Road Tips

CooperSmith's - Fort Collins, CO

Our neighbors had made the trek to Fort Collins a couple three times over the past recent years and always talked about how great some of the brewpubs were out there.  We stopped at a number of them during our stay in Fort Collins, but they were sort of spread out and not at all like Asheville, NC where most of the microbreweries and brewpubs are located in the downtown area and within walking distance of one another.  We spent some time in downtown Fort Collins - known to the locals as Old Town - and one evening we decided to head to CooperSmith's, the oldest microbrewery/brewpub in Fort Collins.  

In the mid-to-late 1980's, Scott Smith was the manager of the Old Chicago restaurant in Fort Collins when they introduced their famous World Beer Tour that encouraged customers to try one each of the over 100 beers they had available at the restaurant.  He noticed that many of the same people were coming in on a regular basis trying different beers and making notes on how they tasted.  

Since Prohibition ended, the state of Colorado had a law on the books that prohibited establishments from serving beer that had been brewed on premises.  Backed by the lobbying efforts of a group headed by entrepreneur John Hickenlooper, the law was repealed in 1988.  Hickenlooper and some partners soon opened the first brewpub in the state of Colorado - Wynkoop Brewing Co. - later on that year.  A second brewpub - Carver Brewing Co. - opened in Durango in early 1989.  

Later in 1989, Scott Smith attended a restaurant auction to see if there was anything he could use for his Old Chicago restaurant.  He met a men who introduced himself as the chef at the Wynkoop Brewing Co.  Smith didn't know that the law had been changed allowing for retail sale of on-site brewed beers in restaurants.  He immediately thought about opening a brewpub in Fort Collins.  But he had two problems - he didn't know the first thing about brewing beer, and he didn't have access to capital needed to start his business. 

Smith met with Hickenlooper - who later became the Mayor of Denver and who is now the Governor of Colorado - and his backers to pick their brain as to start his own brewing operation.  The first meeting with the group told Smith something - they didn't know a thing about running a restaurant.  So, in exchange for helping him meet with potential investors, Smith provided Hickenlooper's group with tips on running a restaurant.  

Hickenlooper's Wynkoop group put in some money into Smith's venture, Smith was able to raise some money on his own, and he sold 1 percent shares to 30 individuals.  With the money raised, he had to find a place to put his brewpub.  And he wanted it to be in Fort Collins' downtown Old Town area.  

In downtown Fort Collins, a concept pedestrian mall/shopping district housed in restored 19th century buildings called Old Town Square had just gone into foreclosure and was being operated by a Chicago-based insurance company.  The insurance company had hired a California-based marketing to do a study as what to do to make the property work.  The marketing firm came back with a report that said they really needed an anchor in the largest space - a restaurant or one of these new brewpubs that seem to be suddenly popular.  

One thing led to another and Scott got together with the insurance company where he was offered an incredible deal to open his brewpub in the large space at 5 Old Town Square.  (see map)   Along with brewmaster Brad Page and assistant brewer Dwight Hall, Smith opened CooperSmith's - named after his only son - in November of 1990.  It was the third microbrewery in Colorado and the first in Fort Collins - by only two days.  Doug Odell served his first beers at Odell Brewing Company just two days after CooperSmith's opened their doors.  

In 1993, Smith opened CooperSmith's Poolside just across the cobblestone walkway from the brewpub.  It featured pool tables, pub games such as a shuffleboard table and darts, and it had more of a bar atmosphere with a menu of pizza, burgers, sandwiches and appetizers.  By the mid-90's, CooperSmith's was firing on all cylinders allowing Smith to pay off some of the early investors making himself the prime investor in the business.  Page eventually left the brewery to help open a brewpub in Argentina (he now owns a cider making operation in Colorado), and Dwight Hall became the brewmaster for CooperSmith's with Edward Powers as his assistant brewer.  

After running the business for nearly 20 years, Smith and his wife, Jane Liska, had purchased a second home on a lake in northern Wisconsin.  With employees running the business in a successful manner, he spent less and less time in the brewpub.  By 2014, Smith had sold his shares back to the remaining CooperSmith's investors (there were only a dozen or so of the original 30 "one percent" shareholders left), who, in turn, sold Smith's shares to Dwight Hall and two other longtime workers - Sandra Longton and Chris O'Mara - the brewery's General Manager and Operations Manager, respectively.   Hall is the president of CooperSmith's with Edward Powers now the brewmaster, assisted by Mike Hiatt and Justin Bruditt.  

I understand that parking used to be an issue in downtown Fort Collins when CooperSmith's opened nearly 30 years ago, but we were able to find parking on the street just down from the brewpub.  It was a Monday night and students were still just a few days away from starting classes at Colorado State University.  Walking inside, we found a long bar in a narrow dining room.  But when we were greeted by the hostess for seating, she took us into a back area with a number of booths opposite an open kitchen area.  She dropped off a couple of menus and it wasn't long before our server, Kassi, showed up to take our drink order.  I got the Punjabi American Pale Ale for my choice, while my wife - who was somewhat beered-out from an afternoon of trying some of Fort Collins finer microbrews - got a tart lemon martini from the full bar they have at CooperSmith's.  I liked the Punjabi pale ale - it had a robust hoppy flavor with a nice malty finish.  

CooperSmith's menu consisted of a number of interesting appetizers - I considered getting the applewood-smoked salmon and brie quesadilla just for my dinner that evening.  They also had a number of burgers and sandwiches, as well as main entrees including fish and chips, a grilled salmon filet served on cheese grits and succotash and topped with a creamy poblano sauce, and the Highland Cottage Pie - CooperSmith's take on a Shepherd's Pie made with Colorado-raised lamb.  

My wife ended up getting the Schweineschnitzel - basically a pork tenderloin that was pounded out, breaded and deep-fried.  It was served on top of a bed of mashed potatoes and a housemade bacon-beer sauerkraut, and topped with a lemon-butter cream sauce.  The schnitzel was so large that it hide most of the potatoes and sauerkraut.  The breading was light and fluffy, and my wife thoroughly enjoyed the taste of the pork tenderloin - especially with the lemon-butter sauce.  

I really didn't know what to get.  I didn't want anything heavy, so I got the reuben.  It was your basic type of reuben - sliced tender corned beef with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and a Thousand Island dressing served on a swirled-marble rye.  Instead of fries for a side, I asked Kassi if I could get a salad with the balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  The reuben was fine - the bread was cut thick and the corned beef was piled high on the sandwich.  It was a pretty good sandwich.    

We thought our meals were good at CooperSmith's - not outstanding, but worthy enough compared to other brewpubs we've visited over time.  My wife really enjoyed her pork schnitzel, while I thought the reuben was fine.  I did like the Punjabi pale ale that I ordered - twice.  The service provided was friendly and efficient, and the atmosphere in the restored old building was casual and relaxed.  It was easy to see why Fort Collins' oldest brewpub may be its most popular.    

Smokin' Hereford BBQ - Storm Lake, IA

The 2017 winner of the "Iowa's Best Burger" contest was a barbecue place in Storm Lake, IA - Smokin' Hereford BBQ.  Now, I've been somewhat dubious of a couple previous winners of the annual contest put on by the Iowa Beef Industry Council since 2010.  Having a barbecue place be the winner of the Best Burger in Iowa contest last year sort of raised my eyebrows.  On a trip between Des Moines and Sioux City earlier this summer, I decided to take backroads through Northwest Iowa with a lunch stop in Storm Lake.  

Chad Hustedt and Nathan Jensen grew up together in Galva, IA, a small northwest Iowa town about 15 miles to the south and west of Storm Lake.  Chad Hustedt eventually became a coach at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, while Nathan Jensen took a different course in life.  He became a funeral director.

After graduation from mortuary school, Jensen came back to NW Iowa and worked in a funeral home in Storm Lake.  When the opportunity to own his own funeral home came up a couple three years later, Jensen bought a funeral home in nearby Sac City with smaller operations in three other towns in the area.  In 2001, Nathan and his wife, Nancy, merged their funeral homes with Craig Fratzke of Fratzke Funeral Home of Alta, IA.  In addition to the Alta location, the new Fratzke and Jensen Funeral Home also had a location in Storm Lake and three other smaller communities in the immediate area.  Craig Fratzke eventually retired and Nathan and Nancy Jensen continue to run all the funeral homes with the help of funeral director Tim Smith.  And one of their employees at the funeral home is Jennifer Hustedt, the wife of Chad Hustedt.  

The Jensen's and Hustedt's had thought about doing something as a side job and they came up with an idea of running a barbecue place.  There was a building that originally was an old train depot on the west side of Storm Lake that was available and the couples opened Smokin' Hereford BBQ in October of 2015.  At first, Smokin' Hereford offered a limited menu of barbecue.  But as their reputation grew, they added more items to the menu and in early 2016 they added a Friday and Saturday night burger special to the menu.

The seasoned and char-grilled burgers made with ground beef from Coon River Farms, a family-owned beef operation south and east of Storm Lake, became such a big hit with the locals that they added the burgers permanently to the menu later in the year.  When the annual nominations for the Best Burger in Iowa came up in February 2017, a local campaign was started to alert the Iowa Beef Industry Council of the great burgers at Smokin' Hereford.  Judges later visited the restaurant and determined they had the Best Burger in Iowa for 2017.  

It was just after 1 p.m. when I pulled into the dusty parking lot at Smokin' Hereford BBQ.  A big sign with "Smoky the Bull" mounted underneath greeted me as I drove up.  Inside the place, I found a pretty spacious dining room with a small bar area toward the front door.  It was decorated with antique agriculture company signs, neon beer signs, old highway and railroad signage, and a number of old license plates tacked to a cross beam in the dining area.  Contemporary country music was playing on the restaurant's sound system.  

I ended up taking a seat along the wall in what used to be an old church pew.  The seating for their "booths" were all made from church pews either cut in half or in thirds depending upon the size of the table.  The one I sat in was a 1/3-sized pew.  The floor at Smokin' Hereford was repurposed planks from an old high school gymnasium in the area.   

The menu was on the table and I was soon greeted by a young soft-spoken lady by the name of Anita.  I ordered a cold beer from her while I looked through the menu.  The food served at Smokin' Hereford consisted of barbecue items such as beef brisket, baby back ribs, pulled pork and smoked chicken.  They also feature a smoked prime rib on Friday and Saturday nights for around $23 bucks.  That has to be outstanding.

The menu also featured barbecue meat sandwiches and tacos, as well as some interesting appetizers that included gizzards (don't see that on an appetizer menu at most places), smoked andouille sausage bites (ditto on that), and fried banana peppers (don't know if I've ever seen that on an appetizer menu).  But two things jumped out at me on the appetizer part of the menu - the Mississippi Mud Skins and something directly below the appetizers called the BBQ Sundae.  

The Mississippi Mud Skins are potato skins topped with either pulled pork or smoked chicken (beef brisket is available for an upcharge), then the meat is topped with cheese and pico de gallo.  They encourage you to top them with barbecue sauce at the table.  The BBQ Sundae, I think I've seen at a couple other places in my travels over the year.  It consisted of a pint-sized Mason jar filled with Smokin' Hereford's spicy baked beans, then those are topped with a layer of cole slaw or their spicy mac & cheese.  From there, it's topped off with a choice of brisket, pulled pork, or smoked chicken.  It's for those kind of people who don't mind all their food touching one another.  

As tempting as the barbecue sounded to me, I was there to try their award-winning burger.  I had a choice of either a quarter-pound or a half-pound burger and I went with the half-pound.  "Pink or no pink in the middle," Anita asked.  Well, pink, of course!  I also had a choice of cheese - I went with pepper jack - and for a small upcharge I could get other toppings such as sautéed mushrooms, onion strings, jalapeño peppers, or a fried egg.  I went with bacon.  

The burger was delivered on a plastic basket with on a sheet of faux newsprint paper.  The bun was toasted - not lightly toasted, but toasted enough that there were burnt marks on the edges.  Lettuce, a tomato slice, dill pickles and sliced onions came on the side.  The bacon was criss-crossed on top of the pepper jack cheese on the burger. 

The burger was thick and juicy and was very delicious in taste.  The pepper jack cheese didn't overpower the taste of the burger, nor did the bacon or the toppings I placed on the burger patty.  The beef had a robust quality taste and it was a very good burger.  If there was one quibble with the burger was that there was a little  too much bun for my liking.  But with all that was going on with the burger - the oozing cheese, the juiciness of the burger patty, and the condiments on top - the bun held together very well.  It was definitely a multi-napkin burger.

I've had some very good burgers from past winners of the Best Burger in Iowa contest sponsored by the Iowa Beef Industry Council.  But, I've also had a couple burgers that left me scratching my head and questioning the methods and criteria the judges use to determine the best burger in the state.  I know that it gets down to a popularity contest to come up with the 10 finalists for the annual contest, and I'm sure that some restaurants stuff the ballot box with help from customers.  But if that's what happened with Smokin' Hereford BBQ, they need to be commended for their effort. The burger I had there was very good - outstanding would be somewhat of a stretch because I think the bun was a little too big.  But overall, it was juicy and flavorful.  The robust taste of the locally-grown beef stood out even with toppings on the burger.  While I can't call it the best burger I've ever had, it was good enough where I didn't question the judging for the 2017 Best Burger in Iowa.  But if I ever make it back to Storm Lake and Smokin' Hereford, I'm going to try their barbecue.  

Tapped - St. Louis

One of my accounts in St. Louis was telling me of a new place that featured "pour-your-own" craft beers, wood-fired pizzas and sandwiches.  Well, they had me at "pour-your-own" craft beers and their description of the place made me want to go there.  We ended up meeting at Tapped one evening on a recent trip to St. Louis.

Ryan Reel had been in retail for over 20 years, many of those as a manager of a big box retailer in the St. Louis area.  His wife, Lindsay, was the director of pharmacy at a local hospital.  Fed up with retail management and wanting to become his own boss, Ryan looked into a concept that was becoming big on the coasts - self-poured beer and wine bars.  He got in touch with iPourit, a California-based company that specialized in tap systems that allowed customers to pour their own beer or wine, giving them a choice of being able to taste different styles while a computer kept track of how many ounces the customer has poured.  It also cuts down on waste and the system monitors keg levels letting management know that a keg may be running dry.  

The Reel's found a spot for their new venture in what was a former wood-fired pizza restaurant.  The space was initially going to be a second location for a local bar/restaurant in St. Louis, but when that fell through, the Reel's jumped on it.   After a few months of renovations and putting in the tap system, Tapped opened in early May of 2017.  They featured 48 craft beers on tap - many of them local beers from Missouri and Illinois.  The 48 tap system was one of the largest that iPourit has designed for a pour-your-own bar and it was the first iPourit system in the state of Missouri.  

I pulled up to Tapped located on Manchester Road in the Maplewood neighborhood of St. Louis, not far from the Schlafly Bottleworks.  (see map)  I met the guys inside and I started a tab for us at the front counter.  We were given these wristwatch-looking things called RFID's (radio frequency identification).  Each RFID allowed the user to tap on the screen above the tap to activate the system, then the system's computer kept track of how many ounces were poured.  Each user has a limit of 40 ounces before they have to go back up to the front counter to have them authorize another 40 ounce limit.  (I suppose the re-authorization is a good way to also gauge how drunk a person may be, as well.)  

With 48 beers on tap, there was a wide variety of beers to choose from.  Beers were grouped together by style, so they had stouts, IPA's, lagers, wheat beers and ciders bunched up.  (You can click here to see what Tapped has on tap right now.)  The monitor screen above the taps would let you know how much beer you poured and how much you have left on your authorization.  

I tried many beers while I was there which is one of the great things about the "pour-your-own" concept.  I poured 3 or 4 ounces of about a dozen types of beers and I settled on the Urban Chestnut pale ale for my first pint, then got the Urban Chestnut altbier for my second pint.  My final pint was the Schlafly Summer Lager, a helles-style beer perfect on a warm summer evening.  My wife likes to try samples of different beers at brewpubs and I thought she would just love this place.    

With a small bar in front of the taps, Tapped also featured a number tables for people to sit at.  On the wall were a number of prints depicting the history of breweries in St. Louis.  It was kind of fun to grab a beer and walk around to see some of the pictures that dated back to pre-Prohibition eras.  

When the Reel's took over the building, they kept in the large wood-fired pizza oven and they kept pizza on the menu.  They also had sharable appetizers such as Bavarian-style pretzels, fried baby portobello mushrooms, and toasted ravioli - a St. Louis staple.  They also had soups, salads, and sandwiches in addition to the wood-fired pizzas and calzones.  

I ended up getting the Italian sandwich that featured salami, coppa, and pastrami that was topped with tomato, onion, lettuce, smoked gouda, and sweet St. Louis-style Italian dressing all served on a hoagie bun.  A side of fries came with the sandwich and I had the option of having it served cold or hot - I took the hot option.  A couple of the other guys got the hot pastrami sandwich.  

One of the guys decided to get a pizza.  He got the veggie pizza that had green peppers, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, red onions and black olives.  It had a bit of a char to the perimeter of the pizza and the cheese on top was caramelized.  The crust was a little more thick than I like, but my guest said that the pizza was very good.  He offered me a piece, but I declined.  

Actually, I'm sort of wishing that I had gotten a calzone.  The sandwich was fine enough, but there was a lot of bread that I had to work through to get to the meat and toppings.  But the sandwich had good flavor with a bit of a spicy bite.  The fries were just throwaways for me.  A calzone with Italian sausage and pepperoni would have been a better bet.  

Tapped is a unique experience.  I'm running into more and more of the "pour-your-own" beer places in my travels, but for the first time experiencing one of these places was a real treat.  The problem is that by serving yourself, it's easy to get over-served.  After sampling some beers and then getting a couple of pints, you pretty much run through your first 40 ounce allotment.  But it was a slick and fun way to enjoy many different types of beers.  The sandwiches were all right, but one of my guests who got the wood-fired pizza said it was very good.  So, maybe next time I go to Tapped I'll have to try the pizza or a calzone.   

Tavern23 - Edina, MN

After a long day of calling on accounts around the Twin Cities, I was back in my hotel room just in time for the start of television weather bulletins for a severe thunderstorm heading toward Minneapolis.  I decided that I probably needed to go get food sooner than later rather than waiting out the storm for an hour and then heading out.  I remembered a nearby restaurant that I hadn't noticed until my last visit to the Twin Cities - Tavern23 - and I decided to go there just before the storm hit.   

Tavern23 is located in the Centennial Lakes Office Park along France Avenue in Edina.  (see map)  Getting there just as the wind was picking up and sporadic large rain drops began to fall, I walked into the place and found a somewhat spacious place with a lot of hockey memorabilia and pictures on the wall.  The center of the restaurant featured a nice dining area with large comfy booths and tables.  A large open kitchen was to the right as I walked into the restaurant.

Most of the hockey sweaters and photos on the wall centered on a guy by the name of Lou Nanne.  Now, not growing up in Minnesota and being more of a Minnesota Twins baseball fan than a Minnesota North Stars hockey fan when I was growing up, I had to ask myself, "Who in the hell is Lou Nanne?"  

Lou Nanne is a hockey legend around the state of Minnesota.  Nanne first came to Minneapolis in the early 60's from his home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to play hockey for the University of Minnesota.  He graduated with a business degree and instead of taking an $8000-a-year offer to play professional hockey for the Chicago Blackhawks, Nanne went to work in the private sector making three times that amount of money, essentially walking away from hockey.  Still, the burning competitor inside him kept him in shape in case he decided to get back into the game. 

After becoming an American citizen in 1967, Nanne played on the U.S. Olympic hockey team at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.  After the Olympics, he signed with the National Hockey League expansion team Minnesota North Stars where he played 11 seasons before retiring.  During his final season, he was named the interim coach of the North Stars after the firing of André Beaulieu.  One of the North Stars all-time most popular players, Nanne was known as "Sweet Lou from the Soo".  

Pictured right - Lou Nanne.  Photo courtesy Minnpost.com

After hanging up his skates, Nanne became the general manager of the North Stars and helped turn around the fortunes of the franchise.  The team made the playoffs seven years in a row capped with a Stanley Cup final appearance in 1981.  Nanne was also the general manager of the U.S. men's national hockey team in the 80's.

Nanne resigned as general manager with the North Stars in 1988 citing health reasons and retired from organized hockey.  He became a financial manager - a job that continued into his mid-70's.  Over the years, Nanne had offers to start a restaurant a number of times, but he didn't feel that he could devote the time to it as he was traveling extensively for his financial company.  However, an opportunity arose in 2015 when he was approached by Michael McDermott, the CEO of McDermott Restaurants who owned Rojo Mexican Grill, as well as a handful of franchised restaurants around the Twin Cities.  Proposing the restaurant be a steakhouse, Nanne and McDermott were able to coax chef Josh Hill to join them in the venture.  Hill had worked at the famous Manny's Steakhouse in downtown Minneapolis for seven years before joining up with McDermott and Nanne.  (Click here to see a Road Tips entry on Manny's Steakhouse.)  They found a spot in the Centennial Lakes office complex that used to house a Romano's Macaroni Grill and opened Lou Nanne's American Grill in early 2016.  

The first year of any new restaurant tends to be the toughest and Lou Nanne's suffered from an identity crisis as workers from nearby office buildings tended to gravitate toward nearby places for fast lunches and after dinner drinks.  However, being that it was more of a steakhouse, Lou Nanne's didn't pull in that crowd.  Deciding to rebrand the restaurant after a year in business, they turned it into a more casual dining place that would cater to nearby office workers and families.  Lou Nanne's steakhouse became Tavern23 in the late summer of 2017.  

One of the things that makes Tavern23 so popular is its outdoor patio.  Looking out over a small lake in the office complex, the patio was nearly full of diners and people enjoying after work drinks before the storm brewed up.  As I came in, there was a mass exodus of people leaving the patio with a number of employees rushing to lower umbrellas and pick up items that could blow away with the impending storm. 

I ended up seated at the bar since many people were being moved inside.  It wasn't long before the rain came down in wind driven sheets outside.  I love a good thunderstorm and this one was a good one.  Because of all the hubbub of trying to get people inside, it took awhile before I was acknowledged at the bar by one of the bartenders, Nick.  He gave me a dinner menu to look over and I got a Surly Furious IPA that they had on tap. Actually, once things got back to normal, service got much better as Nick and the other bartender tag-teamed in making sure that I was taken care of the rest of the visit.  

The menu at Tavern23 is definitely more geared for upscale bar food than the elegant steakhouse menu they used to have at Lou Nanne's steakhouse.  They had a number of interesting appetizers including avocado egg rolls, marinated chicken lettuce wraps, and rosemary-marinated lamb lollipops.  They had an extensive selections of burgers and sandwiches, wood-fired flatbreads and pizzas, wok-fired dishes, soups, salads, and even sushi.  Tavern23 also featured a limited amount of steaks, some seafood choices, and entrees such as a beef, sausage and chorizo meatloaf, blackened catfish tacos, and Nanne's bolognese - a pasta dish made with a meat sauce recipe passed down through the family of Francine Nanne - Lou's wife.

My mind was telling me to go light and get the albacore tuna salad sandwich, but the devil on my shoulder kept telling me that I needed something substantial.  I wasn't really certain what I wanted to get, so I ended up going for the beef stroganoff.  It featured strips of steak with bucatini pasta in a creamy red wine sauce with chopped mushrooms.  A dollop of sour cream came on top with a couple pieces of garlic bread on the side.  The strips of steak alternated between undercooked to overcooked.  There were a few pieces that were cooked perfectly and weren't too tough or too stringy.   For the most part, the stroganoff was very good, but the few pieces of steak that went one way or the other on the cooking scale brought down the overall quality of the dish.  It wasn't that it was bad, but it definitely wasn't consistent.  

I took my time with dinner as the storm raged for a good 20 minutes followed by a light shower.  By the time I finished, the storm had passed, the rain had stopped, and the slowly sinking sun in the west was beginning to come out from behind the passing clouds.  Before I left, I paused on the patio to see lightning off in the distance to the east with the late-day sun beginning to illuminate the office buildings across the lake from the restaurant.  It was turning out to be a nice evening.  

Tavern23 is one of those places where you can get just about anything you're looking for - steaks, seafood, sandwiches, burgers, upscale appetizers, some interesting entrees and a good selection of craft beers and cocktails.  I'll have to say the beef stroganoff I had was inconsistent in the cooked temperature of the steak strips, but the overall taste was fine.  I found the place to be comfortable and elegant, but not so upscale that it made me uneasy to be in there.  It wasn't the best place I've eaten at in the immediate area along France Ave. in Edina, but it was far from the worst.  

Heavenly Goat Brewing Co. - Granger, IN

I had a morning meeting with a prospective dealer in Granger, IN earlier this summer and I drove into Granger the evening before, getting to the hotel just before a torrential downpour.  Not really wanting to go too far from the hotel, it turned out there was a brewpub just walking distance from the hotel.  Just before it began to rain, I strolled over to the Heavenly Goat Brewing Company to check the place out.  

Heavenly Goat Brewing Company is located in the Heritage Square entertainment and shopping area of Granger.  (see map)   Like most brewpubs, the genesis of the business started over 10 years ago when Joel Miller brewed up his first homemade batch of beer.  Homebrewing piqued Joel's interest enough that he eventually enrolled in the brewmaster course at Chicago's famed Siebel Institute of Technology.  Part of his coursework at the Siebel Institute was an overseas education program at the prestigious Doemans Academy in Munich, Germany.  It was there where he learned the principles of the German Purity Laws of brewing beers.  

Once he was satisfied with the beers he was brewing after graduating from the Siebel Institute, Miller started to look for a place where he could have a brewpub.  One of the first restaurants to open in Heritage Square, Gino's East Pizza, closed its doors in 2012.  Miller discovered the place and started to work on what he needed to do to get the place open.

He knew that he was going to have to serve food, so he reached out to personal chef and industry consultant Greg Wisinski, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef.   The two came up with the Heavenly Goat name as a nod to the Norwegian myth that a goat in Valhalla made mead for fallen soldiers for eternity.  Miller focused on European-style style beers, while Wisinski came up with a menu that focused on traditional beer hall favorites, only with more of a gastropub touch.  By April of 2017, the two were ready to open Heavenly Goat Brewing Company.  

Lightning was visible in the near distance with rumbles of thunder accompanying the vivid flashes when I walked over to Heavenly Goat around 8 p.m.  It had been a long day of meetings and driving so I was ready for a beer.  I was seated in the main dining area with a long bar along a wall.  It had sort of a contemporary, yet upscale rustic design.  Wooden planks from reclaimed barn boards covered the ceiling.  At the far end of the dining area were the brewing vessels that could easily be seen behind large windows.  

There was an enclosed patio area next to the dining room with overhead garage doors that would open to the outside.  An antique shuffleboard table was the centerpiece of the patio.  It, too, featured a large window that looked into the brewing area.  Classic rock music was playing in the background throughout the restaurant.  

My server for the evening, a laid-back young guy by the name of Cody, came over with a menu.  I ordered up an American pale ale by the name of Alien Moon Base.  It had a slightly forward hoppy taste with a nice finish.  I liked it a lot.  

All the food items on the menu are made from scratch at Heavenly Goat Brewing Co.   Their fresh cut meats are butchered and processed in-house, and they make their own sausages and bratwurst.   The menu consisted of appetizers, soups and salads, burgers, brats, a reuben sandwich, and a half-dozen "large plates" that included a 7 oz. salmon filet, grilled pork chops with a brown sugar glaze, and a pork schnitzel and waffles plate that sort of intrigued me.  

In the end, it was down to one of three things - the reuben sandwich, the sausage sampler plate with fried potato salad, and pickled red cabbage, or the bangers and mash.  I ended up with the latter.  The dish featured two house-made sausages with caramelized onions on a bed of mashed potatoes all topped in a creamy gravy sauce.  

The sausages were juicy and flavorful with a nice little "snap" to the casing when I cut into them.  The gravy that came with it had a tangy taste to it and went very well with the sausages and the mashed potatoes.  Even the grilled onions helped complement the very good sausages. 

Cody tried to tempt me with some of their desserts made by Heavenly Goat's in-house pastry chef, but I was full of food.  It was still raining somewhat after what turned out to be an initial heavy downpour of rain that forced the closing of the overhead garage doors that evening.  I decided to have another beer since I was less than a minute walk back to the hotel.

There wasn't too much that I could say went wrong on my visit to the Heavenly Goat Brewing Company.  The brewpub was nice in its appearance and atmosphere.  My server provided a laid-back vibe with his demeanor and I didn't feel rushed or pressured at any point.  I certainly enjoyed the couple three American pale ales they had on tap that evening.  And the food was very good for being pretty basic pub-style food.  Being walking distance from the hotel, Heavenly Goat Brewing Company was well-worth the short hike.