Brew Pub:
A bar/restaurant which usually serves food and makes beer to consume on the premises. Typically they don’t bottle and sale other than in very small “take them with you” quantities. One local example is Rock Bottom Brewery. Great food, great beer and you can purchse liters etc. They don’t distribute their beer however.

Microbrewery:
Generally a microbrewery makes and distributes less than 15,000 barrels of beer yearly. The beer is packaged and distributed for off the premises sales. Some brew pubs meet this criteria, but I would still define them as a brew pub.

Regional Brewery:
A regional brewery packages and distributes between 15,000 and 1,000,000 barrels yearly.

Large Brewery:
A brewery that produces more than 1,000,000 barrels of beer annually. Anheuser/Busch, Miller etc.

Beer Marketing Company:
A company who puts their label on a beer that is produced for them.

Filed by Paul at 11:33 pm under Breweries
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On a quest to locate some local area breweries I have come to realize that we really don’t have a whole lot of choices. Quite a few have closed in recent years unfortunately. The largest was a regional brewery, Dubuque Brewing and Bottling who produced 100,000 barrels a year since 1898 and closed in 1998. Most now are microbreweries and only produce on average 1,200 barrels a year. One I came across that is still open is Millstream Brewing in the historic Amana Colonies in Amana, Iowa. Look for a future Podcast episode dedicated to Millstream Brewing. We will try to take a tour of the brewery prior as well. The only other one I could find was called Hardscrabble Enterprise in Hopkinton, Iowa and is still under planning stages.

On the other hand we have a nice selection of brew pubs. Some of the local ones in the Des Moines area are Rock Bottom Brewery (try their Stout, especially with desserts), Granite City Food & Brewery, Court Avenue Brewing, Raccoon River Brewing and Olde Main Brewing in Ames. Again look for future Podcast episodes on each of these local beers.

Filed by Paul at 11:15 pm under Breweries
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