My wife and I were headed back home from a weekend at my sister's fiancé's lake home along Lake Panorama in west central Iowa and by the time we got to Des Moines, my wife thought she needed something to eat. It was about 3 p.m. and I told her that if I had something to eat in Des Moines that late in the afternoon, I wouldn't want any dinner that evening. She said that was fine with her. I had her do some searches on line for a good burger place in Des Moines and one of the first ones that came up was a place that I had been wanting to go to for a long time - the Iowa Taproom. I popped the address to the Iowa Taproom in my GPS and we took off to go there.
Jeff Bruning is the head of an ownership group called Full Court Press that has developed and owns a number of restaurants around Des Moines such as Fong's Pizza, Hessen Haus, Buzzard Billy's, El Bait Shop and the High Life Lounge. It was Bruning who came up with the concept of the Iowa Taproom when he realized in 2014 that Iowa had over 50 craft breweries around the state. (There are nearly 90 today.) With the growing number of breweries, Bruning and his partners wanted to develop a restaurant that showcased the state's craft beer selection.
Finding a spot that could house a restaurant/bar with enough room to store beer kegs for their distribution system would be critical to the concept and they found an old building east of the Des Moines River that they felt would fit their needs. The building was built in 1882 and initially housed a factory that made retail store fixtures. In the mid-1910's it was converted to a tire manufacturing operation - it was the first tire company in the state of Iowa and one of the first ones established west of Ohio.
In the 1930's, the building was converted into two businesses - one was a printing company that ended up printing morale-boosting pamphlets and postcards during World War II; and the other was the Des Moines warehouse and distributorship for Old Style beer. A fire destroyed the beer warehouse in 1949 and that part of the building was rebuilt in 1952. The building then went through different variations of both retail and wholesale businesses until the early 70's when it was purchased by the Dilley Manufacturing which reverted the building to a printing plant that printed book covers and binders.
After Dilley Manufacturing merged with another local printing company in 2014, the building was purchased by a local developer who renovated the building. Bruning toured the building and found it to be perfect for the Iowa Taproom concept Full Court Press had been working on. The restaurant group leased the property in 2015 and started a nearly year-long construction of the Iowa Taproom. The new beer bar/restaurant opened in early March of 2016.
(In October of 2020, Full Court Press opened Ken's Speakeasy, only the group calls it a "not so secret speakeasy". It's located in the basement of the Iowa Taproom and is assessable via a set of stairs near the front door of the taproom. Ken's pays homage to bootlegger Kenneth Sonderleiter who provided beer and spirits in the 1920's to a range of people that included pillars of society, captains of industry, politicians, members of the press, and guests in stately downtown hotels. Ken was eventually caught and put in prison, but was pardoned by President Roosevelt in 1942. Ken's Speakeasy features a number of repurposed fixtures picked up from around the state of Iowa, as well as photographs of gangsters and Prohibition-era memorabilia. Many of the spirits served at Ken's are from a number of Iowa distilleries, which are growing in number like the number of craft breweries.)
It was close to 4 p.m. when we pulled up to the Iowa Taproom located on E. 3rd St. between E. Walnut St. and E. Court Ave. (see map) The entrance way is the old elevator that went to the now non-existent 2nd floor from the part of the building that burned back in 1949. We were greeted by someone when we came in and were shown to a table toward the front of the restaurant.
The open floor area of the restaurant features a number of sturdy metal and wood chairs and tables. The table tops were made from repurposed barn wood. Open beams across the ceiling with exposed ductwork gave it sort of a 1920's warehouse look. There were a number of nostalgic and historical signs on the exposed brick walls with repurposed barn wood slats forming small half walls and the full wall along the back part of the restaurant near the kitchen. There is a narrow outdoor dining patio on the north side of the restaurant that we walked through when we left
The main focus of the Iowa Taproom is the grain silo that was made specifically for the restaurant by . Sukup Manufacturing. The company is located in Sheffield, IA, and according to their web site it's the largest family-owned manufacturer of grain bins, dryers, and steel buildings in the world. The specially made silo holds 120 taps and is situated behind a bar whose top is made from a repurposed counter top from a general store in Jewell, IA that dated back to the 1880's.
Our server for the day was a young lady by the name of Brenna. She was friendly and helpful in sorting out the beers they had to offer that day. Iowa Taproom features a wide array of beers, sours, and ciders on their beer menu. I was looking for something that I hadn't had before and Brenna suggested the Neon Hazy IPA from the Barn Town Brewing, a craft brewery and restaurant located out in West Des Moines. The beer was very good and we put Barn Town Brewing on our places to try when we get back to Des Moines later this summer.
The food menu at the Iowa Taproom consisted of a number of appetizers and salads, as well as 9 different styles of bone-in chicken wings served with Maytag Blue Cheese dressing. Since we were drawn there primarily for the burgers, they also had sandwiches and a number of entrees including beer-battered fish tacos, a pan-seared Iowa pork chop, a barbecue meatloaf platter, and a sautéed chicken breast dish called Hunter's Chicken that is topped with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, shallots and tarragon, then finished with a porter demi-glace. Smashed Yukon Gold potatoes and steamed broccoli came on the side. That actually sounded pretty damned good.
But the sandwiches they had were very interesting to me - so much that I started to waver on my original plan to get a burger. Oh, the burgers sounded good, too. The All-American featured two patties with American cheese, the Maytag burger was topped with Maytag Blue Cheese and honey-peppered bacon with blue cheese mayo, and the Morning Farm burger featured a patty blended with beef and sage-infused breakfast sausage, then topped with cheddar cheese, a slice of grilled ham, a fried egg, hickory-smoked bacon, onion straws and finished with a BBQ mayo. That probably would have been the one I got.
The sandwiches at the Iowa Taproom seemed more appealing to me. They had a barbecued meat loaf sandwich topped with cheddar cheese, onion straws and a bourbon barbecue sauce. The Buffalo chicken Swiss sandwich featured a breaded chicken breast tossed in Buffalo wing sauce and topped with Swiss cheese. The French dip sounded good, as did the reuben. My wife took a long hard look at the lobster artichoke melt that featured lobster meat with artichokes, mayo, onions and parmesan cheese, topped with melted cheddar cheese and served on a garlic crostini.
My wife - who wasn't drinking after a fun weekend at the lake - felt she needed some greens and some protein to counteract all the decadence we experienced for the past couple of days. She got the Southwestern chicken salad, but instead of the chicken spiced with Buffalo sauce, she just had Brenna ask the chef to put the regular grilled chicken on it. It appeared to be a full chicken breast sliced in strips, then placed atop a bed of mixed greens with pico de gallo, pepper jack cheese, sweet corn, black beans and crushed tortilla chips. A chipotle ranch dressing normally comes with the salad, but she got just regular ranch dressing. She thought the salad was fabulous and definitely what she needed for a late lunch/early dinner.
Man, I wavered back and forth between about four or five different things before I finally order the Italian grinder at the last moment. Like most Italian grinders found at restaurants around Des Moines, it featured Graziano Brothers ground Italian sausage, then it's mixed with marinara sauce, grilled onions, along with Anaheim and sweet red peppers. The mix is stuffed into a grilled Italian roll and topped with melted Provolone cheese. A side of seasoned battered fries came with the sandwich on the side. The sandwich was delicious - but I knew what would happen later on. The peppers and onions talked back at me all the way back home to the Quad Cities.
The seasoned battered fries were excellent, as well. They had a very crispy outer shell and a soft flaky core. I shared some with my wife and she thought they were very good.
I'm glad we finally got the chance to visit the Iowa Taproom for the first time. I'd been wanting to check the place out for quite sometime. And given the number of Iowa-based craft brews they have on tap, as well as some of the interesting food items on their menu, I know I'll be back again at some point. Our server, Brenna, was accommodating and friendly during our visit and I was actually impressed with how well versed she was in the different beers they had. The Iowa Taproom is a very unique place and one that should be checked out if you want to take a craft beer tour across the state of Iowa without all the driving.
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