Nebraska to the Big 10, yay; but is there any good beer there?

So, Nebraska is probably going to be coming to the Big 10; that's cool. But, I've been asked "are there any good Lincoln, NE beers out there?" The answer is yes. There's some good ones.

At the beginning of last year, one of the blog readers sent me a box with some beers from Empyrean Brewing Company. His care package contained the Dark Side Vanilla Porter, LunaSea ESB, and Third Stone Brown. The vanilla porter was pretty good.

Empyrean is located in Lincoln. So when you go for the road trip to watch Illinois play Nebraska, be sure to stop in there.

According to Beer Advocate, there are four breweries around Lincoln (including Empyrean). The others are Lucky Bucket Brewing Company (in La Vista), SchillingBridge Winery & Microbrewery (in Pawnee City), and Spilker Ales (in Cortland).

Beer Advocate rates Lucky Bucket as a B+. Their top rated beer is "Certified Evil" which is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale.

SchillingBridge is rated as a C+. They have a Git-R-Done light lager that's rated a C. Doesn't seem too interesting.

Spilker is rated as a B. They have a couple of B+ beers, including Double Hop, and American IPA, and their spiced beers seem to rate well too.

So, there you have it, Lincoln Nebraska breweries.

I'd go with Empyrean for a first time. Then try the others.