certainly be more. Original score 70.

Very cool place-seems it was originally a chain restaurant turned into a brewpub. with that said, they added some ambiance to the place. Service is great and lots of different beer styles on tap. Beer is solid overall but nothing i had was mind blowing. a very solid brewpub with great food. Recommended for this area.

Visited with noted beer celebrities thealume and deyholla. Large, cavernous pub/restaurant. The bones of the place aren’t great - it’s dark and a bit impersonal, but it feels like they’ve made a good effort to liven things up. Our group sat in the back room and had excellent service. The wait staff hustled, answered our annoying questions about the draft list, and were more than happy to put up with our general jackassery. The selection of beers is pretty damn expansive. At least 12 house beers were on offer in addition to a selection of guests that included some limited stuff from Goose Island. The beers were generally well executed. The food was tasty American pub fare (burgers, tots, sandwiches etc.). Prices were more than reasonable. Overall, the beers and food didn’t set my world alight, but they were decent enough that I’d be more than happy to stop in the next time I’m heading through the area. Worth checking out.

Large brewpub on the southside of town with ample parking. Large bar and lots of seating. Surprisingly slow on a Saturday(possibly due to being here in summer). Large selection of beers including some unusual styles. A great place.