Good Word Brewing & Public House

Had a great meetup with Mrs. CC and ATL6245 on 4-25-26 in the charming town square area of Duluth, GA.

Not a lot to add as Slander did a great review below. Recommend the free public parking behind the Courtyard by Marriot as there is a lot of activity in the area. Great vibe in the brew pub, nicely decorated. Beers are well made and cover the pub standard brews, old styles that are well executed. Top notch service and even owner/head brewer Todd DiMatteo chatted us up for 10 minutes. Food is unique, flavorful, well executed - don't expect your run in the mill brewpub offerings as there will be a delightful twist on a number of items. Great place - will go again if ever in the area!

Last full day of the beer & baseball trip; Atlanta edition, with the unusual suspects. We drove out to Athens for a day trip and caught some goods (and some not as goods) and came back in. The ride from out there to back here must have been like 6 minutes because boom! we were here in like, wait, where are we now? Duluth, or so I am told. Parked and navigated this hip scene complex but as the dumb kids often steer clear of good beer, it's thankfully not overrun…

White marble topped rectangular center bar island, horizontal wood plank base, & black piping foot rail. Seating for 2 dozen+ on red leather stools 3 sides around and the barback on the 4th side holding booze shelved and glassware a-danglin’ from the underside for cocktail play. On the countertop below, a tap tower row of 12 handles non-descript and 2 live, I repeat, LIVE, handpumps on the end, and glassware down under shelved. 4 upright 3 tap trios at different points along the bar and a 4 tap barbell tower sunken lower.

Horizontal wood plank inner wall, panel window outer walls to the side & rear, and big brick up front between the entrance and roll up out to the forward off the entrance outside space. Well weathered wood plank floors, black corrugated ceiling with ducts, spins, drop pan lamps, and a framed bar overhang with drop gumball lamps tracing. Curtains to both sides of the barback shelving piece towards the far end of the bar to somewhat close it off or not (that which keeps the riff raff who is you, out).

Sign boards atop the far wall seating listing beers, style, & ABV. Books & pieces (globe, giraffe, records, baseball mitt, typewriter, Pliny bottle, old radio, etc.) to both sides shelved. Flats on 3 of 4 walls, a few dart boards around the bar, & a 4 door can cooler up front.

4 step in booths on the far side of the bar, 2 raised roundies forward, 3 booths on the near side of the bar along the windows, and a dozen and a half+ booths & tables to the rear, many of them on shared benchings. Logo beer prints framed back there, a mural on the wall opposite above, and barrels racked and halved as planters. And out front, a half dozen+ counter seats barside, barrel base roundie tables, and short recs on shared benchings for the sitting at.

I housed a fried chicken sandwich and I don’t care who knows it. Not so spicy as the mayo type thing they added to it to make it so, and there were mixed greens of hell, yes, in there too. A solid sandwich as sandwiches go. Wait. Banana pudding? I’m going to need that in my life, please, and thank you. Bananas, cream, candied cashews, & Nilla wafers. Just perfect and illegal in 4 states. And I had at the peach blueberry skillet cake of the goddamn amazing that one of the others ordered. Food is goods!

16 beers up (Did Todd Die, American Pilsner, 5%; Any Day Now, Italian Pilsner, 5%; Nobody Loves You Like I do, Czech Pilsner, 4.4%; Slave to the Money, Little Baby Pilsner, 4%; No Direction Home, French Pilsner, 4.9%; Holographic Heart, English Golden Ale, 4.2%; Digital Comforts, English Best Bitter, 3.9%; Analog Life, English Dark Mild, 3.6%; Ojos Ahumados, English Smoked Porter, 2.7%; Quantum Immortality, English Porter, 4%; East Court Squares, Petite IPA, 3.6%; Never Sleep, Hazy IPA, 7%; Penelope, Saison, 6.5%; Isabella, Hefeweizen, 4.9%; Ophelia, Berliner Weisse, 4.5%; Anna Fantastic, Fruited Sour, 4%) + 2 casks (Ojos Ahumados, English Smoked Porter & Digital Comforts, English Best Bitter).

It’s a shit list, to be sure. I mean, 5 Pilsners; who besides me and every sane beer drinker I know wants that, right? And all but 2 of the 16 beers come in at 5% or less. Yeah, I want to live here. Tight on time, I Had the Analog Life, English Dark Mild (good malt, toasty, real nice), and then the Quantum Immortality, English Porter (coffee, light bitterness, just lovely). Fact: banana pudding + English Porter = Love. That’s simple math, right there. Wish I’d gotten further in on this list; maybe a Pilsner or 5, the Best Bitter, & Smoked Porter, too, but this was a stop in so it was not to be. That day, anyway.

Got back to Atlanta last year for a trade show and a day or two up north Georgia and told my coworkers “there’s this place we should hit kind of along the way”, and we were on their doorstep at opening the next morning. Oh no, there’s a Kolsch, a Dry Hopped Pilsner, an Alt, a Czech Dark Lager, a Munich Dunkel, and a different English Smoked Porter on this time around. GM Rob behind the sticks took good care of us (he’s an Ithaca kid, we talked of the Rongo as men do), and Todd started pulling us some this and thats from tap and tank. Crazytown. Nick got into the boiled peanuts as he does, and I had Mango Habanero wings (yum factor five) and that beautiful goddamn banana pudding again.

Well done sessionable beers and a lot of ‘em, and one of a very small number of Cask Marque establishments in America. Excellent service, fantastic beer, great food, & a mad chill house. Go here!

Note: This brew pub is now Cask Marque certified to provide a high quality cask (real) ale experience. Be sure to ask what is on cask!

Loved everything about this place. It has a neat vibe, with an indoor bar and outdoor covered area & bar. I'd like the outdoor area to be bigger, but the location is downtown Duluth, so I can see where they had limitations. The food is good, and the beer is outstanding. GW focuses on classic styles and lower ABV beers. I had the Kolsch, German Pils, Amber Lager, Helles and Dark Mild. You'll also find Saison, Hefe, IPA, Barleywine and mixed drinks. They also have cask beers, which is very unusual in the U.S. Drank one of the Kolsch's from cask. It was wonderful. Staff was attentive and knowledgeable. As with all small breweries, the staff can get stretched thin during busy times, so I recommend off peak hours, if possible, for the best experience. Overall, this brewery may have the best beer in the Atlanta area, across the board. GW is one of those places that is well worth going out of your way to visit. If you can't find a beer you like here, then you might not be a beer drinker.

 

 

Stopped over lunch during the week. Inside was a nice quiet spot with lots of natural light. Plenty of seating around the bar, at tables, and covered outdoor seating... Basically, plenty of room to enjoy the great beer with family and friends.

 

 

Visited many times. Big open place off the rail tracks in downtown Duluth, often packed. About 20 beers available, nearly all rotating. Wide range of styles: yeah they’ll sell you a hazy IPA but also bitters, altbier, Italian pilsners and other less common styles. Always quality. Food is pretty good - above beer bar average but not quite what I’d call gastropub level. Great service.

Visited the Atlanta area around New Years and visited Good Word. Beautiful place, clean, awesome vibe. Sat at the bar, was attended to very quickly, tried a few brews, which were all tasty. I enjoyed the Berliner/saisons most. My wife and I shared a few plates, fried chicken was great along with the poutine which was very good. Also had an empanada, least favorite of the three. We were there at open and saw the management going over some menu items with the staff before doors opened, so it showed they were on top of what is going on and out of the kitchen. Bartender seemed knowledgeable of the house beers.