Earlier this year when the Iowa Beef Industry Council named their Best Burger in Iowa winner for 2017, one of the places on the 10 finalists list caught my eye. It was a place in the Iowa City suburb of North Liberty that I wasn't familiar with. That's because it had just opened in November of 2016 and I hadn't heard of the place before that. On a trip that took me past North Liberty earlier this summer, I decided to stop in and try BeerBurger.
In December of 2015, local businessman/developer/investor John Burchert announced that he was going to build a nearly 40,000 square foot family entertainment center on the northwest side of North Liberty. Burchert was the founder of the Iowa City call center TMONE (now called Mass Media), and was an investor in the Eden nightclub and the Iowa Chop House in Iowa City. Burchert's company, MAiNGREDIENT also dabbled in social media, wearables and catering in addition to working on new developments.
On part of the land that Burchert was going to put his large entertainment center, he put up a building that would eventually house BeerBurger. Along with co-owner Bobby Thompson, the two were able to convince Craig Vorba, the chef who helped start the Iowa Chop House, but went on to become the executive chef at Exile Brewing Company in Des Moines, to come back to the Iowa City area to head up the culinary team at BeerBurger. The restaurant opened just a little bit less than a year ago.
It was around 1:30 when I walked into BeerBurger located just off the North Liberty exit on I-380. (see map) The decor was of a contemporary industrial with some service station signage and some pretty interesting light fixtures. There was a rather interesting round fluorescent light hanging in the middle of the dining area. Metal framed chairs with heavy duty tables were in place in the dining area of the restaurant.
There is a very nice outdoor patio area in front of the restaurant. It was a nice day and a handful of people were eating outside under the large trellis.
There is a lot of artwork in BeerBurger. The graffiti-style mural below right features Abraham Lincoln drinking a beer and wearing a large foam "No. 1" hand. The mural is part of the artwork done by local artist Keaton Rogers for BeerBurger.
The keg storage room is also part functional, part art museum. The room will hold over 70 kegs of beer, but some of the kegs had artwork painted on them. Rather than hide the kegs, Burchert wanted to showcase the beer selection BeerBurger has, as well as make it sort of interesting to look inside.
I ended up sitting at the L-shaped copper-topped bar that features open windows looking into the kitchen. I was greeted by my server and bartender that day, Tasheanna, who dropped off a food menu and asked me what I would like to drink. They have over 40 beers on tap at BeerBurger and I immediately saw the distinctive handle of my favorite beer Kona Big Wave Golden Ale. I don't see Big Wave on tap in a lot of places, but I like the ones that do.
There are much more than just burgers on the menu at BeerBurger. In fact, I was sort of surprised they only had 8 feature burgers on the menu - 9, if you count the ground turkey burger they have. They also had a number of sandwiches including a grilled chicken sandwich, a beer-battered pork tenderloin, a grilled three-cheese and bacon sandwich, and a dry-rubbed smoked pulled pork sandwich. They also had entrees such as a bone-in porterhouse pork chop, beer-battered cod and fries, a 16 ounce sirloin steak, and chicken & waffles. Appetizers included the standard chicken wings, burger sliders, beer-battered cheese curds, and a plate of applewood-smoked bacon with a maple/black pepper glaze. Salads are also available, as is a kid's menu.
I was definitely going to get a burger, but Tasheanna was really pushing me to get the Caesar's salad with salmon they had featured that day. "It's really delicious," she said more than once to me. I thought it was sort of weird that she was trying to get me to order the Caesar's salmon salad. Maybe she was concerned that I needed to drop a few pounds, but it was probably more along the lines of the chef needing to move some of the salmon before it wasn't sellable any longer.
For my burger that day, I ordered the #5 - a 6-ounce Iowa beef patty topped with carmelized onions that were sautéed in Iowa beer, sautéed mushrooms, roasted red peppers, gruyére cheese, and finished with a Worcestershire aioli. I asked Tasheanna to throw some applewood-smoked bacon on the burger, as well. A leaf of lettuce, a sliced tomato, sliced red onions and hamburger dill pickles came on the side. I also got a side of fries, but I was certain that I wouldn't eat many - if any - of them.
The burgers are flat-grilled and served on a pretzel bun. The burger was very juicy and very flavorful. It was one of those "Mmmmm....." moments when I took the first bite. The gruyére cheese, the roasted peppers, the smoked bacon, and the sautéed mushrooms were all prevalent in the taste, but they didn't overpower the rich taste of the beef patty. The pretzel bun held together very well with all the juice and toppings going on. The only quibble I had was this was a multiple napkin burger, but they use linen napkins at BeerBurger. Yeah, I liked the classy touch, but the burger had so much going on with its juiciness and all the toppings including the gooey gruyére cheese that it wasn't long before I made a good sized mess out of the napkin that I had. It just didn't make sense to me that they had linen napkins at BeerBurger. I had to ask Tasheanna for another napkin to get me through the meal.
And it also turned out that the fries were very good. Crispy on the outside with a great flaky potato taste inside, the fries appeared to be hand-cut and flash-fried. I actually ended up eating more than half of the fries because they tasted so good.
Getting a finalist nod for the Best Burger in Iowa was a great public relations boost for BeerBurger in their first year of business. And I can attest that the taste of the burger was excellent and worthy of the honor. They have an impressive list of beers to choose from, and the service I received was prompt and friendly. I still don't know why my server was trying to push the salmon Caesar's salad when the place is clearly a burger joint. And a very good burger joint, at that.
This place looks great!
Posted by: Jeni F. | October 17, 2017 at 05:49 AM