It’s amazing how many breweries have sprung up around Georgia. There are four here in Marietta. All are less than four miles from our house, and as you may have read in an earlier post, Glover Park is within stumbling distance. I’ve lost count as to how many are in Atlanta, and there’s a new one that has opened on the West side. What’s different about it? They serve food.

Bold Monk features Belgian-style beer and a full service restaurant menu. No food trucks here. We are a big fan of Belgians, and when I read about the brewery in our local newspaper (online, of course, because newspaper delivery is so 2010’s), we made a date with friends to visit.

The building is what we would call “nouveaux industrial”. Is it a new building that was made to look old, or the other way around? We’re pretty sure that it’s new construction between two old buildings. Somebody spent a lot of money on this space. The beer is made here, right over the bar, so we figure it’s pretty fresh.

The bar is in the front and there is a lot of seating in the back. There is a much quieter “library” upstairs, where you can grab a beer and lounge until it’s time to go home.

The beer list features something for drinkers of all beer styles.

You can get lager, an IPA, or Belgians that range from a single (5.3% ABV) all the way up to a quad at 10.1%.

If you order the quad, order an Uber as well. You won’t want to drive home.

On two different visits, we went with a large group of people. Our table shared an interesting appetizer, the bitterballen.

That’s a brisket meatball that’s then fried. Break it open and it looks like this:

We also ordered some Brussels sprouts, because we are a sucker for those.

We’ll save you a lot of time when choosing your meal: get the mussels.

More specifically, get the bouillabaisse, which adds succulent shrimp to your order. One bad thing, it does not come with frites. Mussels should always come with fries. You have to order them on the side, which adds $7 to your order.

On our second visit, we were told they were out of mussels. That was very disappointing to some in our party. We swear we saw an order of mussels go by just as we were leaving.

If you like mushrooms, try the 1850 pizza.

There are lots of ‘shrooms and a hint of truffle oil on a nice crust. The 1836 pizza has a bit of a kick.

The spice must come from the soppressatta on top. The open kitchen features a nice pizza oven that must keep it warm back there.

From the bread and buns section of the menu, you can get a burger, which comes with frites. Why don’t the mussels?

I got the duck and frites, which was just so-so.

I got distracted by seeing the duck leg on the menu, which I did not realize was going to be fried as well. It was a pretty scrawny leg. The frying process dried out the duck, which is hard to do on such a fatty bird.

Looking to eat healthier than I did? You probably should. The Brassicas Bowl is hard to pronounce, but easy to eat.

It’s got faro, cauliflower, and broccoli in it, so it must be good for you. It is served cold, and Eve remarked that she prefers the grains and cooked vegetables to be warm instead of cold.

The Bottom Line on Bold Monk Brewing: Good beer and excellent service (ask for Haley–she’s really good). In warmer weather they have a beer garden, so check that out this spring. Now if they would just include the fries with those mussels…