I've been searching out a number of brewpubs lately during my travels as there seems to have been an explosion of them in the Midwest over the past few years. And a lot of them usually have pretty good food to go along with their beers to help draw people back time and time again. A place that I had been wanting to try and finally got the chance to do so was Gray's Tied House in the Madison suburb of Verona.
Back in the 18th and 19th centuries in merry old England, you'd find two different types of public houses - known as "pubs" - in which one could imbibe. A "tied house" pub was tied to a specific brewery where only their beer was served. A "free house" pub served beers from a number of different breweries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries before Prohibition in America, the tied house concept was adopted by some breweries. You'd find tied houses in places such as Milwaukee and St. Louis where large breweries were located. But sometimes you'd find them in cities and towns near where smaller breweries were located.
The Gray Brewing Company got its start in 1856 in Janesville, WI when Irish immigrant Joshua Gray started brewing his handcrafted Irish-style beers. During Prohibition, Gray Brewing made soda pop and root beer. Even with the end of Prohibition, the temperance movement was still strong in Janesville and Charles Gray - the fourth generation of Gray's to run the facility - and his wife, Margaret, continued to make soda pop instead of going back to beer production.
When Charles Gray passed away in 1944, he left his wife with two young sons, Bob and Charlie. Margaret Gray continued to run the soda pop company - renamed Gray Beverage Company - while raising the two young boys who eventually took over the company. Bob became the sole proprietor of Gray's in 1986 and continued to run Gray Beverage making their own soft drinks and bottling soft drinks from larger national soft drink companies.
A non-solved arson fire burned down the beverage facility in 1992 and Bob Gray thought that might be the death knell for Gray Beverage Company. However, his son Fred prodded his father into re-establishing the Gray Brewing Company making beer along with the soft drinks Gray's had become famous for. Fred eventually took over the family's operation (Bob Gray passed away in 2015 at the age of 78) and today you can find Gray Brewing Company beers in a number of states in the Midwest. (But, of course, not in Iowa who recently warned citizens that bringing beer, wine or liquor across state lines is illegal.) And Gray's soft drinks, including their very good root beer, are still being produced in Janesville and distributed around the Midwest, as well.
Pictured at right - Fred Gray.
In 2006, Fred Gray opened the Gray's Tied House in Verona to mark Gray Brewing Company's 150th birthday. Initially, the brewpub sold only Gray's products, but in recent years they opened their taps up to outside craft beers brewed around the Midwest. Gray's Tied House is located in Verona just off U.S. Highways 151 and 18. (see map)
Gray's Tied House was built to look like a ski chalet with a brick facade and stone pillars with a tall glassed entrance. The entry opens into a large room that houses an expansive dining area and a bar off to the sides. Fermenting tanks near the bar area were in a glass enclosed room.
The inside of Gray's Tied House was very nice and comfortable. A number of sturdy tables were interspersed throughout the dining area. It was well lit with a number of canned ceiling lights and the large windows allowed a lot of natural light to come into the area. There was also a large aquarium that was one of the more pronounced feature of the dining area.
Gray's Tied House also had two outside patio areas - one that was covered and another one that was on the sunny side of the building. It was a beautiful day outside, but rather windy so not many people were seated outside.
I ended up taking a seat at the bar, a large drinking area that was sort of a pentagon in shape, but had three sides. (Look at the picture and you'll see what I'm talking about.) I was greeted by the bartender, Jason, who gave me a food menu and a beer menu to look over. The first beer I ordered was a seasonal Gray's lager they had listed. Jason came back and said that they were out of the lager. I then ordered a Gray's Shenanigan's India Pale Ale. Moment's later, he came back and said they were out of that. Exasperated by that point, I ended up ordering an IPA from the Tallgrass Brewing Company, one of the "guest" beers they had on tap that day.
The food menu was pretty extensive with a number of pub-inspired appetizers, soups, salads, and sandwiches. They also had burgers, wraps, and brick oven pizzas on the menu, along with a number of entrees including pasta dishes, seafood and steaks. They have a traditional Wisconsin fish fry on Friday nights and Prime rib is served on Saturday nights.
I know I didn't want a burger, but the fish tacos caught my eye for a moment. Realizing that they were fried fish tacos, I looked elsewhere at the sandwich part of the menu. About the only thing that appealed to me was the reuben sandwich. The sandwich came with fries, but for $3.50 I could upgrade to hand-battered onion straws. That's the route I took.
And I patiently waited for my sandwich to show up. One Tallgrass IPA turned into two. After a couple sips of the second beer, I realized that I had been sitting there for over 20 minutes after I'd ordered my sandwich. I asked Jason if he could check on my order. He ran back to the kitchen and came back out to tell me that the automated printer that was supposed to be printing out food orders from the bar wasn't working. He told me that he'd give me a beer on the house and my food would be out shortly.
Five minutes later, someone came out with my reuben sandwich and the onion straws. I knew someone had to have screwed up in the kitchen as the onion straws were cold like they had been sitting there for a long time. The sandwich featured house-made corned beef slathered in Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut on a marble rye bread. The sandwich was good enough - not great - as the corned beef was sort of bland in taste. (That's probably why they loaded the dressing and sauerkraut on the sandwich.) But the cold onion straws were definitely disappointing. Jason asked me how the sandwich was and I told him that it was fine, but the onion straws were cold. He asked me if I wanted a fresh basket of onion straws and I declined. The sandwich turned out to be more than enough food for me. He ended up taking the $3.50 upcharge for the onion straws off the bill. And I got a free beer out of the deal, too.
I have mixed feelings about my visit to Gray's Tied House. They didn't have two of the beers listed on their beer menu. They screwed up getting my order in to the kitchen. The onion straws were cold. And the reuben was just all right in my opinion. I'd had better at other places in the past as I thought the corned beef was sort of bland in taste. But Jason made things right by giving me a beer on the house and taking the onion straws off the bill. Overall, I felt Gray's Tied House was sort of average at best, but it was a very nice facility for a brewpub.
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