Peace Tree Brewery

Yesterday I made it out to Peace Tree Brewery in Knoxville, Iowa with four friends from Des Moines. We drove by the building three or four times before we actually found the brewery. Once we found the building it was a pretty nice looking place. The taproom and exterior have a cool minimalist/modern vibe. Before it was a brewery it was a bar and before that a Nash dealership. I mentioned that in a previous post where I reviewed their Red Rambler Ale.

Within the first minute or two of walking in with my friend Ken we were greeted by the owner, Megan McKay Ziller. She, along with her father, Dan McKay, and husband, Scott Ziller, just started experimenting with Peace Tree Brewing last year. While I sipped my way through a sampler of their beers she was kind enough to tell me all about her brewery.

The opening of the taproom was last October, but they just started distributing their beers in February. Before that they were testing the waters with a few different brews seeing what people liked best and what they should focus on. No brewery is cheap to open, but Megan and the others made a very impressive initial investment. The taproom is great, and the moment they got their equipment in they became the fifth largest brewery in the state in terms of capacity (according to the tour).

Megan also told me about Peace Tree’s original name, White Breast Brewery. Long ago around Knoxville there was a bear with a white chest. Obviously, that’s pretty rare, so the locals named stuff after it. There is a White Breast camp, White Breast lake, White Breast Street, and others. To someone in Knoxville, it just makes sense. The problem is that when most of us hear “white breast,” a bear with a white spot on his chest isn’t the first thing that pops into our minds. So instead they opted for Peace Tree, a name that comes from a tree now mostly submerged in Lake Red Rock where Native Americans met with Americans to sign peace treaties. It wasn’t until after the name was decided that Megan, Dan, and Scott found out there are actually a few Peace Trees in the area. Oh well, I guess it just means a broader appeal for the brewery!

Back to the important stuff, the beer! Before my trip I bought a six of the Hop Wrangler (IPA) and one of Red Rambler. At Brewfest I tried the Blonde Fatale and absolutely loved it. The sampler gave me my first ever taste of their Rye Porter, and Double IPA, but I missed out on their root beer. My favorites were the Double IPA and the Blonde Fatale. As of right now the plan is for the Blonde to be packaged and sold in stores, but not until next year. Besides the opportunity to drink that delicious beer more often I’m pretty excited to see the packaging for it. Peace Tree used an excellent graphic designer from Des Moines to put together the labels for Red Rambler, Hop Wrangler, and Rye Porter. I have a feeling that Blonde Fatale will be a fun one!

The only disappointment with the beer came with the Hop Wrangler. No, the beer wasn’t bad, but it was an IPA and it came sitting next to the Double IPA, which was, in my mind, a better beer.

There was also a surprise beer thrown into the mix. A local homebrewer came into the taproom while we were there. Although Peace Tree can’t legally sell homebrew, they sure can give it away. Everyone in my group got a free sample of a delicious, homebrewed bock. I asked and apparently it isn’t at all uncommon for local homebrewers to give away their beer in the taproom. That is just one of the many quirks that made me love Peace Tree. Also high on that list was the fact that no, they don’t have a kitchen, Megan said that they wanted to concentrate all their energies on their beer. They do however have many options available for food. They’ve got a binder full of menus from what seems like most of the local restaurants in the area. They’re fine with their patrons eating in the taproom so you just call and have food delivered to the brewery. I chose to get as many fried things as possible from The Swamp Fox. We were told that the food would arrive in twenty-five minutes. After forty we called and it didn’t show up for another twenty. Besides the wait, the food was pretty good and fairly priced.

All in all, I’m a huge fan of Peace Tree Brewing. They’re new, they’re local, and they’re growing. It also doesn’t hurt that they have delicious beer, especially the Blonde Fatale. I’m really looking for them to do some big things in the future; I’ll be watching them closely, and suggest you do too.