It’s always great when a new restaurant or bar with an exciting new concept opens up. I’ve been reading about the Chop House for a few weeks and finally had an opportunity to be around downtown Iowa City and decided to give it a go. It’s located right next to the Englert Theater, can’t miss it. Here’s the Iowa Chop House statement:
At the Iowa Chop House, we believe that great food starts with local, fresh ingredients. That’s why we source only the finest sustainable seasonal ingredients from hard working local farmers. Located in historic downtown Iowa City, we proudly carry on the tradition of culture and quality that is unique to our community.
The hostess offered us a quick tour before showing us our seats. She pointed out that the tables and part of the bar are from a refurbished barn. The “beer barn” was also made to look like a rustic old barn. More on the beer barn later, a terrific concept.
We were shown to our seats, people were starting to filter in for lunch so I’m glad we got there right at opening. The menu had everything from burgers to steaks with some great sounding apps as well. Here’s a link to the menu:http://theiowachophouse.com/iowachophouse_menu.pdf I thought the prices were very fair and I believe the food is locally sourced and then I was told about “The Beer Barn”! The Beer Barn is such a refreshing idea, especially for a craft beer lover as I am. If you want to order from the Beer Barn wall you are given an electronic wrist band. The wall had about 8 Iowa-only beers on tap, a fe
w of which I’ve never had. The band gives you a max of 28 oz of beer. You have several glass sizes to choose from so you are not stuck with a 12 oz pour of something you didn’t care for. You put your band over the electronic sign for the beer you want, get a blue/green light, and start pouring your beer. You can use the 28 oz on whatever beers are on the wall. A fantastic concept! I got to try Firetrucker brewery (http://www.firetrucker.com/)for the first time, they had Exile beers (http://exilebrewing.com/) as well and finished with a Lion Bridge saison (http://www.lionbridgebrewing.com/) and Big Grove arms race http://www.biggrovebrewery.com/)!
The good news is if you want more than 28 oz you can get your band reset as well and if you don’t want what’s on the Beer Barn wall they have a huge selection of bottles and more tap lines. The barn was just a great interactive way for people to talk beer and get to try some new brews as well.
Onto the food! The burger was great! One of the more flavorful burgers I’ve had in a while and went well with the Firetrucker porter. I got to talk to the manager for a while and he was very friendly and he did say that they 
are pretty much booked up for the next few weekends, so if you want to get there to check it out, head for lunch or make an online reservation. Overall, a place I will be heading to when I find myself downtown and want to escape what can be the madness of college bars and shitty beer or escape the unoriginality of fried chicken fingers and ground beef nachos. Check it out, keep these new places going!
I found the following information on http://beerstreetjournal.com/new-releases/. Bells Planet Series is coming with the follow up to Mars and 2nd of the series, according to Beer Street Journal, Venus is bottled and ready to ship. I really enjoyed Mars and and Venus will be quite a bit different but it sounds damn tasty all the same. It’s going to be a blonde ale with vanilla beans, cardamom, apricot juice, and honey. It will come in at 7.5% and be available in 12 oz bottles. Here’s more courtesy of Beer Street Journal and Bells press release:
