Clock House Brewing is bringing back two tasty brews tomorrow (2/24)! As soon as the doors open at 3:00, you’ll be able to get your hands and lips on their Black IPA and their ever popular Orange Xxxplosion brews! Here’s more from Clock House:
We have two beers returning to the taproom this Friday, February 24th!
Orange XXplosion: This sour features a trio of orange citrus fruits including: Tangerine, Cara Cara Orange, and Southern Hemisphere Oranges. Thus, creating a complex plethora of flavor that XXplodes out the glass.
Black IPA: Comprised of carefully selected Black malts to achieve a deep, rich roasted dark malt flavor with hints of chocolate and rye. Bittered and dry-hopped with Centennial, Mosaic, and Amarillo hops that attribute to classic bitter pine notes.
Both of these will be available in 16oz 4-packs, growlers, and draft!
It’s always fun when you are traveling through a big town or city and see a random restaurant/bar/tavern pop up on a neighborhood corner far seemingly far removed from the chains that have taken over main drag USA. Heading down a street in the Oak Hill Jackson neighborhood in downtown Cedar Rapids and seeing a lovely sign of a cow with a halo over its head was a welcomed sight! Sacred Cow Tavern was calling my name and I couldn’t wait to answer!
Opened in October of 2022 as a the brainchild of the FNF restaurant group, this restaurant has quite a history, including being a church a few different times! This restaurant group is known for a wide range of food items that can satisfy any diet and they’ve done an amazing job incorporating vegan/vegetarian dishes to be part of their main menu as well. Appetizers, smash burgers, sandwiches, wings, salads and much more with a wonderfully revamped image of those dishes and executed perfectly as well as their vegan/vegetarian options that are more than just a black bean burger, this menu is packed with flavor.
The ambiance upon walking in gives you complete comfort, a homey vibe and a place where you don’t necessarily want to leave. First point of order….BEER…..need to check out the beer menu. Although Sacred Cow does not have any tap beer, they do offer a variety of cans from local breweries plus a fully stocked bar for mixers and wine. I went light, a Backpocket 319 lager, knowing that I was going to be putting some food away.
It was restaurant week and so, like many other local establishments, Sacred Cow had a few specials that they were advertising. One special was Elote Chicken Wings. If you’re not familiar with elote, it’s a popular Mexican street dish of corn on the cob slathered in mayo/cream sauce dusted with chili powder and cilantro. Sacred Cow took the sauce dimension, added some grilled corn and cilantro to their extremely crispy chicken wings and final result were some of the best and most creative wings I’ve had! Hoping these find their way to the menu!
The other special item for “Restaurant Week” was a walking taco smashburger. I’m a lover all of kinds of burgers and smashburgers are always hard to pass up, add walking taco ingredients to it and I’m sold. A smashed patty, perfectly cooked, topped with cheese, doritos, a cilantro lime crema and lettuce was more than a mouthful in every bite! Excellent burger, something I would order again.
Overall, this is a place I hope to be a patron of for a long time to come and I hope many more neighborhood bars begin popping up in our area. Sacred Cow Tavern is definitely a welcoming place for any and all! Cheers!
This month continues to see some great beer releases in Iowa, and now Lion Bridge is bringing back three excellent beers! Fun Size, Wolf Shirt, and TAG will all be coming back to the Lion Bridge portfolio! Here’s more courtesy of Lion Bridge:
Release date: February 15th
SPRING THEMED Fun Size (Porter with Vanilla and Chocolate, 5.2%) – Madagascar Vanilla Beans and cacao nibs yield big, delicious surprises in this small beer.
Wolf Shirt (Hazy IPA w/Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, 7.2%) – This beer is not a shirt. But wolf shirts are awesome. This beer is awesome.
Release date: February 28th
Tag Tangerine (Tangerine Wheat Beer, 4.2%) – Inspired by German “Radlers” that combine soda and beer to produce a light and refreshing beverage. Tag is a juicy and hazy wheat beer with the zesty citrus bite of tangerine. Enjoy a Tag! Enjoy the Day!
Ever since 1993, February as been designated “Stout” month. What better way to celebrate the end of January than by cracking a bottle/can of your favorite roasty stout? There are so many great stouts to choose from in our great state, but here’s what I’ll be sipping on this month…plus any others I may cross paths with!
**Lion Bridge Percussive Maintenance** – the perfect beer to pop open during February. I was lucky enough to procure a few bottles and also has this decadent baby on tap. One of the best beers in the state in my opinion. 12% can be scary, but it’s extremely well hidden. Sip on this one and relish it, maybe share it, but make sure you are sharing with someone worthy of this brew.
**Singlespeed Tip the Cow** – sometimes we take for granted those things that are readily available to us. Tip the Cow happens to be one of those beers, You can find it in almost any grocery store in the area and also happens to be a fantastic stout. Coffee and chocolate and I think I’ll have at least two of these!
**Big Grove Richard the Whale** – another harder to get beer that you can’t just pick up at your local grocery store…BUT…this baby is currently on tap at my local watering hole, Chameleon’s Pub and Grub in Mount Vernon, and once I drink that dry I still have a few bottles stashed in the cellar. If you were lucky enough to attend Richard Day, you probably have some variants to drink as well….LUCKY!
**Backpocket Cookie Junkie** – when I first saw this can I thought for sure this beer would be too sweet, but the balance of the peanut butter and the 175 pounds of sandwich cookies was perfect at not cloying at all. After a big winter feast, this is going to be my dessert!
**Clock House Pet Elephant** – the new kid to the party. Just released last weekend. This is an end of nighter, nightcap, grand finale beer. 14% is frightening, and when you finish that last sip it may seem at the moment you could handle another….hold tight….save that next bottle for another evening…get the fireplace going, turn on some Lord Huron lightly in the background, and savor every last drop of this nutter butter filled brew.
There they are! Those 5 for sure and hopefully some more stouts I run into along the way. What stout are you drinking this month and what else do I need to try? Cheers to Stout Month!
We have two beers returning to the taproom this Friday, February 24th!
