New Brewpub Reviews

I suggest you spend a week in Portland and get back to us. Your review of the Rogue pub is completely misleading. That place is neither a brewpub, nor is it owned or operated by the Rogue brewery. Music is good there, though.

You could just save yourself all the HTML trouble and post them at Pubcrawler.com. Heck, it looks like you'd be one of their top reviewers, quantity-wise, if you did so.

Blake, thanks for the info. I'll make some changes. J

Hmm, maybe I'll check that out. J

Agreed the writing style is especially good. I disagree with some of the opinions, such as giving Rock Bottom an "A" for beer quality. But that's the fun of discussion.

Could be that the Seattle Rock Bottom is especially lousy. Portland, Chicago, and Atlanta locations were less lousy, IMO.

One Rock Bottom does not equal another Rock Bottom. Brewers get a good amount of latitude, much more so than Gordon-Biersch, for instance.

Good to know that. I have heard through the grapevine that a local brewpub chain (Ram Bighorn Brewery) won a medal at the Great American Beer Festival. Problem is, that the expensive ingrediants used in the award-winning beer have been replaced with cheaper ingrediants. Yet the Ram is touting the dumbed-down beer as the award-winner. The brewer of that beer quit as a result.

Hell, I've had good American-style IPA at the Bellevue Rock Bottom, and that's even closer to the Seattle Rock Bottom. Obviously, the brewers' results vary more than a bit. And if you include the Chop House places, the one in Washington, DC - the District Chop House - simply rocks. If my local Rock Bottom(s) had beer like that on a consistent basis, they'd see my face there a lot.

So far, we've had very good experiences at the Phoenix area Rock Bottom sites, but I agree, chain operations can vary a lot.

Even G-B has a lot of variation. Sadly, the one nearest me (Laguna Hills) is no more, replaced by yet another BJ's. But that G-B was the best one I had been to, with a brewer who clearly knew what the hell he was doing.

Personally, I don't think Rock Bottom gets half the credit it should. Yes, some of them produce astoundingly mediocre stuff. Some of them produce outstanding stuff. I think they are to be admired for giving their brewers the flexibility they do. There's only one dictated recipe (that Firehouse Red or whatever it's called that they earmark for charity donations), and from there the brewers are simply told that they have to have one each of certain styles and need to hit sales and profitability targets. How they decide to brew those styles, and what they decide to put on the leftover taps, is completely up to them.

I'd rather not have the place be predictable with the potential for either mediocre results or really good results, then to have a place where it's always the same. If I want predictability, I can go to McDonald's. Predictability is boring. Yeah, I suppose it's a bit of a drag if you live close to one of the RB's that doesn't shine (hell, I'll be living two blocks from one in a couple weeks), but I think the practice of letting the brewers have a lot of freedom is one that should be applauded.

-Steve

I was under the impression that what beers a brewer did at G-B came down from on high, not to be mucked with. Hey, hey, you learn every day.

Agreed. I hate chain restaurants, but I can't help liking some Rock Bottoms. I've only been to eight, but I've really liked five of them: pretty good odds, and the other three were at least okay. John Harvard's does pretty well here in my area as well: Pittsburgh, Philly, Wilmington, Long Island. Far as that goes, hell, I can't help liking G-B: the stuff's well-made, I like lagers... you know.

My mistake on giving an impression that they have choice in which beers are served. They don't. But the quality of the beers and flavorfulness seems to have a good amount of variation, at least amongst the four or five locations I've been in.

I'll admit, I'm willing to cut them more than a little slack just because of that. I have to admire a brewpub that's doing almost exclusively lagers.

-STeve