Dining Out With Craxi: Engrained Brewing Company

When we decided we were staying in Springfield, IL after the Cardinals game, the hubby asked where we were eating. After consulting TripAdvisor, I sent him a list of suggestions solely based off the name and a quick glance at the menu. He decided on Engrained Brewing Company because they had beer-battered cheese curds. It turned out to be a great choice.

Photo courtesy of engrainedbrewing.com

Engrained Brewing Company is a craft brewery and restaurant. It is a farm to table restaurant where many of the dishes have local farm ingredients and/or made with Engrained Craft Beer.

We both decided to try a paddle of beer. A paddle was $5 and consisted of 4 2 oz beers. I sampled:

Summer Shandy -- I think this was my favorite
Blackberry Lager -- not too bad.. another of my favorites
Shandberry -- a mix between the summer shandy and the blackberry lager. It was OK.
German Lager -- it's your traditional beer. It's ok but nothing special

They were out of Saison which I wanted to try which is why I had the German Lager. In hindsight, I probably should have had the Oatmeal Stout

The hubby sampled
Blackberry Lager -- He didn't think it was blackberry enough for him
Shandberry -- This was his favorite
Irish Red -- He really liked this one too
IPA -- this one wasn't bad

For an appetizer we had the beer battered cheese curds. The hubby was hesitant at first because they were 9.00 but decided to order them when he realized how many we got. An order of cheese curds was an entire dinner plate. It came with Siracha Ranch Sauce for dipping. The cheese curds were amazing. Lightly battered, they were better than most of the cheese curds that I’ve had in Wisconsin.

We both ended up getting the similar things for dinner… a ponyshoe for me and a horseshoe for the hubby. The horseshoe is a Springfield specialty and the ponyshoe is just a smaller portion of a horseshoe. A horseshoe at Engrained Brewing Company is Texas toast topped with French Fries, your choice of meat, and smothered in beer cheese. It is similar to poutine with cheese instead of gravy. Engrained makes their own fries which are small and thin. I had chicken tenders and the hubby had grilled chicken on his. There was also pulled pork, pork tenderloin, ham and hamburger. It was amazing. My only minor complaints were the fries were too salty and there wasn’t enough cheese. Even our waiter said next time to order it with no seasoning on the fries since they like to over-season their fries.

Ponyshoe with Chicken Tenders

Horseshoe with Grilled Chicken

The service was slow but that is to be expected when a bus from the Cardinals game arrived right before we did unannounced. We weren’t in a hurry so we didn’t care. That won’t stop us from going back.

The hubby picked a good spot for dinner… we spent a more than we usually do for dinner but then again we ordered beer which we never do. It was still well within reason and I would order a paddle again especially if they have other beers to try.

If you are ever in the Springfield area, I suggest trying out Engrained Brewing Company or at least have a horseshoe somewhere.