Vintage Brewing Company

In a word: Every bar has its time.

The specs: #0716  
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at The Madison Adventure, Musings from America's Dairyland, Culturosity, Madison Magazine, Brownies and Zucchini, Fearful Symmetries, Ruppert Food Blog, Eat Drink Madison, 77 Square, Madison Beer Review, Trip Advisor, City Search, chzcurds, Yelp, Madison Dining Online, Daily Dadio, Madison Fish Fry; Twitter, Facebook, official web site,

Latest Vintage Brewing Company news and reviews

Doug ate the chef salad sans ham.
JM ate the Big Sky burger and wedge fries with a lemonade.
Jesse ate the Homegrown burger with a beer.
Nichole ate the fish tacos with a Black Mirror IPA.
Stacy ate the Homegrown burger with a diet Pepsi.
We split some pretzels.
The bill was ? (probably $12-15/person, plus tip) - domo arigato, Doug!
JM gave Vintage Brewing Company an A-; Jesse and Nichole gave Vintage Brewing Company an A and A+ for their beer (see our grading rubric).

Vintage! You seem to make life on the square side of town bearable. You turn hobby homebrewing into an exercise in diminishing returns for anyone close enough to visit regularly. You challenge the idea that one can't live on root/beer alone. You serve Pepsi, but who cares? Your salty pretzels with mustard and white cheddar sauce are as manna to a hungry spirit.

Of course, maybe you, dear readers, are not JM and Nichole.  Maybe you want to hear about what is good to eat at Vintage as opposed to how we live our life. And we're not really gonna mention the downtown one. Movin' on.

Let's look at burgers: the Homegrown comes with sliced apples and spinach, which we think is kinda neat. The Big Sky was refreshing and well assembled - though its connection to Big Sky Country was a little tenuous. It was quite good, on a nice bun with good bacon and rich BBQ sauce. And every burger we got was done to the requested degree of doneness.

Venturing out of Burgertime (who would want to walk on burger patties, anyway?), we can observe that the fish tacos were very spicy, despite the heat-taming breading on the tilapia. Peppery black beans and plain long-grain white rice came on the side.  The chef salad was nicely assembled, with more than iceberg lettuce and other token veggies. Some menu things are odd, like the $2.25 upcharge for mashed potatoes when the fries are so much better than average to begin with. Some menu things are just plain delicious, like a creamy tomato bisque and the mountainous nachos.

Someday we will have to try their bacon ham and cheeseburger served between two grilled-cheese sandwiches - has anyone lived to tell the tale?

In the meantime, we'll keep refilling Vintage's growlers ($4 and it's yours to keep) with the beers and sodas du jour, to accompany leftovers from other A to Z outings.  The sheer number of reviews of this place should tell you something.

Comments

[Ian]

The cheeseburger (with prime rib on top, though adding bacon as you suggested is a wondrous adventure in deliciousness) between the grilled cheese sandwiches is beyond compare.

Said sandwiches aren't garden variety, either - they're enormous texas toast grilled cheeses.

I'd suggest saving the fries for later.

[Maggie]

When I had the Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger, it had ham, not bacon. Either way, yummy. My husband and I shared it since it's WAY too much sandwich for one person. It's a tad easier to eat if you take one of the grilled cheeses, open it up, and use it as a bun. Eat the other grilled cheese on its own.

p.s. Your link to the 'official website' is for the downtown location.

[Carl Jensen]

The BBQ sauce is out of this world! You can't go wrong with much here. Outstanding food really.

[Diana]

I would go back to this place in a heartbeat. Sadly, they took my favorite entree off the menu: cassoulet. Vintage was the only place in town that made it. But the new-ish menu looks quite good.

[Al]

Daisy Cafe on Atwood has Cassoulet on their supper menu, which is served on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

[Alissa]

The ManBeast and I have been to Vintage a few times. It is one of the few restaurants we go back to again and again. I always get the ribs, because I like them and they are gluten free. The ManBeast has had the grilled cheese cheese burger and he describes it as 'carby'.

[Jonathan]

The Big Sky burger is maybe an homage to the late Big Sky drive-in that was just up the road?

[Ben]

Vintage staples are all pretty good: Burgers, Nachos, and even Fish Fry. Giant step up from J.T.Whitneys, IMHO.

[Corey]

great beer and burgers. Had the Big Sky burger, cooked to order. The bbq sauce is delicious. The double fried tator tots were awesome. Loved the beer cheese dip and homemade chips.

Tried the Woodshed IPA and a pale ale. Both were very tasty. Can't wait to go back.