Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Das Bierhaus (Menomonie, WI)

6/10/17

Jaimie, the very nice bartender, who's effusive personality just oozed the excitement of a new endeaver told me the pub opened in January to the public, but just released their first home grown German ales last week. The official grand opening is June 30th.

Walking up to the pub, it seems like it had had an earlier lifewhich it did. In the bar, there's a collage of transition pictures that shows the transformation of the once meat locker turned machine shop reborn German beer garden. Outside, the outline of the former name can be seen out front, if you look. Inside, German beer garden decoration with table clothes and various German lagers, of which three are on tap: Spaten Munich, Bitburger, and Munich Lager from Hofbrauhaus. Lunch just started to be served and dinner is specific hours after 4:00, but they seem to be getting up to full speed.

The beers were hit and miss, but show real promise, so I decided to not review them separately and let someone else do it later as they become more stable. The Pilsner was quite good, and this from someone who doesn't like the style that much. Clean, crisp beer that is a smooth lager with apple notes, and significant but appropriate hop spice and nose. Well balanced and smoothnot a throw away light beer that the pilsner or golden ale often is to give the Bud and Miller Light crowd something to drink. This is a well done, drinkable beer. The Marzen on the other hand was murky and not ready for prime time and the Hefeweizen Dunkel was better but not up to speed yet either.

And, while there are some problems, the owners are clearly giving a tremendous effort, literally building the bar from scratch from the concrete up. Based on the strength of the Pilsner, I would say the pub has tremendous potential and should be given a chance to get through their growing pains. At least, I will return at some point to give them another opportunity to impress me more.

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