Go Figure

After a little shopping trip to our neighboring city, we stopped in at their local brew pub to check out their beer offerings and their food.

Figure 8 is located downtown Valparaiso, Indiana and boasts a terrific corner location on the southwest corner of their town square.  Their town square has always been lively and a vital part of their city.  Known also as a dining mecca...I'm not 100% sold on that particular view, but, whatever.  They do a lot of things right in Valparaiso.

The first difference you might notice with Figure 8 is it's brightly lit space.  I mean, it's bright, like drug store bright.  It is kind of a nice deviation from the psuedo industrial spaces that seem to be the theme for brew pubs.  I liked it.  They have a bit of a system when bringing two menus to your table...vinyl sleeves trimmed in red for beer, trimmed in black for food.  Straightforward.  Liked it.

Now, the sandwiches...and they have more to offer food wise than any of the others I've reviewed so far...and named after rock climbing things.  Okay, that's cute.  Figure 8 has something to do with that sport as well but I'm not sure what, to be honest.  But, hey, it's okay to have a theme.  Hubs started with a bowl of soup, a hearty Potato Brat.  Interesting spin and it was tasty.  Maybe a bit long in the pot as the potatoes were mush but still had good flavor and I'm sure some people like their potato soup that way.  It could have used a bit more brat, but overall it was pleasant. 

Now the sandwiches have these names right? But, they are traditional sandwiches, maybe served on a different bread or bun.  I had corn beef, sauer kraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing which I am pretty sure in anyone's book is a rueben but they called it Redpoint. They offered a couple other dressings other than thousand island but I went all in traditional.  Hubs had an italian beef, straight up but called some rock climbing thing which we can't remember.  Both were good...not fantastic, not horrible.  Good. We didn't have dessert, but they have a few. 

Beer. They had about 12 to 16 to choose from.  Their standards and the special or seasonal brews.  I was pretty sure I was going to have Raven Tor, which is an oatmeal stout, with my rueben but I wanted to taste a couple others.  Very accommodating...$1 per 2 ounce taste.  I tried the Dogma Dubbel, which I tried because of the name and ending up liking it quite a lot.  Hubs and I and some old friends shared an inside joke over the word "dogma" and so, I just had to taste it but the description included lots of fruit notes.  Although I'm not much of a fan of fruity beers I liked it.  Would like it in summer.  If you aren't much of a beer drinker, this would be a good choice.

The other one I tried and it was just okay was called Belly Pat ~ listed as the winner of the employee brew contest, a pale ale.  I looked forward to it but thought it fell a bit short, was kind of "meh".  The Raven Tor, which was the pint I ordered, was very good.

Figure 8 was pleasant, efficient, bright and adequate.  We weren't wowed by anything but would think of it if we were in the mood to go somewhere a bit further out, or were in Valpo for shopping or something.  I did really like our server and wish I could tell you his name.  He just made me feel good.  www.figure8brewing.com