From the Indiana Post-Tribune
http://www.post-trib.com/lifestyles/1637616,taylor0626.article
June 26, 2009Three Floyds Brewery & Pub is oddly located in an industrial park in the southwest corner of Munster, perhaps appropriately situated for this eccentric little brewery serving a variety freshly made beers and respectable cuisine.
Most people come to Three Floyds for the beer. I’d suggest ordering something from the pub’s imaginative and diverse menu as well. I’d expected sandwiches, burgers and pizza, standard bar food.
Which is why my wife declined and my youngest brother accepted. He enjoys beer more than she does and doesn’t get out enough.
But Three Floyds offered much more than either of us expected.
It’s a dark, cool place to eat, drink and escape the summer heat in a comfortable, cave-like setting. That’s not a slight.
The walls are plastered with original art and posters of international beers. Several couches in the bar and lounge area lend an aura of coziness and overhead fans circulated the comfy air. Smoking is not allowed in the bar area nor permitted in the restaurant.
Overlooking the hand-crafted beers that Three Floyds produces would be as remiss as ignoring the food.
The brewery offers 11 home-brewed beers, from Weiss beers to Scottish ales and Indian pale ales from $4 to $7. While most come in pints, be sure to ask the size of the serving. Three Floyds also features more than 20 domestic and international beers on tap or by the bottle or can, with prices ranging from $2 for a Pabst Blue Ribbon to $15 for the Belgian Trappiste Ale Westmalle Tripel in a 750 ml bottle.
A classic pub treat
Three Floyds also offers advice on matching these premium beers with the food they prepare, which I found helpful.
For food we started with a sampling of appetizers, splitting a Scotch Egg, a Scottish version of an Egg McMuffin with a hard-boiled egg wrapped in breakfast sausage, lightly battered and deep-fried. It was served with a Sriracha hot sauce and garlic mayonnaise. Heart patients should probably skip this one, but at $3 it’s a classic pub treat.
We couldn’t agree on two other starters, so we ordered one of each. The modestly named Soft Pretzel and Sausage included a large soft pretzel from Chicago’s Hot Chocolate Chef Mindy Segal poached in Schlerkerla Marza, a fine Bavarian beer, served with marinated olives, smoked homemade sausage, marinated red onion and a spicy mustard, a fine combination of flavors and textures we both enjoyed.
The seafood snack, unappetizingly named Salt Cod, included sautéed sweet baby clams and a sautéed cod cake. The clams were poached in olive oil and herb butter and served with thin slices of prosciutto ham and pine nuts. This inspired concoction left us smacking our lips for more.
Try an exotic entree
The pizzas and sandwiches looked really tempting. The brick-oven pizza selections included Pepperoni Jalape�o, Margherita, Sausage Fennel and Anchovy from $14 to $17.50 and a build your own starting at $11. Cheeseburgers, pulled pork, reubens, grilled meatloaf and smoked ratatouille were among a nice selection of sandwiches averaging $8 to $9.
But we couldn’t resist the exotic entrees that included Duck Frites, Rabbit, BBQ Wild Boar Ribs and Whole-Roasted Wisconsin Lake Trout.
My brother went with the Wild Boar, a slab of smoked boar ribs that tasted similar to pork ribs. They were lightly charred and served with a jalapeno jelly, cole slaw and corn biscuit, as well as French fries. While the meat didn’t fall off the bone on command, it was intensely flavored and the spicy rub of ancho chile, cumin and garlic added immensely to the pleasurable experience.
Gold Coast surprise
Another item I haven’t found in two years of reviewing Northwest Indiana restaurants and another 50 years eating in them is one of my favorite meats, wabbit, I mean, rabbit. Three Floyds cooked it in a little duck fat with a healthy slice of rabbit sausage and bacon-braised lentils atop a bed of frisee lettuce. I would have expected a dish like this in a Chicago Gold Coast restaurant. Finding it at Three Floyds was serendipitous.
We shared a single dessert, the strawberry shortcake, homemade English-style shortcakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream.
It was a fine version of that summer staple, but Executive Chef Benjamin Caulfield said the dessert menu is always changing.
The night we visited the service was a little slow, but our server was friendly, helpful and apologetic.
Three Floyds seats about 40 in the dining room and around 50 in the bar area.
Prices seemed about right for an upscale brew pub. Pizzas cost from $14 to $17.50 and entrees, such as the fish ‘* chips ($12), lake trout ($14), my rabbit ($14) and the wild boar ($14), offered generous portions and unusual flavor combinations. The beers aren’t cheap, but they are bolder and more flavorful than most and handmade in smaller batches.
Hard-to-match quality
Three Floyds, which started brewing in Hammond in 1996, moved to Munster several years later and opened the brew pub in 2005, is among a handful of Northwest Indiana brew pubs.
It would be hard to match the quality of the Three Floyds’ beers and food. Michael Floyd is the founder with his two sons, brew master Nick Floyd and Simon Floyd, chef at Gamba’s in Merrillville. Chef Caulfield said menu items were designed to be consumed with beer.
“We try to make the best food to drink beer with,” said Caulfield, a former bistro owner in Portland, Ore. “Our beers are assertively flavored and we’re trying to make the most interesting and creative items, but also simple foods to eat with beer. We try to use as much local food as possible.”