After a lovely time spent enjoying Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, Illinois, we were ready for some lunch!! My friend planned a visit to a local brewery and restaurant but we arrived to find out that it didn’t open until 3 pm. What to do???? I got online, perused the offerings, and we settled on Prairie St. Brewing C. along the Rock River, which turned out to be right combination of brew and food.
Prairie Street Brewing Company is housed in the oldest brewery in the state of Illinois, a beautiful red brick National Historic Landmark building. Older breweries existed but they all burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Jonathan Peacock, who built the building, immigrated from Markingham, England to Chicago, IL in 1847 where he found employment with Diversey & Lil Brewery. Two years later, wanting more out of life, he purchased a small Greek revival home at 200 Prairie Street alongside the Rock River in Rockford, Illinois and founded his own brewery: Peacock Brewery. He invested $200 in the purchase of his home here, in the early days of Peacock Brewery, where he would ground malt in a hand-milled coffee grinder, brewed mash in a washtub, and delivered his brew to fellow Rockfordians in a wheelbarrow. Peacock’s limestone home still stands at the intersection of Prairie Street and Madison on the southeast corner of the PSB property.
There’s more of the interesting history if you click here and you can see why there’s a peacock on the door. The building itself is gorgeous.
We each had a glass of Phantom Porter (“rich. robust. cocoa”) and shared two seasonal dishes which the kitchen was nice enough to split and plate for us. I love it when they do that. Both food and beer couldn’t have been better. After we ate, we walked through the brewery, the rest of the building, and along a bit of the river where there’s outdoor seating when the weather is fine. Guess I’ll have to go back for a visit when it’s summer. It was one of those lucky finds that makes you glad your first choice didn’t work out.
And there were doors. 🙂
Dan, our door meister, is always brewing something tasty over at the Thursday Door-pub. There are entries from all over the world to enjoy. Today and part of tomorrow I’ll be back in Prescott, hanging out with a couple of blogging buddies, so not really online much. I’ll try to catch up when I get back, so thanks for stopping (and hopefully commenting) even though I can’t do the same today.
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