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Mad Anthony’s Munchie Emporium
1109 Taylor Street
Fort Wayne, Indiana
(260) 426-2537
website
Visited on February 4, 2008
Since I reviewed the Mad Anthony’s location in Auburn yesterday from my weekend trip, I figured I may as well revisit the review of the original Fort Wayne location. I only visited it once, and it was many years ago, but I remember it being fairly comparable to the Auburn location. It’s a nice local spot with a cool barrel on the exterior of the building, average food, and slightly below average beer. At the time, it was one of my first 10 or 20 brewpubs, so it earned decent marks. But now that I’m a bit more well-travelled, it’s lucky to receive right at average marks.
Original Review
This brewery looks very promising from the outside. It sits on the corner of two major intersections. The roads make about a 45-degree angle, and the restaurant spans the entire available lot. A giant barrel with the company’s logo towers over the front doors at the intersection of Broadway and Taylor. The interior is ginormous, with what seems to be separate buildings that were connected over the years. There is a ton of seating, and the decorations have been perfected over the years. Interesting trinkets adorn the walls and windows throughout. Basically, you feel right at home in this place.
They claim the pizza and sandwiches are good, and the snacks such as potato wedge “Scooby Snacks” and six varieties of potato skins look promising. On my visit, however, I tried an “unwrap,” which is basically a thin flatbread baked with pizza toppings. The Hawaiian version was delicious with a sweet and tangy homemade barbecue sauce and plenty of mozzarella to hold it all together. There’s nothing all that impressive on the menu, but it is well above-average pub fare (*note, not true!).
There is a constantly rotating selection of 8 homemade brews on tap at any one given time. A flight consists of six, 2-3 ounce samples, which is overpriced at $6 (*note, not true!), especially since none of the beers are that good. The amber was hoppy yet sweet and well balanced, and probably my favorite. The Winter Ale was decent but lost its spiciness when accompanied by food. The Irish Stout was also quite good, but lacked depth and complexity. The smoked porter was interesting (not too smoky) and the Blueberry Wheat was not over-done. None of the beers were bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back for any of them.
Excellent service from a tiny bartender named Rose. Seemed to know most of the people in the place, and went out of her way to give me a sampler of the beers I wanted instead of the 6 they usually choose for the customers automatically.
Location: 17
Food: 15
Beer: 13
Service: 17
Overall: 15
Total: 77
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