Des Moines

There was a similar thread a few weeks ago, but I can't find it. El Bait, 515, Alluvial in Ames if you have wheels and feel like seeing some cornfields. TG and Surly distribute, but we are in a bit of a lull from them.

 

515 Brewery is a must same with Alluvial in Ames

 

Not especially. There are several fine local breweries accessible in downtown DSM, enough to make a good bar crawl, but they rarely brew anything worth calling home about. I do think Madhouse is worth a visit. Maybe someone more local has info on some special or seasonal releases?

 

Locals are in my order of preference:
515
Confluence
Firetrucker
Exile
Madhouse
Court Ave
Fox

If you do get that far, yes, by all means go to Alluvial.

 

El bait shop is a must stop, great beer bar.

 

http://seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

 

El Bait Shop is arguably the best beer bar in the country. ~120 American craft beer taps. Lots of high end Midwest beers. Red Monk is a great place to drink some wild Belgian and French beers, and Hessen Haus has almost exclusively German beers on tap. All of these bars are within about 5 blocks of each other in downtown. Keg Stand in West Des Moines probably has the best selection in the suburbs.

515 is the best brewery in the Des Moines metro, followed by Confluence. Both have nice taprooms that will be a cheap Uber from downtown (not sure where you're staying).

If you have a vehicle, Alluvial in Ames (30-35 miles north) is on par with 515 and Confluence.

 

I just go ahead and plan to spend the whole weekend there!

The downtown area in general has a lot of good restaurants and some okay brewing. If you like Belgian beers, the Red Monk has a bunch of those.

 

I'm not that wild about any downtown breweries myself. Just get an Uber to 515 or Confluence instead of doing Court Ave.

 

180 taps

 

185

Plus TG just started delivering kegs again...or maybe they just kegged a few beers. Either way, good PseudoSue was back on when I stopped in on Wednesday.

 

185

edit: ....Grumble....

 

I can't keep up with the number of taps at EBS, it would seem.

That seriously has to be a record.

 

In Iowa, or maybe the midwest, yes. There is a bar in North Carolina? I think which has over 200 some. There are lots of bars who have more than 185, but they have duplicates (usually bars with multiple levels), or they have lots of domestics. eBS has one domestic on, the rest are craft*.

*exception goes to Goose Island when there is Bourbon County beers on.

 

That doesn't really count.

The best beer bar I've been to outside EBS was probably Falling Rock in Denver, and it had less taps (although it more than made up for that with Pliny). I've traveled decently and rarely find anywhere with over 100 it seems. I'm not necessarily looking for the most taps either, I just try to seek out the good beer bars.

 

Des Moines area breweries (Top 3, in order):

1. 515 Brewing (one of the better breweries in the state. IPAs as good as TG)
2. Confluence Brewing
3. Exile Brewing

Des Moines area craft beer bars (Top 3, in order):

1. El Bait Shop (as other have said, one of the best in the country)
2. The Keg Stand
3. Hessen Haus

Des Moines area bottle shops (Top 3, in order):

1. Fleur HyVee
2. Prarie Trail HyVee
3. Mills Civic HyVee

 

I'm going to be staying at the Hyatt downtown in mid March for 2 nights, any nearby restaurants/bars to recommend that are within reasonable walking distance? Definitely planning on visiting 515 and confluence. Also will be stopping at El bait shop.

 

Court Ave is the bar and restaurant district downtown. Maybe 10 minute walk from your Hotel (south and east). There's a "German" bar called Hessen Haus which is solid, and just reopened after a renovation. There's an English restaurant called Royal Mile which has great food and good-ish beers. Upstairs from it is a Belgian beer bar-Red Monk.

Other direction (west) from your hotel, there's a French restaurant, Django, which is outstanding. For dinner or breakfast. Another well known restaurant, Centro, is probably one of the consistently highest rated placed in town. A Latin place, Malo, is close to those, supposedly good, but I haven't tried it yet. A little further west is Americana, which is a smaller restaurant, but solid menu. Bad beer list, though.

Exile brewing is kinda in that neighborhood. I haven't been in a while, but I thought both the food and beers were just okay. Especially their core offerings. They do these seasonal/specialty brews which can be pretty good, so it might be worth thinking about if you're still in brewpub mode.