Bluegrass Brewing Co-East St. Mathew's (Louisville, KY)

I've been drinking Bluegrass Brewng Co's brews at Great Taste festival in Madison off and on for years, and have fairly high rankings for their brews. So I was pretty excited to finally get to Kentucky to hit the place in person. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

Just didn't feel like a very friendly place. Maybe it was me or I didn't hang out long enough, but I felt like the outsider sitting alone with locals staring at me w/o comment, which doesn't often happen in many brewpubs in spite of how often I do this. Also, the service was slow, and though I intended to eat here (lots of veggie items beyond standards), I settled up for my rack of samples and left shortly for Cumberland.

Now a great beer can go along way to forgive atmosphere or attitude.  Unfortunately, I only found one beer--the APA that really matched my expectations. T he rest were all good--from the Summer Wheat, El Jefe Hefeweizen, Nut Brown Ale, and Dark Star Porter.  All good but not excellent.  I had read something similar on BA, and found it to be true.  Also, at a later pub stop, a local there made a comment the BBC is having "problems."  She didn't elaborate but clearly wasn't surprised by my experience.

Cumberland Brews (Louisville, KY)

Cumberland Brews was a really great stop at this tiny pub not far off campus in a artistic/alternative area of Louisville.  Nice local neighborhood that has lots of off beat cafes, music stores, etc.  A brewpub with one row of tables with just enough room between them at the bar to walk and have chairs by the bar.  I've seen numerous homebrewer set ups that are the same size or bigger. It's just behind the bar and in the store window for all to see.  Not sure how they keep up with demand--guessing they work a lot.  Friendly place, good service, and a unique feature in the menu in which all of the waitresses backgrounds, hobbies, interests, goals, etc were outlined is a small paragraph for each.  Different and I liked it.

Nitro Porter was very good, along with the Nut Brown.  The Summer Wheat was one of the few wheat beers I liked on this trip because it had a clean wheat bite and taste. The Cream Ale was more of their domestic clone, so that's maybe why the wheat beer, which seemed to be the domestic clone in many pubs, was better here.  Also on tap was a very good Pale Ale and a Meade, though the latter needed some work yet.

Several vegetarian options on the menu, and Ihad the Veggie Burger on the recom of the bartender. Generally I would avoid the veggie burger, but in this case it was a combo of a falafel patty base with a portabello mushroom and pepper jack, guacamole and cheese--things I love in isolation and are great together on a burger bun.  Choice two that I want to have next time is the Cumberland Framers Potato Skillet--local veggies, potatoes and cheese baked together.  Next time.

As I add this BA review to my blog six years later, this is the the one pub from this trip that I think about occasionally and long for a return.  Truly hope that I am able to return some day.  Sadly, the skillet doesn't seem to be on the menu yet, but the veggie burger has in its original form, plus several other options that look good to try.