Kalona Brewing Company

Food was fine. Corn in my Caesar salad was a bit odd. We were disappointed to receive our pizza about 30 seconds after our salad, leaving us to choose warm salad or cold pizza. Pizza was fine, a little too much flour on the crust, and a truly tiny amount of fresh mozzarella cheese. Not exceptionally good or bad, but we won’t be back.

Great pizza, amazing filet mignon and wonderful staff!

Big selection of good beers. Quick service. Best wood fired pizza I’ve had including California

The food was great, I really enjoyed the Italian Prosciutto pizza. They have a comfortable atmosphere. There’s a good selection of brews here which you won’t find in grocer stores.

Kalona Brewing Company holds a special place in my heart! I returned for the second time tonight to celebrate my birthday. My first visit was for my first date with a very special someone. We started with the spinach and artichoke dip which was loaded with artichokes and, therefore, delicious! We also split the meat plate which was slightly less exciting. For an entrée, I sampled the Funghi pizza. The crust is homemade and neither thick nor thin, it’s the perfect intermediary. It was loaded with a variety of fresh mushrooms, including portobellos, and spinach. Amazing! I also sampled the Salmon paired with zucchini and nicely dressed in a prosciutto cream sauce. It was grilled to perfection and the sauce was unlike any other. Naturally, we also sampled a few of the beers. My personal favorite is the Quick Wit which is a light Belgium wheat. Love, love, love! I’ll definitely be back.

Love this place. Atmosphere is incredible and they have awesome live music. Their sweet potato fries are amazing!

Wish I could give half stars. Last nights visit would garner 3 ½ stars. Love this place and the food here. We found KBCs Achilles heel though and that is sad. Someone said that this place is kid friendly. Their menu isn’t. Grilled Cheese, Pasta with Veggies, Cheese Pizza or the 6+$ PB and J? That’s it for the kids menu? Really/​They need more variety for the youngster, especially the ones right in between 5 and 10 that need a little bit of that change over from baby to adult. I love their pizza and my wife loved the salmon special that they where serving. The serving where small but quality for the price. The ambiance is amazing. Please, Please, Please just fix the kids menu and you’ve got a family that will eat here for as long as the restaurant is open!

We drive 30 minutes to spend a few hours eating and having a beverage. It never disappoints. Tonight they’re was really good music. The food was great, and the beerwas cool and fresh. The wait staff was friendly and prompt.

Nice atmosphere! Baked Brie and Caesar Salad is great, wonderful!!! People are so nice. I will visit here again soon!!!

Great food and fun brews in the cute little town of Kalona, IA. Great pizzas, sandwiches and handcrafted brews on tap, with a nice selection from their brew room.
There’s a patio for outside diners during nice weather. Really fun place in the middle of the corn fields!

Awesome beer, great pizza and best black and bleu burger I’ve had. The food is fresh and cared for and it comes across in each meal. Definitely an eastern Iowa must.

I am raising my rating from 3 to 4 stars. During my last few visits, I have noticed the service has become more consistent.
Tonight I tried the Portobello Sandwich and it is to die for!!! YUM!!!
I still feel like I have to bed for ice in my tea, but otherwise, the dining experience has become much better over time.

The décor is classy and tasteful. You can see the kitchen area and watch them making your food which I like. Its very clean. The waiter we had was great. I had a flatbread which I loved and my fiancé had a double cheese burger that he liked as well. The fried cheese curds were amazing! We will be returning to this place.

The beer-​battered onion rings: yes, please and thank you.
The beer: I’ll take the Lewbricator and I’ll be back in the AM for a Start-​Up Stout off the espresso machine. wait… that’s not straight coffee?
The Lula Rosa flatbread: I cried when it was gone.

Not a huge beer fan but I can see why people would love this place for simply the beer/​beer selection. First class environment and a big city feel — but the food fell well short of what you’d think in a place that seemingly had everything else right.
Over priced (by a long shot) — 9 or 10″ Margherita pizza for $ 15? There is not $ 1 of food cost on that pie. I’ll gladly pay you $ 10, but $ 15? Barely any fresh mozzarella on it. A smaller than it should have been Caesar side salad for $ 5? And you can’t serve me anything but the upper leaves? No ribs of the romaine? It was impossible for this salad to be cold. 3 croutons and 1 – 2 oz of dressing? Wow. I am not sure that $ 25 meal would have cost me that much in Chicago. I was planning on taking ½ of the pizza home but there was nothing to it. Margherita pizza is not supposed to be like a «meat lovers» I understand, but the richness of the pie should at least get you half way there. What a disappointment.
I would stop if I was looking for a flight of beers — the place was cool as hell, but can’t pull the trigger on another meal that didn’t have enough product/​execution behind it to make it make to my priority list.

I went here with my parents, my wife, my brother and sister. We all had lunch and enjoyed their microbrews. I was surprised how classy this restaurant is inside. You can tell the owners have invested a lot into this pub. It was crowded during lunch and packed by the time we finished eating. I don’t know if I’ll ever go to Kalona, Iowa again, but this place is awesome.

First time visit. Nice atmosphere. No Pepsi or coke products. No ice in the water. Beer batter cheese curds were great. Italian sausage pizza was small and very average for the price, not many toppings.

My family and I tried this brewery/​restaurant a couple of weekends ago. About a half hour south of Iowa City, it is a bit of a drive but we had heard good things.
The venue is nice, with large open space. I appreciated being able to see back into the brew tanks, and the little touches like the Scrabble board next to one of the couches. They’ve successfully built this as a place that can serve as a bar, lounge, and restaurant.
I’ve had Kalona’s beers before, given that they have been among the best of new eastern Iowa breweries at distributing their product to other places. I’ve had the Old Skool Saison on tap at Gabe’s, the Sucha Mucha IPA out of a can from John’s, and one of their stouts from a ½-​growler. For me, these beers struck me as drinkable, but not especially distinct or memorable. I was happy to see over a dozen beers on tap at the restaurant to sample, to see if they could convince me otherwise.
I tried a sampler that included their two saisons, their pale ale, and a a wheat dopplebock. The sampling tray itself is served with beautiful glassware. The wheat dopplebock intrigued me the most as a unique style, but I found it to be a little too sweet. The saisons and pale ale were good. Finally, I tried their Belgian dubbel, which had rich flavor but could also be dialed back on the sweetness.
For food, we ordered an appetizer special of fried kale, which sadly was mostly soggy batter. When we did get an appropriately balanced kale/​batter ball it was fantastic, but this was unfortunately rather rare. We shared a wood-​fired margherita pizza, but the crust was overly burnt/​ashy, and the pizza itself was not very flavorful. Given that pizza predominates their entrée options, we were disappointed. Customer service was high throughout, but it didn’t offset the food.
In short, I wanted this place to be better, but they could stand to improve food quality and some of the flavor/​distinctiveness of their beers.

This was our first time here. The place was mostly empty and we waited to be seated. The service was good. I ordered the margherita pizza ($ 12) and my boyfriend ordered jumbo wings ($ 7) with fries. Pizza crust was amazing but the pizza was really bland. The server brought red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. That helped a lot. The wings were normal sized – def not jumbo but were good. Fries were tasty. My boyfriend had the wheat beer and enjoyed it. Overall it was just okay for us. Prob won’t go back.

We finally made our way down to KBC after hearing plenty of good stuff about it and we were glad we did.
The restaurant is located in downtown Kalona in a rather non-​discript building that is fabled to have housed a tractor dealership in the past. Upon walking in, it seemed more like we were going into a rejuvenated warehouse in Seattle or Raleigh/​Durham (foodie town of the south!) than into a spot in small town Iowa. The place is surprisingly modern, with some great lighting that creates a great ambiance without being pretentious. The bar graces your view when you walk in and is quite impressive. Taps line the wall and the area separates the two sides of the restaurant. To the left were plenty of tables and booths and to the right was additional seating including some couches with indoor fire pits (I think). Great spot to grab a beer and chillax.
The beer selection is solid here. Good range of lights to darks and they have a mean tasting menu. An added plus is that they’ll design one for you based on your likes. Mine was a brown to black beer spread and was quite tasty! They’ve also got $ 7 growlers on Sundays.
Now to das comida — we started out with some beer battered onion rings. Excellent and HUGE! The serving was enough for 4 and they were solid. Word to the wise — replace the curry-​esk dipping sauce with the cilantro aioli — it’s Boss. My better half had a burger. Tasty and local, the only thing it lacked was size. Sweet potato fries were solid as well. I had the Il Prosciutto pizza. Again, good, not great. The Proscuitto and capers were good, but the peppers were a bit intense and overpowering — good crust though and something a little less exciting would likely be great.
The only place they would really benefit here is from hastening the pace of the meal a bit. It seemed like there was only one server for the whole place and while she did a good job, dinner took nearly 2 hours. Outside of a big group, this isn’t a two hour dinner place. It seemed like we weren’t the only one who finished out appetizer and then hung out for a half hour either. They’re new and once this issue is fixed, the spot really comes together.
Overall, this is one of a now growing number of legit breweries in the area. Excellent beer, good food and a phenomenal, unique atmosphere that doesn’t leave you wanting. The atmosphere bumps it to a 4 and with a little work it climbs even further.