A few months ago, I drove into North Liberty to see some family members and as I was coming into town off I-380, I looked over to my right and saw a huge building that I wasn't familiar with. I went around the block and came back by the building which turned out to be a new brewpub - Field Day Brewing Company. Since then, I had been back a couple times to have their beers, but on a recent trip to the North Liberty area on a Sunday, I decided to stop in and get something to eat at Field Day Brewing.
Joe Selix was going to the University of Iowa about 15 years ago for his business degree and he ended up working as a bartender at BlackStone, an upscale comfort food restaurant on Iowa City's east side owned by Matt Swift and Brian Flynn. After getting his degree, Selix stuck around Iowa City working at BlackStone as the front of house manager for a couple years before heading out to the Denver area to work various jobs including as a pet pharmacy sales rep. But when Shewmaker, Flynn and Brandon Pratt wanted to start a new restaurant in the burgeoning small city of North Liberty, they turned to Selix to see if he would be a managing partner in the new business. Selix came back to the Iowa City area and helped open Tin Roost in August of 2017.
While Selix was at BlackStone, Flynn, Swift and Eric Shewmaker had formed the Craft Concepts Restaurant Group that either fully owned or co-partnered with other restaurants such as 30hop, Big Grove Brewery, Vesta, Iowa Athletic Club, and the venerable Joe's Place, a longtime favorite drinking establishment in Iowa City. In addition to Iowa City/Cedar Rapids restaurants under the Craft Concepts Restaurant Group umbrella, the corporation also owned Lua Brewing in Des Moines, and had put a Big Grove Brewery in Des Moines, and 30hop locations in the Des Moines area, as well as in Omaha. The group is slated to open two more 30hop locations in the Kansas City area early next year, and a Big Grove Brewery in Omaha is scheduled to open also in early 2025.
After getting Tin Roost up and running, Joe Selix set his sights on a new endeavor - another brewpub for the greater Iowa City area, this time one in North Liberty - the growing city's first. The problem was that he didn't know the first thing about brewing beer. But his brother Scott - who is the co-owner of the Lua Brewery in Des Moines - was the president of the Iowa Brewers Guild and knew a number of people who were brewers across the state.
Scott Selix got his brother in contact with Alec Travis, an award-winning brewmaster who had first worked at SingleSpeed Brewing Company in Waterloo, then at Lion Bridge Brewing Company in Cedar Rapids. Travis agreed to come on as a partner in the venture and helped oversee the installation of a 15-barrel system into what turned out to be a 20,000 square foot facility in North Liberty. With everything in place, Field Day Brewing Company opened on August 1, 2023.
It was just after noon on a windy Sunday afternoon when I pulled into Field Day's expansive parking lot off W. Liberty Way, just south of W. Penn Ave, the main east-west road into North Liberty. (see map) Walking into Field Day, there's an expansive main hall with booths and community tables underneath industrial Edison light chandeliers.
For just afternoon, the place was actually pretty full. There were people waiting for booths or large tables when I came into the place. NFL games were playing on the large screen televisions that were interspersed throughout the main beer hall.
Just past the beer hall was an outdoor patio area that had strands of hanging Edison lights over a number of all-weather tables and chairs. A few people were seated closer to the building as it was sort of out of the wind with the north and east sides of the patio open. The outdoor patio area was almost the size of the beer hall inside. Garage doors that open during more pleasant weather were on the wall that faced the beer hall.
Just past the outdoor patio was a beer garden with picnic tables, Adirondack chairs and some fire pits. It was definitely too windy to be sitting out on the crushed rock beer garden that afternoon, but it would have been a nice place to hang on a beautiful day.
Field Day promotes the fact that they cater to families. Just beyond the outdoor patio and beer garden was a playground with curved jungle gyms, tractor tires cut in half to climb on, and a mesh catwalk. The playground fixtures were on rubber pellets to soften the fall. They weren't all that high off the ground, but I could see some dumbshit drunk out there trying to walk across the top of the jungle gym and falling to the ground.
Back inside Field Day, there was another room off to the side with more community seating along with duckpin bowling lanes. All four lanes were occupied pretty much the whole time I was in the place. The game room had its own bar, a row of stools with a narrow bar behind the duckpin lanes, and flat-screen televisions on the wall. The room could be shut off for private events and parties. As people were waiting to get tables when I walked in, I noticed a number of seats were opened around the three-sided bar. Each side had 3 flat-screen televisions on the back bar wall and they also had NFL games on them with the exception of two of the televisions around the bar that had the current beer menu on them. There were a couple ladies who were obviously big Green Bay Packers fans seated on one of the corners of the bar watching the game.
There were two bartenders working that day. Both of them were very friendly, attentive and great guys. One of the bartenders came over and dropped off a food menu for me to look through. I saw a brew on the beer menu that I had before on my previous visits to Field Day - the Juicy Belly hazy IPA. I remembered it being very good and I ordered one of those.
The food offerings were pretty basic - appetizers and small plates, street tacos and pretzels, sandwiches and salads. The ladies a couple seats over from me were working on a plate of the Iowan fries - pulled pork on top of fries, topped with cheese and a ranch sauce. A couple other interesting appetizers included the popcorn that was popped in duck fat, and the Nashville hot cheese curds.
Although there wasn't a lot of foods to choose from on the menu, a couple three things stood out for me. The seared mahi mahi tacos with topped with a cilantro-lime slaw and an avocado crema sounded really good, as did the green chile-braised chicken tacos. The pastrami sandwich with Havarti cheese, sauerkraut and 1000 Island dressing also got my attention.
But in the end, I decided to go the burger route and I ordered the Field Day burger - two flat-grilled smash burgers with thick slices of American cheese on top of each patty sitting on a bed of shredded lettuce, dill pickle slices, and finished with a house-made sauce. Sides consisted of fries or chips & salsa, or for an upcharge you could get a side salad, pasta salad or a cup of soup. I went with the fries since tots weren't available and nothing else sounded like it would go good with a flat-grilled burger.
I have to say the burger was very good - a "spot-hitter", in my book. The smashed patties still had some juiciness to them, the cheese oozed with each bite, and the bun was fluffy and light, but held together very well with all the stuff on the burger. I immediately knew I was going to need more napkins after the first couple bites and when one of the bartenders came back to check on me I asked for some more. "A lot going on with that burger," he said as he sat more napkins down in front of me. The fries were also very good as they had a crunchy outer shell from the batter they used on them, and had a nice pillowy inlay.
About the only quibble I have with Field Day Brewing Company is that their menu is a little short to my liking. But what they have seems to be interesting enough. I can't say enough about the flat-grilled smash burger I had along with the great battered fries. I've never been disappointed in the beers I've tried on previous visits, and the tag-bartender-team who waited on me that day were great guys - friendly, efficient and very helpful. For North Liberty's first brew pub, I think the guys at Craft Concepts Restaurant Group have hit it out of the park. The next time I get over there, I'm trying the seared mahi mahi tacos.
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