Brixie's

emerge077

Illinois

4.31/5  rDev -2.3%
vibe: 3 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | $

Ah, the infamous Brixie's. I've heard alot of good things about the place, and finally was in the area, so I checked it out. Luckily I had gps to find it, there wasn't much to look at from the outside, just a brick box with a green awning on the corner. There was a small side parking lot, and garage doors that opened onto it.

Inside it was airy and minimal with concrete flooring and high exposed ceilings. It felt like being in someone's warehouse or commercial garage. A side room had 3 pool tables, there were also electronic darts and a Spiderman pinball machine.

The bar was up front with nice low hanging lamps above. Behind the bar, 6-8 cooler doors with a wall of 30+ taps in the middle... holy $#@! Haven't seen that in the city, beer pouring directly out of the wall, thought it was more of a west coast thing. They had 3-4 FFF brews on, Surly 16 Grit (on special for 3.50?!), Founders, 2 Brothers, a mead, several Belgians, but mainly a big focus on US craft.

Service was friendly and efficient, somehow I got a dollar off my first draft, so that was nice. Apparently Canadian Bk. Stout lasted over a week here, pretty amazing. The beer list also listed upcoming drafts, which was cool to see. Crowd was mixed, fairly younger groups in the early evening on a Thursday. A couple guys next to me were chatting about homebrewing, so that was cool.

Definitely a must-stop in the SW burbs...

07-10-2009 14:26:39 | More by emerge077

spointon

Illinois

4.08/5  rDev -7.5%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4 | $$

I recently visited this place for the first time and can't figure out what took me so long!

Brixie's is basically a dive-y sort of place that has live music on weekends and a great tap and bottle list. The whole place is decked out in cool brewerania stuff from current and past craft beer breweries. Its sort of like a cool basement bar in an eclectic guy's house...while this might not be appealing for some, I loved it.

There is a long line of craft taps on the wall that ran the gamut of high end American beers to (mostly) Euro imports. All craft all the time. I had a FFF Arctic Panzer Wolf and a Kolsch (the name of which escapes me) on tap and then a bottle of Gulden Draak. All properly served in appropriate glassware. Bartender was very friendly and knowledgeable and the customers sitting at the bar were too.

Food seemed pretty basic but the one standout was the maple bacon doughnut. It was served warm with maple glaze and super crispy bacon crumbled all over it. I paired it with Gulden Draak - simply sublime!

All in all a great unassuming place to grab some quality beers at fair prices.

05-02-2011 20:35:05 | More by spointon

MrMcGibblets

Illinois

4.21/5  rDev -4.5%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 5 | $

A real dive bar. Big. Barback says half the place used to be a liquor store and they combined it with an adjoinining bar. 2 big garage doors. Cold. Concrete and wood floors. Stage and pool tables, pinball machines, beer signs, etc. Random rundown seats and tables. The whole place is run down. They have a $5 special which is a pbr tallboy and a shot of the liquid hell that is malorts. Basically the last place on earth i'd expect to find 3 dozen taps of really good american craft beer. My desperate search for 3Fs cenotaph led me out of my way here, as they are the only place w/any of 3Fs cenotaph (including 3Fs itself). Also a lot of other great beers including breakfast stout, gumballhead, hopslam, arctic panzer wolf, double trouble, etc on tap. Only 2 of the taps are questionable-pbr and a cider, which is amazing considering the dive bar clientele here (no offense, I'm one of these people except for my taste in beer). A gem if you are just looking for good american craft beer on tap. Bottle list looks decent too-primarily american craft and then belgians, with a few others thrown in. Beer menu seems accurate if fairly nondescriptive. Prices are quite reasonable. Shaker pints are primarily used which I don't particularly like. The free bacon is a nice idea. Some different glasses for the belgians.

01-25-2011 05:05:30 | More by MrMcGibblets

hawks10

Illinois

4.44/5  rDev +0.7%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 5 | $

I have lived within 5-10 minutes of Brixie's for my entire 26 years (except for the 5 at U of Iowa). But I had never been inside till last night. From the outside, Brixie's looks like a dive, from the inside, well, Brixie's looks like a dive. That is untill you see the two massive fridges with well over 100 different bottle selections and the huge line of taps with some nice rare offerings. The place itself is run-down, ugly and in dire need of a coat of paint on the floor, ceiling and walls. But that doesn't matter, cause this place has beer, tons of it.
I had a Surly Darkness on tap (great rare gem to find here) followed by a Rogue American Amber, Oberon and finally a Bear Republic Red-Rocket. All the bears I drank were priced lower than most bars charge for a Miller Lite, incredible value at Brixie's. They had 4 Bell's varieties that were only $3 a bottle!
There was a horrible Bon Jovi cover band playing when we were there, pretty much the only low point of the night.
As far as I could tell, they do not serve food at Brixie's.
At only 15 minutes from the city and near enough to most suburbs, Brixie's is a must for ChicagoLand beer drinkers who don't need to sit in a fancy establishment to enjoy their beer.

01-18-2009 19:27:22 | More by hawks10

marcobrau

Illinois

3.89/5  rDev -11.8%
vibe: 2 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $

A bit of a sports bar, but with a certain cool, garage-like quality (with actual garage doors that open up when it's warm), Brixie's is a fairly big place with the space divided into two rooms with plenty of pool tables and dart boards. The important aspect for BAs are the two dozen taps, prominently advertised on halkboards above the bar. Of course, Brixie's offers bottled beers and assorted liquor, too. The tap list seems to have been pumped up lately with offerings from the regional microbreweries such as Goose Island and Three Floyds; along with other micros such as Dogfish Head and North Coast. Wheat beer lovers will be enthralled by beers such as Franziskaner Weiss, Allagash White or Blue Moon. Imported beers can include the occasional Belgian brew, such as Triple Karmeliet. A recent visit to Brixie's found me quaffing pints of Three Floyds Pride and Joy and Brian Boru, while my wife enjoyed pints of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Recent changes on the beer menus have crowded out some of the megabrews and big-name imports, which is a good thing. Mind you, plenty of mass market beers can be had by the bottle and quite cheap, too.
Other fun stuff to keep you occupied includes a very large projection
TV (perfect for those White Sox games) and one of those fancy new Internet jukeboxes. Brixie's is a late night hangout (open 'til 4AM) and can be fairly deserted earlier in the evening. The jukebox can get played quite loud at times. This place loses points for its men's room -- it's not quite 'Trainspotting' disgusting - but can be close.

05-11-2006 03:26:37 | More by marcobrau

goethean

Illinois

4.45/5  rDev +0.9%
vibe: 3 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 5 | $$

Brixie's is great. I work in Oakbrook and stop by Lunar Brewing in Villa Park pretty regularly. Now that I have discovered Brixie's, it's a toss-up even though Brixies is several miles out of the way. The service is good, the atmosphere is good, and the selection is hard to believe. We are talking multiple simultaneous selections from Founder's, Capital, Rogue, Bell's, Goose, North Coast, Arcadia, etc. --- sometimes stuff I've never seen on tap anywhere else.

Sometimes you get small glasses for like $4, but other times you get pints, even of some pretty hi-grav beers. It must depend on the price of the keg.

And the young cute bartender is a major hophead.

06-13-2008 17:50:09 | More by goethean

weatherdog

Illinois

4.58/5  rDev +3.9%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 5 | food: 4.5 | $

I've lived within walking distance to this place for almost 2 years now and I hadn't heard of this place until about 5 months ago when I read about it on here. God damn did I miss out on a lot of quality beer that's rotated out of that place. i always just mistook it for an average BMC bar judging from the exterior.

The first thing you notice when you walk in is how roomy and open this place is. It's kind of subdivided into two areas (game room and stage area) but not closed off at all. Then as you naturally progress to the 'L' shaped bar area you notice a whole wall of tap handled flanked by glass coolers. My first time in here my jaw dropped to the floor at the selection. The prices are very reasonable bordering on cheap for some beers. They have three main glass styles for all their beers; pint, 10oz. snifter and 7oz. glass. Pretty much my one and only gripe about this place is their 7oz. glass. They serve all their top end (GI BCS, DFH WWW, etc.) in this glass but it looks like a mini juice glass that my orange juice was served in at IHOP this morning. It does nothing to compliment the beer and it looks just silly sipping out of such a small unshapely glass.

They often have many beers of tap that the suburbs rarely get with the exception of Bavarian Lodge. Their tap list is updated on facebook and new tapping are usually annouced on twitter. They also have been known to have some keep the glass night which is a huge plus for a glass hoarder like myself.

The atmosphere is pretty laid back until Fri. and Sat. nights when the band starts to play and then this place starts to get more crowded and the BMC bottle slammers start coming in. (No BMC on draft with the exception of PBR for $2.75).

I've only had the food there once but it was well above average pub burgers and my wife loved their special mac and cheese. I had the 4 cheese burger and it was great. The cheese was piled so high I couldn't fit it into my mouth so I had to take the breaded mozzarella puck off and eat it separately. They also had a maple and bacon doughnut on special and it was served right out of the fryer, hot and gooey. An amazing treat and I hear this new chef will have different doughnut specials all the time!

One last thing that makes this place near and dear to my heart is they allow my homebrew club to meet there. (Brixie Brewers come to our meeting every second Wed. of the month) They treat us great, allow us to bring in homebrew to sample and provide pitchers of water and cups for everyone. Chris, the owner, even sticks around for our meetings and loves to sample what we've brought.

All around my favorite place for me and my wife to grab a relaxing beer and I can't wait to see how it is in the summer when those large garage doors are open.

02-23-2010 06:31:19 | More by weatherdog

Gonzoillini

Illinois

4.3/5  rDev -2.5%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 5 | food: 3.5 | $

I have mixed feelings on Brixies. On one hand it is the best beer bar in my area without having to drive out to Bavarian Lodge or Chicago. However, after 10 on Friday and Saturday the place completely changes. Taking both factors into account in this review.

Overall the atmosphere is that of a local neighborhood bar that happens to have an amazing tap list. Lots of TV's (not flatscreens, just older style TV's with a large projection screen in the middle of the room). Jukebox, Video Games (Golden Tee, etc...) and decent pool tables. Not the best atmosphere for a beer bar, but works well for a neighborhood spot. It is pretty nice when they raise the garage doors that make up the East wall of Brixies in the summer, but that gives you an idea of the general atmosphere when a wall is comprised of garage doors.

The quality of the beers here is top notch. They have a good representation of the Midwest craft scene, always a few good imports, and the occasional rarity. Recently they have been doing Friday night tappings where "rare" kegs are being tapped at about 730 PM. Grober Kurfurst from Three Floyds was recently tapped, and Bells 9000 is scheduled for 2/26.

The service here is hit or miss. If it is earlier in the day or an off day that service is great. Bartenders are generally knowledgeable and offer up tasters without complaint. However, forget about that after 10 on a busy night. The place turns into a madhouse. This is also one of two establishments in the area that are open until 4am, and after 2 am the place is absolutely up for grabs.

Selection of craft taps is what this place is known for. They have 25+ taps (coming out of the wall which is a nice look) rotating. The bottle selection is not quite as stellar, but always has some classics that do not need a dedicated tap line (Fat Tire, Boston Lager, etc...).

They recently started serving food, and for what they serve it is pretty good. Good burgers on pretzel buns and good fried sides. However, it is a very limited menu and food is only available certain days. During the week they do a $10 burger and a beer special with the beer of the month (which runs for $4 a pint without the burger).

Overall I am probably a little hard on Brixies, but I have been coming here for many years (before I was legally of age...). It is a great place to grab a beer and watch the local teams or play some pool before 10pm. After 10 it turns into a loud crowded madhouse, but if your into that you can enjoy this place later as well.

02-22-2010 23:56:17 | More by Gonzoillini

funkyaudio

Illinois

4.65/5  rDev +5.4%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 5 | food: 5 | $$

The draft beer list is strong, with lines primarily consisting of craft beers and imports. The prices can't be beat, so this is a viable option for beer nerds from the city.

The food at this place was outstanding. The fried veggies were coated in a beer batter fried to perfection. This isn't your standard battered and fried junk that gets all soggy and full of oil. I recommend the fried pickles with the Louisiana remoulade.

After the veggies I got my hands on some burgers of the Delaware and Louisiana variety. The beef for each burger was flavored using spices, which was nice since I hate burgers that are over-sauced. Both burgers came on a dynamite pretzel roll.

09-16-2010 04:47:52 | More by funkyaudio

mualumnus

Illinois

4.4/5  rDev -0.2%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $

Went for the first time this weekend after a wedding in the area and it is quite the interesting place. Awesome beer list, very fresh, served in the appropriate glass and prices below the Chicagoland average (in some cases significantly below normal). Enjoyed a Three Floyd's Munsterfest, Flying Dog Barrel Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter, and Founder's Breakfast Stout on tap and sampled the Founder's Festival Wheat (very good for a wheat beer-I just looked up that's it also known as Dumbo Head). A fun atmosphere, different from a lot of beer bars, but a good kind of different in my eyes (don't mind bigger, louder crowds that may not all be beer advocates). At a busy time of night the service was not super speedy but all of the bartenders were working hard to please all of the customers (many of whom were also ordering shots which slows things down at busy times). Did not try the food but that is something I may check out if I come at an earlier time of the night (or when I had not eaten enough for three people earlier in the night). Overall I really liked the place and definitely plan on stopping by whenever I'm visiting my good friend out in Elmhurst.

09-28-2009 21:40:34 | More by mualumnus