Latest reviews from Des Moines

“Cromulent beer, good selection of lagers, nothing is a standout but everything is well done. Nice big space, on the edge of downtown. Didn't try the food but they have it. Good stop, although I preferred Lua.“

WestCoastHawkeye 216 days ago

“This would be my top stop in Des Moines. Classic hazies / sours / adjuncted stouts brewery, but near the top of the heap for that. That review is a bit dismissive, this place does great beer. Surprisingly good beer, too.“

WestCoastHawkeye 216 days ago

“More breadth than depth. Very, very broad for Iowa, and if you're an out-of-stater, this is a great stop. If you're looking for hype beers from places like Lua and Toppling Goliath, not the stop for you. Food was good though.“

WestCoastHawkeye 216 days ago

“On the small side. Nice wooden bar with about 20 taps or so and some cans; four TVs tuned to sports. Service is decent, beers drinkable but nothing really special. Brewery is visible behind some windows and some wooden casks. Other micro breweries nearby. A bit loud on the inside.“

drpimento 530 days ago

“Decent beer, food and service for a downtown bar. I'd return.“

drpimento 532 days ago

“I've been wanting to come to this place forever. It exceeds my expectations. Service is outstanding beer selection likewise. Great food and just having a super good time. Lots of sweet breweriana. I just regret that I live too far away.“

drpimento 533 days ago

“Large place, big outdoor area too. Solid taplist, everything was very tasty. Awesome place.“

Travlr 740 days ago

“A really nice brewery in Des Moines, maybe my new favorite. Beers were solid, the food was excellent. It was a brutally hot day, but the large outside seating area was inviting. Visited on my way up to WI for Dave's wedding in 2021.“

ads135 838 days ago

“Really solid brewery right across the street from Peace Tree. Nice outside area and an industrial chic interior. Visited in the summer and there were plenty of lighter brews and a few sours.“

ads135 991 days ago

“Thursday afternoon visit. Busy, newer brewery near downtown. Crowded at 3:30. Nice building, great service, and tasty beers. About 15 of their beers on tap and a few guest taps. Have heard excellent reviews of their food service. Reasonable prices. Well worth a visit!“

RobertDale 1054 days ago

“Friday afternoon visit to this newer brewery in Des Moines. About a dozen beers on tap. No stouts. iPAs and sours were pretty good. Fair prices and good service. Flight of four tasters was 9$. Peace Tree and Iowa Tap Room very close.“

RobertDale 1057 days ago

“Nice steak house located by the airport. Great food, great service, limited beer menu. Only around five local beers. Somewhat pricey. Eat here, drink elsewhere.“

RobertDale 1057 days ago

“Visited the taproom on May 25, 2021. First trip to Ioamwa post covid lockdown. The taproom was moderately filled on a Tuesday night. The beer was awesome. The staff very friendly. Nice music. Very nice evening. Thanks.“

Aggiebob 1066 days ago

“On the south side of downtown Des Moines. Old school dive bar feel but with a ton of beer. The menu said 262 taps. I didn't count them but they take up space on several walls. Flights are available and the bartenders are attentive and always ready to pour you another even on a busy Sunday afternoon. The food was just ok, bar sandwiches and the like. The adjoining High Life lounge looks like your parents basement with wood paneling, veneer topped bar and ancient electric old school beer signs. Pretty cool place to saddle in and forget about life for a while.“

thegreenrooster 1342 days ago

“Adding rating from Jan 2020 visit.“

Aggiebob 1514 days ago

“Nice location. Quiet industrial park in a green environment. Large indoor and outdoor seating. Around 2 dozen taps of their brews. Cask ale and a fridge of their cans and bombers. Nice!“

ads135 1764 days ago

“Visited right after it opened on a Friday in 2019. Cavernous interior, clever beer “silo” for the taps. Large space. Didn’t try the food. Good conversation with the bartender. About as good as it gets if you want to see what Iowa breweries have to offer.“

ads135 1764 days ago

“Very limited beer selection, but it’s nicely curated. This is a specialty cheese shop and the manager I met is very knowledgeable of all of his products. Maybe 30 beers on sale, all of which are interesting. Little from Iowa.“

ads135 1764 days ago

“A wine and liquor store that has an okay selection of beers. Very limited singles. Decent selection of Iowa sizers and some of the better international beers. Visited in 2019.“

ads135 1764 days ago

“Visited in 2019. Trying to find a decent bottle shop in the city. Pretty decent collection of major Iowa beers and a okay selection of national and international brews. Standard prices. No singles.“

ads135 1764 days ago

“This is a great new brewery in Des Moines that we visited during their first week in business. The guys have this dialed in and they produce quality beers. I really enjoyed the Session Ale and Roggenbier. Friendly service and beer at great prices. I look forward to visiting when I am back in town.“

BeerandBlues2 1777 days ago

“Visited on a Friday early evening around 5 pm. The place was swarming with people to the point that parking was about impossible. It’s a very popular spot. The building itself is very large. When you walk in the main entrance, you walk past a lot of brewing equipment and cans to be filled. Quite the operation. The beer they had on draft was very diversified. They had pretty much every style covered. The quality of the beer was good as well. I enjoyed about everything I got to try. Service was always great as well despite the large crowds. There’s a big patio behind the building with a large area for bike parking. Food was provided by food truck. It’s a bit away from things, but it is totally worth going out of your way to visit.“

JStax 1777 days ago

“Visited on a Friday early afternoon. The place is pretty nice and new. Trendy even. Cool patio outside that was pretty busy, and inside was large with lots of barrels and the like scattered around. They had nice chairs in clusters of four with a table in the middle. Think living room style. We put together two flights of five and that came to $24. Service was good. Beer quality was decent, but not particularly noteworthy. If you are in the area, you should stop in.“

JStax 1777 days ago

“Visited on a Friday early afternoon. Shared building with a catering company and right across the street from Peace Tree, who has a parking lot. Big garage style doors were open since the weather was nice. Our visit was on their 8th day of business, so they only had 7 of what looked like 24 taps in use. The quality of the beer was solid. There’s some room to improve as they work through their initial phase. I enjoyed that they weren’t doing mostly IPAs. Very friendly service.“

JStax 1777 days ago

“Visited on a Friday afternoon around 1 pm. Street parking is available, but there’s also a parking lot for Peace Tree just a block or so away. They have a huge selection of beer, all from Iowa. The menu is organized very well. Service was great. The girl serving us put up with our continuous ordering of sample sizes. I had the tacos, and they were very nice. Twenty beer samples and my tacos came to a little under $70 pre tip. Pretty good. May check them out again before leaving Des Moines!“

JStax 1777 days ago

“Afternoon visit after the lunch rush. Around a 100 Iowa beers on tap. Separate menu for new beers. Good service with fair prices. Flights available. Think the building used to be a brewery. Large circular bar. Huge seating capacity. Tickers heaven.“

RobertDale 1791 days ago

“By far the best beer place in Iowa! Ed the server is the best server I've ever had, and genuinely wants to share local craft beer with people who appreciate it. Incredible selection, limited menu, but I go for the beer, so not a big deal. Best service I've ever had.“

DaveCole 1936 days ago

“Must stop when in Des Moines, with a ridiculous number of taps, and they’re almost all interesting. Custom flights available, charged by the beer, so the price can sure get up there - flight of 4 was $17.50 for me! Friendly service. A great experience.“

mcberko 1953 days ago

“Comfy tasting room near the centre of town. Custom flights of 5 available for $12, and a fairly wide selection of styles, including 5 sours. Beer quality is unfortunately not too high, with half-assed attempts at almost everything. This will please the masses, but I wasn't too impressed. Maybe worth stopping in beer-deprived Des Moines, but don't expect much.“

mcberko 1953 days ago

“Moderately-sized tasting room in an industrial lot, just south of the city centre. Lots of house taps, with custom flights of 4 for $8 ($0.50 more per specialty beer). Beer quality was nothing special, with nothing really in excellent territory, but nothing off either. Service was rather blunt and impersonal, but prompt and competent. Worth a hit when in Des Moines.“

mcberko 1953 days ago

“Right in the heart of town, there is street parking (metered at $0.25/hr), this is a cool place that attempts to be a bit higher brown. Ambitious taplist with all sorts of stuff, but their beers aren’t well dialed in, especially their IPAs. Their imperial peanut butter porter, however, was excellent. Friendly service who will give free samples. Not a place for good beer, with the one exception, but if you’re in the area, might want to check it out.“

mcberko 1953 days ago

“Absolutely loved this place when i visited in April 2017. Massive tap wall and some real gems as well. Their bottle cellar list is insane! Service was amazing-the guy gave me the low down on most all the good breweries in Iowa, especially the somewhat disturbing story of what is Toppling Goliath. That is for another day. Food was fantastic and i will absolutely go here every time i am in Des Moines.“

Terminus 2296 days ago

“Westchesterco and I stopped in for dinner and beers on a cross country drive. It was a Wednesday night and the place was quite crowded and really noisy. The beer list is impressive, with over 200 on draft. However, there is not a really good way to know what is on draft. The printed list is updated every Friday. By Wednesday many of the beers had kicked, including most of the ones I ordered. The current ones are not listed anywhere in the bar, so have to rely on the server. Ours helpfully said “the one you ordered is out, let me suggest a replacement.” Well, I would rather pick my own, so I was pretty disappointed. I finally ended up with a flight of 4, at an exhorbitant price of $10, along with food. The food was awful. Disappointment number 2. I would not recommend this place to anyone other than beer tickers. Even fonefan would find quite a few he has not rated. I won’t be hurrying back. There are better options in town.“

Iphonephan 2399 days ago

“Located inside the HyVee supermarket close to Drake campus. It's probably one of the smallest HyVee's in DesMoines. The booze is located in a separate part on the right. They have a lot of six packs of regional and national craft and a refrigerated pick-six section that was kind of lacking especially in Iowa beer. I wish for example all of the Toppling Goliath and Surly 4 packs were available as singles. It's a solid neighborhood stop but definitely not any kind of a destination place.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“Located on the second floor of the Merle Hay mall which has some oddly specific stores and the whole mall has definitley seen better days. It definitley has a chain feel in terms of signage and design elements. They have a large bar waiting area and like Alamo drafthouse you can order beer and food delivered to your seat. I like that you can reserve a specific seat in the movie theater. The chairs in the screening rooms were basically office chairs and quite comfortable. The beer here is nothing special and though they have a lot of taps, the draft menu in the screening room isn't up to date which is annoying. Also annoying was whatever beer I tried to order, regardless of style, the server kept trying to steer me to their house IPA. And don't get me started about the food. Meh! Overall it was a great movie experience, a decent craft beer experience, and a dodgy food experience.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“Located near the Drake university campus, this is a tiny place with a tiny parking lot. Definitely has a well worn feel on the inside. Like I said it's tiny with a bar only big enough for 4-5 seats and maybe 8-9 tables. Still if I was a college student I'd probably live here and throw all my books on one of those tables while eating a hamburger and drinking a nice craft beer. The selection is nicer in terms of craft offerings than your typical college dive bar and they also do 1/2 pours of any of their 20 ounce beers. It's really a cool place.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“The only place we visited twice during our trip. Located downtown just on the other side of the river in an old brewery. Parking's not abundant but we were able to find some on the street. In additional to the old industrial vibe, the thing you immediately notice is the largest barrel I've ever seen with a ton of taps sticking out of it. This place has well over 90 taps of only Iowa beer along with a few meads and ciders. Everything was available in 5 ounce pours for plentiful tasting. The bartenders were friendly and they also have really large bathrooms which is nice for beer tasting. Definitely the highlight of the trip.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“Definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Located in an industrial park with plenty of parking, this place also borders a bike trail and a local park. They have a really large indoor taproom as well an outdoor bar for the bikers. They had a number of solid beers, friendly service, and a rather relaxed vibe about the place. i wish we could have stayed here longer.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“Located maybe a mile from downtown with a decent size parking lot. This places looks like an old industrial building and was pretty big on the inside with both and indoor area as well as an indoor/outdoor biergarden. The beers were pretty solid with their German styles the most noteworthy.“

DiarmaidBHK 2424 days ago

“Large space with ample seating. Pleasant ambiance and good service at the bar. 19 house beers on tap plus a guest cider, a pretty nice selection overall, incorporating American and European styles as well as some barrel aged offerings. One of my favorite stops in Des Moines.“

ajnepple 2494 days ago

“Pleasant ambiance and good service with a nice selection of brews, about 12 on tap I believe. Good hoppy beers, dark beers and some solid kettle sours as well. One of my favorite stops in Des Moines.“

ajnepple 2494 days ago

“Located within walking distance of some other solid places. Standard old-school downtown brewpub vibe, with a definite attempt at an English pub vibe. I had just eaten, so I didn’t try the food. Solid service... bartender was friendly, helpful, and amply handling a decent crowd. Ordered a flight of 8 for $17. Kinda steep for the quality. Bartender was happy to give me decent sizes samples of the other 2 beers on tap. They also offer a 3 beer flight which is good for locals just wanting to try the seasonals. Drinking here is like drinking at two different breweries. This is the kind of place that says "here’s our core beers and a few rotating seasonals." The core beers were decently executed, but kinda boring. OTOH, the seasonals were interesting, inventive, and well executed. English DIPA, California Common and a quite nice guava Saison. If they pay a little more attention to the core beers it would be beneficial. Some decent deals on wings and pints when I was there, but seems pretty pricy otherwise. Overall worth a stop if you’re in Des Moines.“

Drake 2525 days ago

“Vastly disappointed by this place. Cool vibe actually, long shotgun style place, big patio, nice lightly German decor. Solid beer list. Nothing too rare, lots of German beers and a handful of solid locals. Service was friendly but passive. The big disappointment was the food. I guess this was bound to happen some day. I love German food, and my "test’ for any German restaurant is jagerschnitzel and spaetzle. They failed on both. The schnitzel was under-sauced and lacked seasoning. The spaetzle was flavorless and mushy. Maybe the worst German food I’ve ever had. Sad. I’d probably never come back here even if I were a local.“

Drake 2525 days ago

“Parked out front, which seems more like a back entrance. There must be bike trails here because there were dozens of bicyclists soon after opening. Big tasting room with a lot of seating. Very large brewery in the center of the place. Staff were friendly despite the large crowd and their having network issues right at opening. Flights of 4 for $8 with 50 cent upcharges for special beers. The beer quality is top notch. Excellent execution across many different styles. All well executed.Plenty of beer packaged to go. Parking was easy. Food trucks most days of the week.Free pretzels otherwise. Live music at least weekly. Worth going out of your way to come here. World class.“

Drake 2525 days ago

“Awesome place. They’re up to 222 taps. If you can’t find something new here, you must work here. Bartenders were all friendly and helpful despite the massive (and VERY drunk) Saturday night holiday weekend crowd. Probably a couple hundred people there when I arrived around 10pm. Didn’t hurt that I named dropped CanIHave4Beers. Everything you can imagine on tap. Rarities, tons of meads and ciders, a ton of Iowa beers, lots of less common US micros. Not too many foreign beers on tap, but these owners have entire bars for that. Not too much macro stuff either. Small late night food menu. Menu looks good, but the pizza puff thing was meh. Flights of 4 for $10, maybe a little more for premium pours, but they seem to not enforce this too closely. I paid $21 for two flights, most of the beers on the "limited" list. Generously sized "small" samples provided, even when not asked for. Overall, fun place. World class.“

Drake 2525 days ago

“Overall a great place. Good selection of house beers, most of all were quite good. Good was excellent, service was fine, interesting old building. Nice all around“

strongpieman 2722 days ago

“Amazing number of beers on tap. Relaxed atmosphere and friendly service. Lot of bicyclists visiting this place. IA beers well presented. Flights of 4 available. Pretty decent food. Very positive experience.“

rosenbergh 2740 days ago

“Definitely a brewery to visit while in Des Moines. Sizable brewery and large taproom with an outside deck (unfortunately not much to see from the deck being in an industrial park). They had 17 beers when I visited today...and many were good...but also a number were average...and I was expecting better given this was the most highly rated brewery in the area. The decent ones for me were the Des Moines IPA, the Southside Citra Blonde, and the Thomas Beck Black IPA. The rest were all likeable enough...I just think others in town are making better beers and Confluence needs to up their game a bit. I also think they may be a little overrated on RateBeer...but that might be because they’ve been around longer and perhaps only recently the local competition is catching up and in some cases passing them (515 would be an example of the latter). They had 3 barrel aged beers and I wasn’t really that impressed with them. Again...very solid brewery...just think there’s better choices in town.“

PRBeer 2804 days ago

“A small kind of "secret" area of the Royal Mile. If you don’t know its there there is no sign pointing upstairs. While the downstairs Royal Mile British bar was hoping me and Heemer were the only ones upstairs on an early Friday Night. The focus is Belgians and Belgian styles. It was a cool little quiet place to hang and have some quality beers.“

Shag 2853 days ago

“This is a very unique place. Its in the middle of a mall similar to a food court. The brew selection and quality is top notch. The bartenders were cool. One guy had Ghostbuster tats. They kept asking what styles do you like? What flavors do you like? They really were interested in giving us good beers and styles we like. I did not see a movie here but I think this would be a good concept. Kids go see Finding Dory you have a few good beers. Everyone wins!“

Shag 2862 days ago