On the outskirts of Urbana we visited Riggs Beer Company which is a relatively new brewery in central Illinois. The tap room is fairly large, but they have a much larger beer garden and patio to accommodate a large crowd. We arrived shortly after they opened on a Sunday and already there were a few people inside. I can’t imagine they get a huge draw of students from the University, they tend to stick to campustown, but I’ve heard they still get a lot of other locals coming in. On our visit, they had nine beers on tap and we ordered a sample of each. Almost all were what I’d call session beers, low alcohol, and mostly lagers. Interestingly enough the owners have family ties to local farming and have been able to utilize local/family grown corn and other ingredients in their beer to boast a local component to patrons. All of the beers were clean and refreshing, nothing high in IBUs or hop flavor but very enjoyable lagers and wheat beers that would be great for a hot summer night in the country or on the farm.
As an alum of University of Illinois, and considering I have family in the area – I tend to get down to Champaign-Urbana semi regularly and I’m looking forward to stopping in at Riggs again sometime in the future.