Barn Town Brewing, West Des Moines IA

In the interest of full disclosure, I was born in Iowa, a fact I rarely admit to. We moved away shortly after my 3rd birthday, and ever since I was given a puzzle of the US states as a child, I had an intense dislike for Iowa based on the color of that state’s puzzle piece. The fact that my cousins in Iowa – whom I rarely saw, thank goodness – were pretty horrible people, only increased my dislike for the state.

But here I am (and I will be back in Iowa again in a couple of weeks, sorry to say). The place I’d wanted to visit, The Barn DSM, had no food available yet due to the pandemic, so I ended up at Barn Town Brewing which wasn’t very far from my hotel. It was … interesting.

The place itself was nice and my server was very pleasant and cheerful.

I started with a flight of four fairly mundane brews.

From left to right, they’re the Neon Hazy IPA (decent enough that I had a pint to follow, but not great, tbh), the Driveway Drinker (a lager that was practically tasteless and very thin), the Iowa Gold (a golden ale that was pleasant if not memorable), and the Wagon Wheel Wit (a wheat beer that was so thin as to be almost unnoticeable). Fortunately, the food was very good.

After the pint of the Neon Hazy, I decided to give them one more chance to succeed and ordered a 10oz (full) pour of the Wonder Bar, a 9.4% chocolate milk stout that was very tasty, if over the top in terms of sweetness. At any rate, it was without a doubt the best beer of the five I had here, and the only one with any real mouth feel.

Would I come back if I were passing through here again? Maybe, but only if there weren’t any other choices available. Better luck tomorrow, perhaps.