Clock House Brewing | Cedar Rapids, IA
Beer Trip: Clock House Brewing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Sitting inside the old Clock House Building at the edge of downtown Cedar Rapids is none other than Clock House Brewing. Appropriately named, this place keeps most of its historic mystic while also offering top notch brews for both locals and visitors like us.
The Brewery
From the outside, one would think that the mixed use building that Clock House sits in was recently built; however, this place has been around for decades and has been brilliantly restored. Walking up you will find their dog-friendly deck with seating for around 50 people. The inside space maintains the building’s historic feel, featuring huge wooden columns and original brick walls left exposed. The place is softly lit with wooden barrels shuffled about, almost like you would picture a pub in a pirate movie.
While sitting at the bar for an afternoon, it was easy to identify that Clock House gets a lot of regulars. Everyone who walked through the door knew the bartender Brandon, and he knew them right back. With so many locals supporting the place, Clock House is actually in the process of opening up a secondary location across town. This will allow them to expand more of their beer throughout the region!
The Beer
Clock House offers a dozen different beers on tap for one’s enjoyment. Of those, three brews are considered flagships, a few more are seasonal rotators or periodic repeat recipes, and the other half of the menu swaps out as the keg runs dry. During this visit, their beer style ran the gamut featuring multiple IPAs, sours, a Vienna lager, an imperial brown ale, and a Dunkel.
If you’ve visited the state of Iowa, there’s a chance that you’ve sampled Clock House’s Witch Slap, as it’s one of the area’s most popular brews. This New England-style IPA is low on the bitterness scale and provides a rich citrus juiciness. Perhaps our favorite beer of the trip was their Rauchbier called Smoke Shack. This seasonal brew has the perfect smoked flavor (which is tough to do without overdoing it), but balances that with rich malts to keep your taste buds in check. On our way out the door, we picked up a 4-pack of their Dinner Talk sour ale… and boy, are we glad we did! It packs a punch with plums, blackberries, and cranberries, all blended together with maple syrup. It’s just like drinking a pastry!
Food, Merch, & More
Clock House shares a kitchen with the business next door, which provides ample appetizers to choose from such as soft pretzels, mozzarella sticks, or wings, as well as burgers or sandwiches for a bigger meal. While we didn’t sample anything during this visit, things sure smelled good! Beer is their staple drink option, but they do also serve hard cider and wine. For a place of this size, their merchandise section is quite robust. There is an entire wall featuring many of their t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats, as well as tons of glassware and even a few wall tackers of their most popular brews.
Clock House has everything you could ask for in a brewery: good beer, great atmosphere, and friendly staff. It’s easy to see why this place has such a strong local following. We look forward to seeing this place thrive moving forward!
Cheers!
