Old School Brewing has good food, better beer

The summer slump that hits restaurants around this time every year can manifest in numerous ways, and it made our experience at Old School Brewing Company a little odd.

The restaurant/brewery is in a big barn of a place that doesn't seem to fit it. Don't get me wrong; it's quite attractive, with oak-finished beadboard lining the ceilings, but the tiered floor plan that we guess was necessitated by hilly property feels awkward, as though the spaces were sort of lumped together. And during this slow time, it practically echoed.

The time of year also reduced our menu choices. The Old School Specialties portion of the menu, which listed a number of tempting dishes, was off on the evening of our visit. When we asked why, our server said the restaurant normally would have been closed on that midweek evening because of its summer schedule and had opened with reduced staff only because it had a special event scheduled.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Actually, pretty good, and we found ourselves hoping that the slump ends soon.

First, because of the single employee with whom we came in contact, a very pleasant guy with a managerial air who greeted us, seated us and served us. He clearly was proud of Old School's beers and told us a little about each one, which encouraged us to order a flight sampler ($5) so that we could taste each in a compare-and-contrast format.

And there was the food, of course, which, while somewhat limited, we found as pleasing as the hand-crafted beers. Chip Hop Hooray ($8.99) was Old School's take on nachos, and a very good one at that. It started with thick, crisp potato chips that had been topped with a very tasty beer cheese, a decidedly old-school touch. They were in turn topped with copious chunks of white-meat chicken, bacon crisps, diced tomato and sliced scallions for an appealing combination of flavors and textures.

Artichoked Chicken ($11.99) was an offbeat selection on the sandwich menu. It started with sourdough that had been spread with pesto before being layered with a grilled chicken breast, artichoke hearts, tomatoes and Havarti cheese, then grilled to warm the sandwich and melt the Havarti, which cloaked the rest.

And there was the One of a Kind Pizza ($17.99), a thinnish-crust pie with nice yeasty stretch that was larger than individual size. It had been topped with a garlicky, creamy white sauce, slices of red bell pepper and red onion and gently crisped bacon. Local restaurants are doing all sorts of offbeat things with pizza these days with varying degrees of success; in some cases, I wonder if anyone working at the restaurant has tasted them. That wasn't the case here.

Old School Brewing Company is in a sprawling plaza that seems to have been in decline because of the departures of some anchors. There are signs of new life there, though, which we hope will help to fill all that empty space.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Email Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at www.reviewjournal.com and bestoflasvegas.com, and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.