Monday 14th of January 2013 09:54:29 AM

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Visited the Indianapolis Rock Bottom on a rainy Saturday night. We were staying downtown for a trade show and knew we could walk from our hotel most of the way to the RB without going outside in the rain.

We went to the bar and found an open high-top table. The table itself was wobbly, so it made me a little paranoid about spilling my drink. The NFL playoffs were on, so the room was lively, and a little loud. Generally clean and friendly.

At a Rock Bottom your going to have five or six standard beers and one brewmaster's special that's usually a little more interesting than the blonde ale. The special was out this visit, so I opted for the stout. It's a good irish stout, a little sweeter than a Guinness.

My meal choice was fish tacos. The tacos were good, the black beans were tasty, but the rice was crunchy. (either undercooked or really overcooked and dried out)

Our server did a pretty good job. Nothing extraordinary, but our orders were on time and accurate.

I feel like I'm damning Rock Bottom with faint praise. Really, it's good, just it's not amazing. (and it's kind of a cookie cutter thing. Not much difference from Indy, Cinci or Denver)

Friday 20th of January 2012 03:13:50 PM

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Great downtown location but with all downtown places the parking sucks. They have really good food and not too terrible in price. Our waitress was very friendly. They have samples available. Rock Bottom has a rotating beer selection which keeps even seasoned samplers on their toes. Very knowledgable staff keep this chain restaurant from feeling like, well a chain restaurant. I’d recommend this place! Its in a great location, and (importantly) the beer was good, particularly the brewer’s choice brews. My favorite beer was the Tripel Trouble with 9.2% ABV.

Thursday 11th of October 2007 02:01:47 PM

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The Indy RB has a great location just of the circle. This is a big space with lots of dining areas. The bar area is located near the main entrance and in the center of the room.

They have wood floors and very high ceilings. Attractive but you know you’re in a chain. Stone cold classic rock in the background.

The bar proper seats about 20 but is hampered by a couple of large pillars that screen about 4 stools from the bartender and result in only about 6 inches of space to put your beer. The bar area also has some high pub style tables and some other long tables for groups.

Crowded on a Wednesday at 5:30 with good happy hour specials. I was kind of shocked how popular this place was. From 5 to 7:30 there were successive waves of folks waiting for tables.

My server was friendly and could describe the beers, but she went MIA for long stretches of time.

The food I tried was good and fresh tasting. Seems to be a spot for eating as much as a it is a beer place.

If I recall correctly, they have 4 house beers and then rotating wheat and “dark” beers. While I was there the wheat was a German style hefe and the dark was an expresso stout (yummy!).

Thursday 16th of August 2007 07:44:48 PM

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I'm going to start this out by saying I'm slightly biased since I spend usually 1 night per week here.

With that out of the way, I'd say this is a very good example of a Rock Bottom. The beers are all good examples of their style, although they tend towards a heavier mouth-feel in most cases. The food is good but they are priced at restaurant levels ($10-15) rather than bar food. The best value has to be their brewery nachos which can easily fill 2 people for $8.

Working my way through the beer styles, the Light is kind of bland and there's not a lot to say about it. The wheat rotates between 4 styles, which I believe are Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen, American Wheat and Belgian Wheat. The Hefeweizen usually has strong banana notes, orange on the Belgian, cloves and citrus on the American and a good blend of caramel and banana on the dunkel. Their pale is slightly strong and has a very sweet taste. The hops have a moderate presence and blend well with the sweetness. Recently, the Red has become very malty with caramel notes. This is a welcome improvement from the lighter Red which was reminiscent of Killians. Their brown is a porter that has a definite presence of cocoa and caramel flavors. The Stout rotates in style and as of late they tend to focus on Milk stouts that taste almost like chocolate milk. I'm not sure how I feel on that. Their cask conditioned ales rotate about once per week, sometimes faster and are often either dry hopped pales or fruit or nut flavored stouts and porters.

There are plenty of drink specials to be found as well. Most nights feature a $2 beer. Sunday is the Light, Monday is Wheat, Tuesday is Pale and Thursday is Brown. On Wednesday, the Light, Wheat, Pale, Red and Brown are all $2.

They've got a free "frequent customer" type program that offers up a lot of free goodies if you keep coming back. Once a month they have a tapping party where you can try the new seasonal beer for free for half an hour, complete with snack bar. They also have a beer pairing dinner once each season where the head chef really has a chance to shine, especially since their standard restaurant menu is pretty much decided by corporate.

Overall I'd say it's the best of the Downtown Indianapolis breweries by a long shot. The specials are good, there's plenty of good beer to try and if anything it's worth a Wednesday night for the $2 beers. Their current head brewer was previously a brewer at Oaken Barrel down in Greenwood and I think he's improved quite a bit since he's taken over here.