Against the Grain opens in old Browning's on Oct. 4

The website is supposed to be a blackboard. At least that's how it comes up for me. Yellow and white font on a black background. Looks great to me.

I've run into this before, pages that only display as intended on a Mac. Are you using a Mac with Safari by any chance?
I tried their menu on four of our computers and only the iMac with Safari displays it as you describe. The Win7 PC with IE, the XP laptop with IE & a handheld using an Opera browser all display the menu like the attached screen cap.

[Robin Garr]

I've run into this before, pages that only display as intended on a Mac. Are you using a Mac with Safari by any chance?
I tried their menu on four of our computers and only the iMac with Safari displays it as you describe. The Win7 PC with IE, the XP laptop with IE & a handheld using an Opera browser all display the menu like the attached screen cap.

Looks like a blackboard on my iMac on both Chrome (my preferred browser) and Safari. On Safari the "black" board was a little slow dropping down and I could see the yellow-on-white lurking behind it, apparently kept there as a just-in-case backup for those who can't get the blackboard image.

The menu looked fine for me on a PC with Firefox, but I got the yellow-on-white with Internet Explorer. I don't know if this would work for everyone, but when I went into the View menu and chose Style>No Style, I got a readable black-on-white version.

We stopped in the other night for an enjoyable experience.

It's a nice space, with plenty of legroom and wandering space in the bar area. I think this is going to be important come baseball season. The center communal table will provide a nice hub for people to coalesce around.

Service was friendly and unhurried. She made it look easy.

There were a couple hiccups on food. That's why they call it a soft-opening. You never know what people are gonna gravitate towards. I believe they ran out of potato chips and pickles. My guess is everyone ordered sandwiches the night before and prior to our arrival. It's a simple ordering par and prep fix.

Still, the food was tasty! They not only enjoy making vegetarian options, but they also enjoy smoke. The pulled pork was darned good. I had the Chicken Liver Salad- sort of a chopped affair. The fried livers were nicely done, albeit I think they could save themselves a little money serving a few less. It was such a great portion- and chicken livers so rich- I don't think most diners would finish the entree. I was impressed by the knife work on the vegetables in the salad- brunoise cut. They're definitely paying attention to detail.

I enjoyed the Smoked Oktoberfest- awesome, and was kinda digging the smoke theme so I ordered a Laguvilin 16 (Islay Scotch) for digestif (and because I never pass on an opportunity to share the wonderfull world of whisky with friends.)

All-in-all, a winner in my book. Facillities, Service, Food, Beverages and Management were all solid. They're only gonna get better with each passing day.

The website is supposed to be a blackboard. At least that's how it comes up for me. Yellow and white font on a black background. Looks great to me.

I've run into this before, pages that only display as intended on a Mac. Are you using a Mac with Safari by any chance?
I tried their menu on four of our computers and only the iMac with Safari displays it as you describe. The Win7 PC with IE, the XP laptop with IE & a handheld using an Opera browser all display the menu like the attached screen cap.

Firefox on Mac. Also Firefox on Windows. Both appear correctly.

In their stylesheet, they're using multiple background urls for the div that contains the menu, to create the chalkboard effect:

Code: Select all

background: url("http://www.atgbrewery.com/images/chalkboard_top.png") no-repeat center top,url("http://www.atgbrewery.com/images/chalkboard_bottom.png") no-repeat center bottom, url("http://www.atgbrewery.com/images/chalkboard_bg.jpg") repeat-y scroll center top;


That is unsupported in IE 8 and earlier. A simple fix would be to use 3 divs, a top, middle, and bottom with just one background image per div.

I stopped in for lunch today. The special today was braised beef tongue Philly cheese steak sandwich. I really enjoyed with a side of (vegan) smoked slaw. Good stuff happening here.

I braved the second street bridge today around 4:30 to give ATG a try. I had the red pepper hummus with pita bread and the cask conditioned IPA. The hummus was beautifully presented on a long white tray with a rose constructed from red peppers. The IPA was....CASK CONDITIONED! According to the beer menu presented on a board hung on the wall (which displayed properly from where I was standing) this IPA was 48 IBU and 5.5%ABV. I will attest that it was bitter and highly drinkable. Atmosphere was nice and best of all I could watch all the unfortunates crawling across the bridge from where I sat at the bar. I will return as long as there is cask IPA. Thank you ATG!

We visited ATG on Saturday evening. There was a good sized crowd @7pm. Our wait for a table was only 15-20 minutes. We had a beer each at the bar, the wife had an Octoberfest and I had the "2 Wheel Death Machine"....both were very good. We tried the beer cheese once we were seated, very, very good! The wife had a smoked half chicken and I had the pulled pork tacos. She even had a small pineapple upside down cake for dessert. I switched to the Knotty Squirrel beer after dinner. Its labled as a Belgian/American IPA (it was fantastic) but I thought it was the almost exact recipe as Jerrys APA he brewed in St Matthews. Overall we had a great time. The food was perfect, the service was too. The beer, of course, was of high quality. We will be back.....many times!!

We tried ATG last week. We really liked the "feel" of the place - we sat at the big communal table in the center of the room. I had the Two Wheel Death Machine and Becky had the Knotty Squirrel, and both were pronounced excellent. We tried the smoked hominy app and found it interesting but probably wouldn't order it again. The "Waldorf" salad was a real disappointment. It had some good lettuce, but not much of it, topped with way too many walnuts and grapes, and four lonely, thin slices of apple. The fried catfish was excellent, some of the best we've ever had, but the sides were mediocre - the beans had little flavor, the rice pilaf reminded us of of Uncle Ben's (and didn't really go with the catfish anyway) and the slaw, while tasty, was visually unappealing. The service was, shall we say, inattentive. We'll probably stop by again for a beer and some apps, but ATG probably won't be one of our go-to dinner spots.

We tried ATG last week. We really liked the "feel" of the place - we sat at the big communal table in the center of the room. I had the Two Wheel Death Machine and Becky had the Knotty Squirrel, and both were pronounced excellent. We tried the smoked hominy app and found it interesting but probably wouldn't order it again. The "Waldorf" salad was a real disappointment. It had some good lettuce, but not much of it, topped with way too many walnuts and grapes, and four lonely, thin slices of apple. The fried catfish was excellent, some of the best we've ever had, but the sides were mediocre - the beans had little flavor, the rice pilaf reminded us of of Uncle Ben's (and didn't really go with the catfish anyway) and the slaw, while tasty, was visually unappealing. The service was, shall we say, inattentive. We'll probably stop by again for a beer and some apps, but ATG probably won't be one of our go-to dinner spots.

Chef is in a wheelchair... It will be better when he's out.
What I had this evening was spot on!

Hey Everybody... Im not sure if I have done so yet, but I thought Id take the opportunity to introduce myself and comment on some of the feedback we have been getting down here at AtG.

First... Hello! My name is Sam Cruz, I am one of the 4 owners of AtG Brewery and Smokehouse. I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to come out and give us a try, and most importantly the feedback we are receiving here on Hotbytes.
As most of you know, my partners and I have a history primarily with the brewing operations of the brewpub/gastropub business. So we are all ears and are grateful to have the opportunity to either 'fix' things that are concerning and/or improve upon the things people have praised.

As to my comments on the thread.... Wow! what a reception, thank you to everyone who has given us support, praise, criticism, and advice. As I said, we are and always will be a work in progress. Thats the nature of the food service business/experience.
With that said, I have forwarded on all the comments regarding our menu options and the overall experience reported on our food to our Chef... Reed Johnson. He is an amazing and talented man. Prior to our opening, Reed was in a terrible motorcycle accident that rendered him unable to open the kitchen in his vision. However, he and his under study at the time Akeem Hasegawa and the team they brought to the table have performed beyond our expectations considering the circumstances. While our kitchen has been dealt some adversity, we still hold the entire operation to a very high standard and will approach all the feedback accordingly.

As for the beer... I believe I read a comparison of our 2 Wheel Death Machine (American Pale Ale by style) to the APA that Jerry made while at BBC. While this is a very nice compliment (as BBC's APA is a great beer), I think there is some confusion that must be cleared.
Being a brewer myself, I have a great deal of experience regarding the subtle nuances all the way to vast chasms of difference in beers. With that in mind, I think I would be reminse not to address the subtle nuances differing these beers, as well as, the vast chasm of differences between the two to clarify what people should expect from AtG.
2 Wheel Death Machine is stylistically inline with a West Coast American Pale Ale. We have employed the use of the Cascade hop varietal for bittering, aroma, and flavor in this beer. The actual color, IBU's, and ABV are all within the style ranges.
These factors are not true when applied BBC's APA. So while it is a wonderful beer... it just isnt the same as what we are making down at AtG.
Both beers have an amazing hop profile and are a wonderful example of the good beer coming out of this city. But alas they are very different.

With that said, Im gonna cut this short here. Thank you all for your comments and feedback regarding AtG. We are looking forward to the future and the opportunity to serve Louisville! Cheers!

While I haven't made it to Against the Grain yet, I have checked out the menu and look forward to trying it soon. I wanted to go ahead and commend you for offering interesting vegetarian choices on your menu, and getting more creative than the usual portabello sandwich and veggie pasta dish!! This vegetarian thanks you in advance!!

.... I wanted to go ahead and commend you for offering interesting vegetarian choices on your menu, and getting more creative than the usual portabello sandwich and veggie pasta dish!! This vegetarian thanks you in advance!!

Thanks Heather! We are looking forward to your visit! Agreed on the vegetarian options at restaurants. We are always looking to improve upon what we are doing in that area of our menu, so recommendations are always welcomed. Thanks again!

Hope to see you all soon!