Peoria IL – Obed & Isaac’s

OK, this may just be the best place I’ve visited so far on this trip. I know, that’s saying a lot (and may not actually be true), but the architecture alone is just wonderful.

There were a couple of places I was considering in Peoria, but being Sunday and all, I figured it would be good to go to church. And so I did, here:

Yes, this is Obed & Isaac’s, located in an old Presbyterian church building in downtown Peoria! As you can see from this article should you choose to read it, the building was designed by the same architect who did the famous Chicago Water Tower:

The inside retains a lot of the original architecture:

It’s a little odd in that the tables are all large, but as I arrived in mid-afternoon, they were very happy to put me at a table rather than ask me to sit at the bar.

The beer list is quite decent and is all theirs, brewed on-site:

And here’s the flight I ordered:

Left to right, my impressions of these were:

Obed’s Pride Amber Ale – I rather liked this one, and it was definitely more congenial to my taste than the APA I had yesterday (although not nearly as tasty as the APA from Periodic Brewing in Leadville CO).

Upside Brown Coffee – This was a first for me — I’ve never seen a brown ale with coffee added. It was good, but the coffee flavor was almost overpowering, making this taste like a coffee stout (because stout vs. brown, in the presence of such strong coffee flavor, was not discernible).

Summer Saison – Now this one, I really liked! It’s refreshing to find a saison that I would truly like to drink more than one of, and this one is it.

Obed’s Pilsner – But this was my top favorite of the four, perhaps because of the hot weather, perhaps because it was just that good. It was a delightful flavor and definitely one I would drink again and again, given the chance.

By this point, I was just feeling really relaxed and wasn’t ready to leave (and my hotel was just minutes away), so I went for dessert. It was in two parts, of course:

That’s their Bread Pudding (highly recommended by my server, and she wasn’t wrong!) and the Ditzy Blond in a glass. I enjoyed them both, so much so that I wasn’t ready to call it day quite yet …

… and so I ordered a flight of Scotches called “High and Low,” but I find that Tumblr won’t allow more than 10 images per post, so I’ll skip the photo and just describe what came in the flight.

The three pours were very small, really just a taste of each, and consisted of a Highland (Deanston Virgin Oak), a Speyside (Douglas Laing Scallywag), and a Lowland (Auchentoshan). I’d never had any of these three before, so I enjoyed them even though there was so little of each.

And that was today’s big adventure! This was such a great find, and I’ll definitely come back if I’m in this area in the future. And if I am, I’ll certainly look for that Pilsner as my top choice 🙂