O'Toole's Brewpub Scoring Review
weight score (5*) comments
Squatters, SLC
beer 50% 4.5 Well balanced if a little light on the grain for both the porter and pale. Pale had a very nice flowery finish
food 30% 5 Great fish and chips, other food looked exceptional (delicious looking yellow curry, grass fed burgers, good looking salads and home made mac&cheese) provisional 5 'till I try 'em again.
ergonomics 10% 3 Busy, crowded, not too dark not too light
staff 10% 4 Young and friendly
patrons 10% 4 Diverse from curry-eating skaters to burger eating golfers
weighted 97
Chama River, Albuquerque
beer 50% 5 Textbook examples across the board, nothing surprising but each glass was a precise representation of the style
food 30% 3 Meh, nothing to complain about but completely lacking excitement. Good, just boring
ergonomics 10% 2 Crowded, too clean and pressed for it's own good. Most pretentious brewpub I've ever been to. As a fancy restaurant it's a 4.5, as a brewpub it's a 2.
staff 10% 3 They know they're at the nicest restaurant in town, do you?
patrons 10% 1 They're there to look good.
weighted 80
Free State Brewing, Lawrence
beer 50% 5 Delicious and creative without losing substance for the sake of one note. Good beer.
food 30% 4.5 Try the specials
ergonomics 10% 3 Loud to extra loud, crowded to "my god it's crowded"
staff 10% 4 Knowledgeable about menu and beer, usually quick, sometimes cute.
patrons 10% 5 yeah.
weighted 101
Power Plant Brewing, RIP
beer 50% 4 Good pale, specials are hit and miss
food 30% 3 Good effort in the menu design, spotty execution by the staff.
ergonomics 10% 4 Loud to extra loud, empty to "my god it's empty", would score lower without the deck.
staff 10% 3 1 good barkeep at a time does not a staff make.
patrons 10% 5 yeah.
weighted 82
Trailhead Brewing, St. Louis (St. Charles)
beer 50% 2 Brewpub starter kit stuff, unimpressive but not undrinkable
food 30% 4 Good portions, standard fare.
ergonomics 10% 3 Pleasant enough, kitsche from a kit feels more authentic than most.
staff 10% 2 Way overburdened by our big group on a slow weeknight.
patrons 10% 3 Didn't register either way,
weighted 60
Gluek's, Minneappolis
beer 50% 4 Well executed if leaning slightly towards a mass-production mildness
food 30% 4 Fun menu without being deliberately eccentric, good stuff for a bar kitchen.
ergonomics 10% 4 A nice "beer hall" feel to things, comfortable.
staff 10% 4 Nice enough, attentive and they know their beer
patrons 10% 4 Good mix of young urbanites and happy-hour downtown workers.
weighted 88
* note on the 5 scale: 1 - offensive, 2 - not good, 3 - "meh, ok", 4 - noticeably good, 5 - exceptionally good
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
1st Event Proposal - " The Birth"
James :
You kids are reasonably smart...
Winter is approaching...
My supply is dwindling...
Who wants to start homebrewing? I know Leland has expressed an interest, and I know Keith has done it in the past. I've got a few brews under my belt (in more ways than one), but I'm still relatively newbish.
With the strong-ales fest at the power plant only a memory, somebody's gonna have to make all of those barleywines!
- James
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Keith :
You had me at "barleywine"
got any good recipes?
...more importantly, who has what apparatus? I decided my aluminum pot and kitchen stove had to go before I tried again (the stove actually had good output, but would prefer something not in the wifes kitchen). I haven't found a 5/6gal stainless steel pot that was in my pricerange yet, though I have seen a few high output propane burners that were reasonable (usually attached to aluminum turkey pots). My most valuable input would be one good carboy (or two, now I don't remember) and an immersion wort chiller. If anyone has a line on cheap stainless steel I'm all ears.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:40 PM, Leland :
As James pointed out, I am certainly in. I was planning on a reasonable investment this fall, so if there is a particular toy that would benefit us all, speak up....
I (of course) will be attempting an IPA.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:17 PM, James :
An IPA to start out with would probably be a good thing - if people are excited about doing a barleywine, I'm all in - my keggletun (part of a goofy Australian allgrain method) will only hold 20lbs of grain, unfortunately, so I'd have to do some tweaking of my recipe to get it to work. We'd also have to wait six months before it would be aged long enough to be good.
Leland, I think, is interested in going all-grain immediately, which is both commendable and insane.
Come to think of it, it would be pretty interesting for one of us to start with a simple in-kitchen stovetop extract setup (investment of about 150 bucks), while Leland goes ballsout with a traditional allgrain setup, and I continue with my all-in-one keggleton brew-in-a-bag method.
morebeer has some good stuff, no matter what your initial investment might need to be. I can answer most beginner's questions, so shoot if you have any.
Time to start saving bottles!
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Jeremiah :
Since I haven't ever actually invested any time towards research, I would be interested in being the "extra wheel". Keep me informed, I will just observe this year and I am more interested in documenting your hairbrained idears.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 9:48 AM, Matt :
I have several carboys and some other gear, but would all need a good cleaning as it has sat unused for a few years. I was contemplating brewing a new mead batch to commemorate the year.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:05 AM, James :
mmmmm mead.
if people are interested in contributing gear to others to get them started quicker, and save some dough, then maybe we should list the stuff that we have extra.
I've got:
3 gallon enameled pot for small extract batches
(I did my first batches in this - it works fine)
1 plastic fermentor bucket
(I've since moved to an all-glass setup)
probably some odds and ends.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Carl :
Should someone with a lot of space volunteer to host this chemistry experiment?
Then everybody can just bring all their stuff and see what's available to work with?
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Matt :
I could host some brews, but it would be a few weeks before I have the space available for storage.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:32 PM, James
Once we all get going, it would be awesome to do a multi-brew-day where we all make a batch at once.
Goes well with chili and a cold day. Everybody should probably get a few brews down before something like that happens, though.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:36 PM, Leland :
I was actually thinking that we could do something like that during
the event I sent the invite for in early November.
Everybody interested could put together a batch.
There is space out on my deck, and if its to cold outside the shop can
be cleaned for brewing.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Matt :
Perhaps I missed that invite. None the less, sounds like an excellent plan. As a bonus, one of my sales girls is going home to Hungary this month and promised to return with some of her father's schnapps recipes. We will see how that pans out.
Nevermind leland, I just got the invite.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Jeremiah :
Can we be in agreement that there will be no glass bombs detonated on the tablesaw? Because I would have to count myself out if that were the case!
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Matt :
With the bulk we are speaking off, perhaps we should just crank up the temp on leland's water heater.
You kids are reasonably smart...
Winter is approaching...
My supply is dwindling...
Who wants to start homebrewing? I know Leland has expressed an interest, and I know Keith has done it in the past. I've got a few brews under my belt (in more ways than one), but I'm still relatively newbish.
With the strong-ales fest at the power plant only a memory, somebody's gonna have to make all of those barleywines!
- James
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Keith :
You had me at "barleywine"
got any good recipes?
...more importantly, who has what apparatus? I decided my aluminum pot and kitchen stove had to go before I tried again (the stove actually had good output, but would prefer something not in the wifes kitchen). I haven't found a 5/6gal stainless steel pot that was in my pricerange yet, though I have seen a few high output propane burners that were reasonable (usually attached to aluminum turkey pots). My most valuable input would be one good carboy (or two, now I don't remember) and an immersion wort chiller. If anyone has a line on cheap stainless steel I'm all ears.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:40 PM, Leland :
As James pointed out, I am certainly in. I was planning on a reasonable investment this fall, so if there is a particular toy that would benefit us all, speak up....
I (of course) will be attempting an IPA.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:17 PM, James :
An IPA to start out with would probably be a good thing - if people are excited about doing a barleywine, I'm all in - my keggletun (part of a goofy Australian allgrain method) will only hold 20lbs of grain, unfortunately, so I'd have to do some tweaking of my recipe to get it to work. We'd also have to wait six months before it would be aged long enough to be good.
Leland, I think, is interested in going all-grain immediately, which is both commendable and insane.
Come to think of it, it would be pretty interesting for one of us to start with a simple in-kitchen stovetop extract setup (investment of about 150 bucks), while Leland goes ballsout with a traditional allgrain setup, and I continue with my all-in-one keggleton brew-in-a-bag method.
morebeer has some good stuff, no matter what your initial investment might need to be. I can answer most beginner's questions, so shoot if you have any.
Time to start saving bottles!
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Jeremiah :
Since I haven't ever actually invested any time towards research, I would be interested in being the "extra wheel". Keep me informed, I will just observe this year and I am more interested in documenting your hairbrained idears.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 9:48 AM, Matt :
I have several carboys and some other gear, but would all need a good cleaning as it has sat unused for a few years. I was contemplating brewing a new mead batch to commemorate the year.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:05 AM, James :
mmmmm mead.
if people are interested in contributing gear to others to get them started quicker, and save some dough, then maybe we should list the stuff that we have extra.
I've got:
3 gallon enameled pot for small extract batches
(I did my first batches in this - it works fine)
1 plastic fermentor bucket
(I've since moved to an all-glass setup)
probably some odds and ends.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Carl :
Should someone with a lot of space volunteer to host this chemistry experiment?
Then everybody can just bring all their stuff and see what's available to work with?
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Matt :
I could host some brews, but it would be a few weeks before I have the space available for storage.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:32 PM, James
Once we all get going, it would be awesome to do a multi-brew-day where we all make a batch at once.
Goes well with chili and a cold day. Everybody should probably get a few brews down before something like that happens, though.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:36 PM, Leland :
I was actually thinking that we could do something like that during
the event I sent the invite for in early November.
Everybody interested could put together a batch.
There is space out on my deck, and if its to cold outside the shop can
be cleaned for brewing.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Matt :
Perhaps I missed that invite. None the less, sounds like an excellent plan. As a bonus, one of my sales girls is going home to Hungary this month and promised to return with some of her father's schnapps recipes. We will see how that pans out.
Nevermind leland, I just got the invite.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Jeremiah :
Can we be in agreement that there will be no glass bombs detonated on the tablesaw? Because I would have to count myself out if that were the case!
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Matt :
With the bulk we are speaking off, perhaps we should just crank up the temp on leland's water heater.
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