UPDATED: Toppling Goliath opening tap room in Drake neighborhood
The popular and top-ranked Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. is expanding to Des Moines.
The maker of Pseudo Sue pale ale and Dorothy’s New World Lager plans on opening a taproom in a mixed-use development planned near Drake University.
“We’ve been looking for a while now on where to place our coveted second location in Iowa,” Clark Lewey, owner of the brewing company, said. “We have looked all over Iowa – Iowa City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs. We’ve been very patient. From early on, it felt like Des Moines was going to be the right fit for us.
“It was a critical city that helped us become who we are, and the beer culture there is amazing.”
Toppling Goliath will be the anchor tenant of a development planned by Merge Urban Development Group, a Cedar Falls firm that is building two five-story mixed-use buildings on the north half of a block bounded by 24th and 25th streets and University and Carpenter avenues. Lewey said he expects the taproom to open in the first half of 2025.
Toppling Goliath’s Des Moines location will include a restaurant and a brewery that makes between 500 and 1,000 barrels a year. “There’s going to be a lot of exciting beers made by Toppling Goliath in Des Moines that you’ll only be able to get there,” Lewey said.
The company is considered among the world’s top beer brewers. In 2022, three of Toppling Goliath’s beers were listed among BeerAdvocate’s top 10 rated beers; seven others were among the top 250 beers listed. In addition, Toppling Goliath’s Pseudo Sue was named the Best Midwest Pale Ale in the United States Beer Tasting Championship in 2022 and its Naughty Temple and Assassin 2022 won gold medals in the 2022 U.S. Open Beer Championship.
The brewing company was started in 2009 by Clark and Barbara Lewey after a successful venture in homebrewing. In February 2018, the couple opened the Decorah taproom that attracts thousands of visitors annually. For instance, in 2019, when the brewer released Morning Delight, a stout beer made with maple syrup and coffee, more than 4,000 people from 14 states showed up at the brewery, according to American Craft Beer.com. The brewer makes between 45,000 and 50,000 barrels of beer annually.
Opening a second Iowa location won’t detract from the success of Toppling Goliath’s headquarters in Decorah, Clark Lewey said. “People that may not make the trek to Decorah, for instance, folks who live in Council Bluffs may go to Des Moines. … We think [Des Moines] will just add to what we already do and we hope we can be a small part of the great beer scene that already exists in Des Moines.”
Locating the tap room in the Drake neighborhood is a boon to the area, which is undergoing a revival of sorts.
Earlier this year, the historic Varsity Cinema at 1207 25th St. reopened after undergoing a nearly $5 million renovation. A new three-story mixed-use building with apartments and a grocery store is planned at 2211 University Ave., where a convenience store and fuel pumps had been located. Construction is nearly complete on a $19.5 million, 4,000-seat stadium at 2405 Forest Ave. that will be shared by Drake University and the Des Moines school district. Nearly three years ago, a 124-room Home2 Suites by Hilton opened at 2650 University Ave. The development by Nelson Construction & Development includes street-level commercial space. About two years ago, the Des Moines-based firm also completed a mixed-use project at 26th Street and University Avenue.
Adding Toppling Goliath to the mix “makes this area more of a destination,” said Ben Godar, executive director of the nonprofit Des Moines Film Society that operates the Varsity Cinema. “We are a neighborhood with a lot of exciting things happening … a lot of forward momentum occurring. Having [the taproom] in the neighborhood adds even more energy to the area.”
Toppling Goliath will be located in about 15,000 square feet of street-level space of Merge Urban Development’s Drake project that will include apartments and commercial space. The mixed-use project was first announced in June 2019. A spokesperson for Merge Urban was unavailable for comment.
Lewey has been searching for a second Toppling Goliath location for over two years. In 2021, the company asked for proposals from developers and property owners who were interested in a taproom and brewery. Lewey said the selection process took time because state law only allows the brewer to have two Iowa locations.
“We’re considered a native Iowa brewery so we can only have licenses for two taprooms,” Lewey said. “We wanted to get our second location right.”
Lewey listed several reasons why he decided to locate the tap room in the Drake neighborhood. “We like the area because it’s ripe for some revitalization,” he said. “It’s accessible. There’s good public transportation to and from the area. … I think we’ll be a little bit of our own island there.”
Lewey said he and his team considered several locations in and around Des Moines. The group looked at renovating existing buildings and building a new facility, he said. “Merge had this idea and had acquired the property and it just felt right to us. … We’re very excited.”
Having Toppling Goliath in the neighborhood “will make this really feel like a college town shopping district should feel,” Courtney Ackerson, president of the Drake Neighborhood Association, said. “It will help attract people who can, hopefully, come and sit and enjoy the neighborhood and not just go to one store and move on.”
