I moved from Indiana in to Illinois and then in to Iowa. It was approaching lunch time and I still had a half a day’s worth of driving to go on my road trip to Montana. The next city was Iowa City, so I decided to look up nearby breweries. Backpocket Brewing Company didn’t just have beer and food but brick oven pizzas. So I headed there. Located actually in Coralville, Iowa in Iowa River Landing, home to a 286 room Marriott and the University of Iowa Health Care's medical unit, I came to a big rectangular space and walked in to a huge taproom with a wall of windows. There were just a couple people hanging out at the bar but I mostly had the place to myself. It was a bit past the lunch rush. I liked the lay out of the place with long picnic-like tables by the windows but also high top long tables closer to the bar. This was one of three locations but I was at the production facility and so I could see back to the huge area to my right and behind the bar where the fermenters are. According to the Backpocket Brewing Website at certain times of the day you can see, hear and smell the beer being made. My favorite part of the lay were the blue steins hanging over the bar that looked more to me like blue ceramic coffee mugs. On my trip up north this was the second brewery I’d been to where the bartender/server came right up and sat down like we were friends. She was ready to listen and help with anything I needed. I knew I wanted to try as many as I could so I ordered a flight even though there’s came with five 4 oz glasses. I told the waitress I wouldn’t finish them all but of course I did. Backpocket served handcrafted German inspired beers. In this taphouse they had 13 on tap, six always being their core (Gold Coin Helles, Slingshot, Wooden Nickel, Wake Up Iowa, Blood on the Blade, and Iowa Cider’s Workshop). The rest are their “seasonal, storied and experimental” beers. The waitress let me know some of their beers had just been entered into a beer competition at the Marriott nearby and made some suggestions. I ended up choosing the Raygun Galaxy Hopped IPA as my IPA of choice (always gotta have a solid IPA); the Mr. Tea, a tea infused pale ale; the Coconut Stout; The Copper Coin, a vanilla coffee lager; and The Blood on the Blade, a red IPA so I could have at least one of their core beers. The lager was the first I tried. It was sweet and left a warm taste in my mouth. I tried the IPA which was very hoppy but with not too much of a bite. The red was citrusy with a light hop and lastly there was the stout and the green tea ale. My least favorite and favorite. The stout was very sweet, too sweet in my opinion and I only got the slightest hint of coconut from it. I had to really try to taste the coconut. What it tasted like instead was brown sugar. It reminded me of these sandwiches I used to make with tea as a kid made simply of brown sugar, bread and butter. It was also ridiculously thick. The green tea…was amazing. I didn’t know what to expect since I am not really a fan of green teas…for my tea choice. I do like green tea ice cream but I didn’t know where this would fall. I ended up loving it. There was a citrus first taste first and then ended with perfect green tea notes. I loved it! I drank and read and…ate. I ordered a pear, arugula, prosciutto, gorgonzola and pecorino pizza though their brick oven pizza of a day, sweet potato, and ham, sounded killer. My choice was good but wasn’t as good as I expected since I’d had a similar pizza from Matchbox over the summer that was to die for, but I still recommend! What truly made it worth it was the delicious and complimentary olive oil dish I dipped my crust in. OH my.
If I had had more time there I would have also ordered a dessert. I’ve never had a stout float but it sounds like something I would like!
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