My wife and I were visiting her father who was having an extended stay in a Cedar Rapids area hospital one Sunday. After being with him for awhile, we decided to take off and head east toward the small town of Lowden where her son lives to visit him. We took Mount Vernon Road out of Cedar Rapids - basically the old Highway 30 that was in use as the main east-west road through the city until the bypass around the southern part of Cedar Rapids opened nearly 40 years ago - over toward Mount Vernon. We were getting sort of hungry when we got to Mount Vernon and I seemed to remember a place that was a barbecue joint there, but it didn't show up on my GPS. We did a quick search on my wife's phone and it came up - Big's BBQ & Brew Pub. Oh! A brewpub, as well? I said, "Jackpot!" We found Big's BBQ & Brew Pub and went in to check it out.
Phil Smith grew up in the heart of Texas barbecue country. After eating barbecue for years, he ended up in culinary school to learn every nuance of cooking, including making good barbecue. Eventually moving to Iowa, Smith worked at a number of restaurants in Eastern Iowa. He became friendly with a local brewer by the name of Aaron Gerbo and the two connected on a common culinary/craft brewing level. Smith always wanted to have his own barbecue place and Gerbo was a seasoned craft brewer. The two decided to join forces for a combination barbecue/brewpub.
Searching for places in and around Cedar Rapids, the two found an old house in Mount Vernon just north of the downtown main drag to and from Cornell College. They found a house that was originally built in 1890 and was used as a dental practice by the man who built it. Years later, the main floor of the house was the home of a deli. Two brothers whose father ran the deli now owned the house and they were approached by Smith and Gerbo about an opportunity to put a restaurant back on the main floor. The brothers liked the idea of a brewpub/barbecue joint as it reminded them of their father's deli. They gave Smith and Gerbo the go-ahead and the two set about turning the main floor into a restaurant. By May of 2017, Smith was offering barbecue to go as the building was in the midst of renovations. Within three months, the brewery was up and going, and they were offering sit-down barbecue to patrons.
It was just after 1 p.m. when we pulled up to the front of Big's BBQ & Brew Pub at the corner of 2nd Ave. NW and 2nd St. NW. (see map) The stately old residence was pretty hard to miss, especially with a large "Big's" banner out front. Upon entering the building, we found a small dining area that sat - maybe - 20 people. The room was bright with the outdoor natural light shining in the windows. A small kitchen area was in the back of the main floor of the house.
The cozy little dining area had a small television hung on the wall, and a mantle over a closed-up fireplace displayed a number of decorative beer steins. My wife and I took a seat at a table next to the window and a young lady brought us out a couple of menus for us to look over.
In the front room that looks out to the street was a small bar area. The three-sided wooden bar sat nine people and the room had some motorcycle memorabilia on the walls. The bar area was also bright from the natural light coming in the three large windows.
The beer menus for Big's were on chalkboards just as you walk into the dining room and on the wall in the bar area. The nanobrewery operation was housed in the basement of the old house. (Curiously, I looked around the outside of the house as we left and I didn't see a smoker.) They had an Irish Stout on tap, as well a Russian double imperial stout. They had two barrel-aged beers - a bock and another stout - and they had a Mexican Vienna lager on tap that sort of interested me. Big's also has their own cider on tap, as well as a house-made root beer.
They had a kolsch on special that day - the Katfish Kolsch - with pints costing just $2.00. After I took my first drink, I sort of figured out why it was on special. It was pretty flat. I ended up drinking it, but for my second beer I switched to the Double Barrel IPA that my wife had originally ordered. It was a much better beer than their kolsch.
It was standard barbecue fare at Big's BBQ & Brew Pub - baby-back ribs, pulled pork, smoked chicken, pork sausage, and a brisket platter that they have on the menu over most weekends. With the majority of barbecue places that I'm trying for the first time, I wanted to have a combo plate. I ended up getting the pulled pork and the burnt ends.
The pulled pork was moist, juicy, very tender and very flavorful. The burnt ends were also moist and tender with a nice bark on some of the pieces. I thought the barbecue offerings I had were both very good.
I can't say that about the sides, however. I got the baked beans and the cole slaw. Both were pedestrian, at best. The cole slaw was pretty bland in taste, while the baked beans really lacked any pizzazz in their flavor. But the smoked meats were outstanding and the portions were generous so I didn't feel cheated by having such bland sides.
My wife ended up getting a combo of her own - the baby-back ribs with burnt ends. The ribs were thick and meaty with a bit of a peppery rub that gave them a little zip in flavor. They meat pulled away from the bone effortlessly and it was very tender and not overcooked. My wife liked the ribs immensely. She also liked the burnt ends very much, too. My wife commented that she wasn't certain that she could eat all the barbecue on her platter and that's how I ended up getting one of the baby-back ribs to try.
She got the cole slaw and the collard greens for her sides. She, too, wasn't too enamored with the cole slaw, but she said she liked the collard greens. She offered me a bite of the greens and I thought they were a little too sour in taste for me. I remarked that some vinegar added to the greens might have helped them for me.
They had a couple barbecue sauces available - the sauce they originally served in a small container reminded me of Cookies BBQ sauce with maybe some vinegar and mustard added. It was good, but it wasn't as good as the raspberry sriracha sauce I asked for from our young waitress. That barbecue sauce was simply outstanding. It had a biting spicy taste at first, but the raspberry helped smooth out the spiciness on the back side. I could have had a pint of that just to drink, I thought it was so good.
For the most part, we really enjoyed our visit to Big's BBQ & Brew Pub. We both thought the smoked meats we had were delicious and very generous in their portion size. The sides were bland, but my wife did think the collared greens were good enough. The kolsch beer that I first ordered was flat (I surmised that's why it was on special that day for $2.00 a pint), but the Double Barrel IPA that I got after that was a very tasty beer. Our service was fine, the place was cozy, but the overall bill (a little over $50 before tip) was a bit of a shocker. Still, Big's BBQ & Brew Pub was a great little find and a nice place to take a road trip to.
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