After a longer day of driving than we had originally planned, we pulled into North Platte Nebraska as I talked about in this post. When we finished up with our sight seeing in the town, we decided it was time for some food.
@mrsbozz and I knew ahead of time that we didn't want to be eating out every meal on this long trip, so we packed stuff to make sandwiches and other more healthy snacks for lunch. We would pull into a roadside rest stop here and there and eat, then in the evening after we got checked into our lodging we would find a restaurant to visit.
As you might expect, we did our best to stay away from the chain places. We wanted to visit regional or local favorites that were wholly unique to the area.
That led us to Pals Brewing.
After driving around North Platte and realizing it was a bit bigger than I previously though, I was kind of surprised to find that Pals was kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Now that I have visited there, it makes more sense, but for a bit I wondered if the GPS was taking us down the wrong road.
The parking lot is absolutely massive, which is good because between the inside and the outside, they have a ton of space for patrons. In fact on the night we visited, they were hosting at least one private party if not more than that.
This was one of the views as you first walk into the place. It's actually a bit off to the side and gives people a place to sit while they are waiting to get a table. @mrsbozz and I had already discussed ahead of time that we were fine sitting at the bar if that was all that was available.
So that's where we ended up! It was a bit tight at first because the place was virtually packed. Eventually people finished up and we had a bit more room at the bar to spread out a couple more inches. I have a feeling if they didn't have the one area closed off for the private event it might have been a bit less crowded. Then again, it was a Friday night, so who knows.
If it hadn't been quite so hot outside we might have opted to sit on the patio or in the beer garden that I showed in the opening photo.
While I don't drink beer as much as I used to, I still enjoy a good craft beer from time to time. My wife on the other hand was happy sticking to her Captain Morgan and Diet Coke. She had some sips of my beer just for research purposes.
I figured I might as well get a flight and sample what they had, so I got a nice peach beer, a smash that was supposed to be similar to a German beer, the Palgian, and a pickle infused ale. The peach one was subtle, but kind of refreshing. It didn't have a heavy beer flavor which kind of made it taste a bit like peach water.
The Smash on the other hand was definitely a bit hoppier and had a distinct beer taste if not a little too bitter for my liking.
The Palgian was interesting, I think the way I described it to my wife was that it tasted like Christmas. It was spicy and heavier than the first two. There was something comforting about it and it kind of tickled your nose when you drank it. I dug it for sure.
Finally we had the pickle beer. It was interesting to say the least. The brined pickle flavor wasn't subtle at all. I expect it would have went well with one of those beer/tomato drinks, I can't think of what they are called now. It reminded me a lot of a bloody mary just without the tomato juice.
Generally, I like places with their beer listings on boards like the one above. It allows them to actively change it pretty quickly when old ones go away and new ones come in. In this case though, I had two problems. First, it scrolled a bit too fast, so it was hard to keep track of all the beers they had to offer.
Second, it was covering up this amazing mural that someone had taken the time to paint. Sure, I guess it was mostly just sky they covered, but it was still a bit sad.
The menu at Pals isn't really that huge, they had some pizzas that you could pick from and then a handful of appetizers. After watching several of the pizzas some out of the kitchen, it looked like they were using premade preformed crusts which was kind of a non-starter for me. I get why they do it, but I was looking for something a little "more".
We ended up sharing a couple of appetizers. We got a small order of the chicken and chorizo nachos and the pretzel sticks. Both @mrsbozz and I agreed that the pretzel sticks were fine, but nothing special. The nachos on the other hand were pretty amazing. We actually wished we had skipped the pretzel sticks and gotten a large order of the nachos.
I decided to have one more beer after my flight (I can't remember what I picked now, but I think it was different from the other ones I tried), and we hung out for a bit more before heading back to our hotel.
Pals Brewing has a section where you can park your camper or set up a tent if you have one. Apparently on the weekends they have live music and then after all of your drinking and revelry is over, you can retire to your campsite instead of having to drive home. It's a pretty cool idea that I haven't seen before at a place like this.
You can see a truck with a camper in the background of the photo above.
I took a bit of time sitting in our Tru by Hilton hotel room getting caught up on my HIVE stuff and watching a storm come in from across the plains. It was pretty cool to watch, but it ended up not being quite as dramatic as I had hoped. I'm not even sure there was any thunder and lightning.
North Platte Nebraska is definitely an interesting town with a lot of things to do and see if you wanted to stick around. We were finally crossing over into Colorado the next day and had a schedule to keep.
As cool as Lincoln Nebraska would have been, I am glad we pushed our distance and ended up in North Platte. I'm also really glad we found Pals Brewing, that alone made it worth the stop!
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