515 Brewing - Des Moines, IA

I was in last Friday night and had a couple of the Mediocre. I agree, outstanding beer. 515 is absolutely the best Des Moines brewery and one of the best in Iowa.

 

Sounds like I need to get back down to 515. Mediocre and Castaway sound like must tries. Only have been there once so far, but was very impressed with OJ IPA, Lil Tart, Hopititis, and DART Dodger.

 

Um, DART Dodger is pretty freaking awesome. OJ can be hit or miss, but more often than not, it's hit. I think you need your palate checked.

 

I think he said he was very impressed with those offerings. Maybe YOU should get your eyes checked.

 

Maybe you misread my post - I DID like DART Dodger (quite a bit actually), along with the rest mentioned.

 

After last night's bottle share, I need my entire body checked.

 

Heard that.

 

Honestly, I think DART dodger would take Pliny in a blind taste.

 

Correct me , but you still can't fill growlers there? If they ever do that, or bottle their brews, then I almost never need drink anything from outside of Iowa again. Except maybe New Glarus.

 

Fact. They are expanding, though, so this will be limited. I do not expect them to stay in Clive as the city has not been kind to them. The no kids ordinance stinks, especially, IMO, since all the 515 folks have kids and I think a lot of local breweries have become family establishments. You can find generations of people hanging out at Firetrucker and 515 and most local breweries in the area, from twenty somethings to 60-70+. And their kids. And that's part of what makes them so awesome. There may be "family friendly" places where kids are allowed like Bait during certain hours, but the atmosphere is quite different at a brewery.

 

Wow thanks everyone for so many kind words. We're pretty happy with Mediocre. It's really sort of mellowed out a little since last week. We'll be brewing it again for sure. Hoping to keep it, OJ, Hopititis, DART and maybe another rotating or experimental pale or IPA on tap, along with our "roughly seasonals" and other bric-a-brac. Kinda hit a bump in production of those beers trying to push through double batches of punk nut and undead red so we only had to brew those once this year, but DART and Hop-C are in the fermenter and we're brewing OJ this weekend (hopefully).

No growlers yet. We're going to almost double production this year over last, and still struggling to keep beer in the taproom - though we are doing a better job than last year - with the same hours. We really want to expand hours and be able to do growlers, but are just scared to run out of beer. The market research we've done says we could basically sell everything we are currently producing just in growlers alone, which will be great when we can make 4 times what we did last year, but not just yet.

We've got a new tank or two coming, and hope to expand the brewhouse here in the nearish future as well, and we're hoping those tweaks will give us a little more cellar space, but the biggest limitation has been our time. We all do this on the side, and it still takes maybe 30-40 hours a week each to do what we currently do, and maybe 10-20% of all that work actually involves making the beer. We'll probably be hiring an assistant brewer soon to help with some of that and hopefully free up some time as well as making more beer.

Clive is working with us to change the ordnance on kids in the taproom, and that should hopefully pass here in the next couple of weeks. We love the location on the trail, but it's in a building that's as old as I am and has some challenges with regard to more modern zoning code that Clive has adopted, and that limits what we can do with it. For now, though, we're staying put, and trying to find creative ways to squeeze as much production capacity as we can out of the little building before we consider moving (or expanding) elsewhere.

Again, thanks for all the kind words. We listen and pay attention to the beer geeks and the non-beer geeks alike, and hope we can make everyone happy most of the time!

tl;dr Beer is good. We like beer. We'll keep making it.

 

For later on down the road when you have Iowa covered, I'd just like to point out it is only 2 hours from Clive to Omaha :-D

Speaking of which I'd just like to put this on your radar because we would love to have you come.
http://beercornerusa.com/extremebeerfest2014/ 02/21/2015

Cheers - Jason @ Beertopia/Crescent Moon

One final thing, I really need to make it into your taproom!

 

Glad that Clive is working with them. I've had 4 of their beers and each one was different and great! If Clive doesn't work out, they would be welcome in Johnston!

 

My experience there in July was great. Their OJ IPA is tied for the best IPA I've ever had (and I've been very slow to warm up to IPAs). Hopititis C was pretty solid as well. Nice lithe place.

 

Mediocre looks to back on tap. I'm going to check that out tomorrow and grab a fresh pint. I thought that was an amazing beer the last time it was on. Anybody had the most recent batch?

 

In terms of pure beer quality, they're my #2 Iowa brewery (behind TG). Just due to higher levels of production and availability, I'd rank them #3 (by a narrow margin) to Confluence.

I don't know if anyone is better at making interesting/unique beers that are this high of quality though. That's where 515 really shines to me. They take chances that really work.

 

Yes had Mediocre last night and it was outstanding. Didn't have it the first time they had it back last fall though. OJ was tasting real good too!

 

The beer is awesome. With that said, I liked it more when kids were not allowed.