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Review content:
As a stranger in a strange land, it's always a challenge to find a good meal, so when the team leader I was meeting with recommended that we go to a brewpub for a beer and some dinner, I was as giddy as a school girl (personally, I blame the lack of oxygen and sleep).
It's a big brewpub, with over a dozen beers on tap and a menu printed on newsprint. Since there was a cask IPA available, I immediately went for it, as did four other people in our group. The beer was ok... more in the British style than the Pacific Northwest style, but if you're going for a british IPA, the choice of Cascade hops isn't appropriate. Better to use Fuggles or one of the other classic British hops. Still, it was served at the right temperature, and if I wasn't there for work, I could see having a couple. If that was the only thing I had at the brewpub, it would be a clear 3.5 star rating.
The other beers I sampled weren't bad, but it wasn't necessarily good. The scotch ale (or scottish in their terms) was bland, the chili beer was tolerable (if you're making a chili beer, give it a kick!) and the Koelsch was just lackluster and too sweet for the style (and I lived in Cologne and drank literally hundreds of glasses of the stuff while I was there).
The food, well, let's put it this way - there's a reason I travel with Imodium. The brisket was sweet, drenched in a really bad barbecue sauce (think KC Masterpiece meets the McRib) and accompanied with a garlic mashed potatoes that lacked a significant flavor of garlic or potato (though it did taste a little like unwashed potato skin). I know we're trying to be health conscious, but come on. We're in a brewery... a little butter, salt and heavy cream isn't going to kill you. The dysentery, however, could take a year or two off your life.
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