Toppling Goliath Brewing Company

Since this brewery has more hype going that Flavor Flav, I had to try it out on my way to Minneapolis. Friends of mine in SE Iowa own a great little craft beer bar. According to them, TG is illusive and hard to procure if you aren’t a major player in the distribution world. People on my local STL beer enthusiast sites are constantly trading or seeking TG for trades, so I knew the beer would be good.
The tap room, however, could use a little love. The bar is set up as a former sandwich shop or dive bar. It’s oddly angled and has very little seating available, although there is a patio and several tables inside. There are approximately 6 taps at the front bar and the rest are located in the back behind the bar which looks to have once been a small kitchen. This confused me. For having such wonderfully raved about beers, you would think they would want to showcase their taps.
Another nitpicky thing I found was that ALL of their glassware was chilled. Not just shaker pints, but snifters, as well. This is a huge no-​no in the craft beer world. Drinking beer from a chilled glass inhibits the true flavors and aromas. I assume they are appealing to their clientele, but this totally caught me off guard.
Tap room aside, the beers were great. We tried the Pompeii, Mornin Latte, Naughty 90, Psuedo Sue, Hopsmack, and Golden Nugget. The bartenders were friendly and quick. We took some package bottles home, but wish there was a larger selection. Although this brewery may be going through some growing pains, if you are ever in the area you should stop in and taste.

Fantastic beers, friendly servers, cute taproom!
We made a special trip down to Decorah specifically to try TG’s brews. We headed over there on Saturday around 8:30. There were people but in no way was it crowded. We picked a spot at the bar and ended up sitting next to the tap room manager from Tin Whiskers, and the couple down from him were also Twin Citians. Small world!
The two servers (young ladies, sorry I don’t recall the names!) who helped us were very friendly and service was top notch from them, they even shared some of the growler they had stashed behind the bar. Their tap list for this evening has mostly pale ales/IPA’s with a mix of a few other not as hop-​forward beers. I went with a sampler of 4, one pale ale (not the Psuedo Sue), their amber, their lager, and a barrel aged something. My husband went with the Pompeii IPA… I could barely get my taste of it down but he and a couple other people were singing its praises to anyone new who approached the bar, so I guess it was good!
An interesting thing to note, they do not brew the beer here, this is strictly a taproom. Apparently the brewers (on the other side of town) bring kegs over each day. My husband was incredulous about this and doubted that they didn’t have some awesome special beer hiding in the back room. Our bartender was like «no really, I’ll show you» and let him go back and explore — alas he emerged, disappointed that she was indeed right about there being no extra beer.
One reviewer noted that the growler fills were pretty limited but it looked like they had everything available to fill except for the Pompeii IPA. Since they don’t brew here I wonder if that depends on the amount of beer they might have left in their kegs. They had some bottles in the cooler also, so the hubs bought a bottle of their stout (Rover truck?) to bring home.
Worth the trip for sure! I can see this being a fun thing we do once or twice a year. Now to keep my eyes peeled for their stuff in MN liquor stores!

The beers are great!!!’ Five stars for the beers.
However the taproom and beer supply system brings the review down to two stars.
I live in Rochester and Decorah is between home and my cabin. My husband and I stopped every time on the way to and from the cabin and would fill our growlers. However the limitations on what beers you can get a growler filled with has become so limited we quit stopping.
Also service at the taproom could be better. More friendly and inviting… I took my brother to the taproom for his first time during Nordic Fest and he was so frustrated by the service he didn’t even try a beer and won’t be back.
We tried Pulpit Rock today and loved it… Their taproom was packed… Toppling Goliath isn’t going to be able to rely on just their beer to keep them going… They need to provide better service.

The beer is absolutely 5 stars… the «Tap room» on the other hand… If you’re like me. and taking a 5hr journey to this place everyone is talking about. because you love beer. and excited to try something different. be prepared. the Beer. all of them. 5 stars.
…the Tap Room. I’ve been to SubWay sandwich shops with more life than this place… The outdoor deck was nice. but only because it gave you a reason to actually leave the Tap room.
Very… Very… Very… Limited «to go» options here. Which is a shame. and you can’t even growl any of the really good stuff. (IIPA’s are a no go for growlers). That’s about it… The three stars is just left overs from how good the Beer is. tap room itself deserves a zero.

Bartender was in gym shorts and pseudo sue t shirt. Asked for light beer recommendatio

Good brewery. Enjoyed the beer, nice atmosphere, good service. Outdoor seating as well, also have board games to play. Fun place to lose track of time and get a little tipsy!

Toppling Goliath is an enigma of its own.
With a name like «Toppling Goliath,» you would automatically assume that they are like pubescent young men dressed presumably in pre-​1 AD Jewish attire, equipped with a slingshot mighty enough to take down the biggest and the most infamous villains of biblical scale — yet they are far from what their name wants to suggest. You cannot profess yourself to be a beer geek without having tried PseudoSue, the legendary Citra Pale Ale. You also cannot profess yourself to be a regular on the RateBeer forums without having ISO’d KingSue, PseudoSue’s more limited yet superior cousin, or one of their many other outstanding hoppy offerings like Sosus (Mosaic), GoldenNugget (Golden Promise Malt + Nugget Hops), Zeelander (Nelson Sauvin), LightSpeed, so on and so forth. You also absolutely cannot profess yourself to be a regular trader on BeerAdvocate without having once offered almost half your beer stash for a single bottle of Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout, or its non-​Barrel Aged cousin, Mornin’ Delight.
If the above beer geekery didn’t make any sense, just know that Toppling Goliath has put the little drive-​by town of Decorah, IA on the map for many many beer enthusiasts — to the point where there is now inter-​state interest on taking vacations to Iowa. Iowa, of all places.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go full-​on fanboy there, but my point being, that unlike what their name might suggest, TG is a pretty huge deal in the craft beer scene. Unlike their huge deal-​ness, however, TG is incredibly humble about their success and it really shows.
Since its opening, Toppling Goliath has situated itself atop the same hill at the edge of College Drive. Other than the fact that they have now moved most of their production to a production brewery somewhere down the road, nothing about the brewery has evidently changed; their interior looks like a converted pizza joint or one of those «we cook everything from burgers to spaghetti stores,» and still only sits a limited amount of people despite their huge success. Unlike some of the more high-​profile breweries with which TG shares fame, there are no frantic employees scrambling to serve people and get them in and out as soon as possible, but just honest, welcoming, hard-​working people, trying to spread the fruit of their labor; one of the employees was striking up a very heated debate about beer with one of the patrons, which ended with the patron exchanging phone numbers with the employee with promises of trading beer in the future.
Anyway the point being, Toppling Goliath COULD be that one brewery/​brewpub that has grown too big for its britches and now has fans arguing over whether they’re the best thing since sliced bread or whether their quality has fallen off — but they’re not. They COULD be that one brewery/​brewpub that has gotten so big that they now own multiple restaurants and sell merchandise all across America — but they’re not. Instead, they’re the same brewery that they were from the moment of their conception, churning out bottle after bottle of beer that’s «good to the last drop,» solely focused on providing nothing but the best they can offer without compromise — and that’s about all the fanboy you’re going to get out of me today.
As aforementioned, TG’s storefront is very limited between the serving area, the refrigerated storage area (where they sell bottles of their hoppy goodness) and the back area where they still do a portion of their brewing, so there is no kitchen; there is however, a gas station across the street, and a few restaurants that deliver to Toppling Goliath (whose menus are conveniently located by the side entrance)
Like most breweries, TG does have a rotating selection so check their website prior to visiting to steer away from too much disappointment (although I can say with about 99.99% confidence that they will always at least have PseudoSue on TAP) and you can also pick up TG paraphernalia like T-​shirts, snifters, stickers, etc at the same place where you pick up your to-​go bottles.
Oh and try the samplers. I definitely guarantee that they’ll have more beers than you’ll like.