The Revolution Comes to Nebraska

The Crescent Moon Ale House
3578 Farnham St.
Omaha, NE




I’m pretty sure nobody in America is more excited about the on-going craft beer revolution than Suit757.

Just a few years ago, one of my typical stopovers at a Middle America sports bar or college hangout like the Crescent Moon Ale House yielded nothing more than a monotonous display of ubiquitous tab handles -- the same dozen boring taps you see in every bar in America.

Under those tap handles pours the identical watered down pale fizzy crap.

I guess that’s the thing I don’t get about all those fans of the mass produced American lagers: don’t you get bored drinking the same damn thing over and over again?

And don’t even try to tell me that Bud Light tastes radically different from Miller Lite. I’ve blind taste-tested them all. Any differences are subtle at best.

It’s all the same exact style. Same formula. Same pale color. Same nonexistent flavor.

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I’m not one of those Nazi craft beer snobs who refuses to allow a mass produced beer to touch my lips.

I mean, my favorite style of beer might be a hoppy Imperial India Pale Ale, but my second favorite style of beer is…

…free. Even if it is a Bud Light.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never turned one down yet.

Trust me, if you get a First Class upgrade, that’s what you’re going to be drinking.

While mass produced watered down American lager might not be my favorite style, I’m not religiously opposed to it either.

In fact, as I type this I have a keg of Coors Light on tap at the bar in my home.

With that admission, I might have just lost half the followers of this website.

But low alcohol, low taste, cheap beer has a role to play alongside the arsenal of good beer stocked in my bar -- particularly on hot summer days or at the tail end of particularly lengthy sessions of beer drinking when the law of diminishing returns has long since kicked in.

What makes me excited about the craft beer revolution is the wonderful variety of good beer out there now just waiting for me to sample.

This revolution is so exciting, it can make even a trip to Omaha, Nebraska an enlightening experience.

I chose the Crescent Moon not for its beer selection alone, but primarily because I read that it serves the single best sandwich in the state of Nebraska, the Blackstone Rueben.

Named after a nearby long-gone historic hotel where the original version was served, this was one top notch Rueben.

Slow cooked in some secret spices, the thick chunks of corned beef melted in my mouth they were so tender. The Swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing lended plenty of condiment gooey goodness.

Even the sauerkraut was spot on. And I don’t even like sauerkraut.

On the side, I paid extra for fried green peppers.

Fried green peppers?

The only other menu where I’ve seen them was at a strip mall crab house in Maryland.

I’m making a prediction right now.

Fried green peppers are the next big thing -- coming soon to an Applebee’s “Two for Twenty” menu near you.

First of all, the shape is just fun. Sliced from a pepper cross section, each one was a big oddly formed ring.

Lightly breaded so the mild pepper flavor shines through, fried green peppers are a welcome reprieve from the side dish monotony of fries, onion rings and cole slaw.

To me that is what I love most about eating my way across the USA -- breaking the monotony by trying new things.

Which just happens also to be why I love the craft beer revolution.

Crescent Moon Ale House is a fantastic beer bar sporting exotic never-before-seen tap handles from across the Midwest and across Nebraska.

I was excited. Even more so when the bar tender informed me that all Nebraska beers were just $3.50 per pint tonight.

Bargain!

I started with the Zipline Black IPA out of Lincoln, Nebraska, a toasty flavorful oxymoron in a glass. How exactly can a “pale ale” be black, anyway?

My second brew was the Radial IPA from Infusion Brewing Company across town, a nice wallop of spicy hops.

How cool is it that small microbreweries are popping up in every nook and cranny of America -- even in decidedly non-hipster places like Nebraska??

Pretty cool. And plenty of others agree.

The Crescent Moon had a nice crowd for 10pm on a Wednesday night.

Definitely a college bar vibe with long communal tables full of students from nearby Creighton University, beer banners hanging from the ceiling and a burly bouncer dude checking IDs by the front door in front of a glass case selling t-shirts that say “Moon Me.”

There is even a “Huber-Haus German Bier Hall” in the basement and Max and Joe’s, a Belgian beer bar off in a side room.

You would think this place would be a sausage fest of frat guys downing beers and telling fart jokes.

But you’d be wrong.

There were as many girls as guys knocking back brewskies.

How cool is that?

As I was crunching on my fried green peppers at the bar, a couple of attractive college girls stopped by to order several good local microbrews.

“Damn, I love beer,” the brunette said.

The blonde one replied, “I know, right?!? The next time you go home to Denver, I want to come with you so we can stop off at every brewery in Colorado.”

Wow!

Besides sounding like a VERY fun roadtrip (would it be rude if I interrupted them and invited myself along?) -- I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Girls who like good beer?

Apparently I was born too early.

When I was in college, the cool girls would help you finish your four dollar pitcher of Busch.

The less cool high maintenance chicks would demand you make a special side trip to the Tiny Giant to pick up a four pack of Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers.

Losers.

Thank God those dark days are behind us.

The craft beer revolution has saved us all from such indignities.

And the evidence is right here at The Crescent Moon Ale House in Omaha.

Craft beer in Nebraska. College students drinking IPAs. Girls planning brewery roadtrips.

Yep. The revolution is complete.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!