Decorah, Iowa

When we visit family in Illinois, we often like to take at least one little weekend road trip with my sister and brother-in-law, and occasionally, our niece joins us. During this particular visit, we all chose to hit up the small college town of Decorah, Iowa.

My sister studied there, at Luther College, and still has quite a few friends in the area. I’ve been a few times and have great memories of visiting her when I was in high school. Decorah is in the Driftless Area, which features very hilly and scenic geography across four states. Most people don’t think of Iowa as being hilly at all, but the northeastern area of the state has some of the best scenery in the Midwest.

Anyway, we went to Decorah for a weekend in order to hang out, and of course, visit a couple of breweries. Both the great Pulpit Rock and Toppling Goliath breweries are in the city, and we made the most of both of them over the course of two days.

Let’s check out some pictures!

When we arrived at our hotel, we had a wonderful and unexpected Decorah welcome package from our friend, Jen, featuring all sorts of info about the area and some gifts by and for local businesses. Thanks so much!

Angela and I got to it while we waited for Heidi, Ben, Grace, and her friend to arrive to the hotel.

All sorts of beer aficionados were also in town, as both breweries had releases on this particular weekend. This led to a lot of beer trading and shady-looking parking lot deals. Ha!

Once the rest of the crew arrived, we ventured out to Pulpit Rock for some amazing beer and social time. This is literally one of the best breweries we’ve ever visited, with some of the best beer we’ve ever had. I cannot stop expressing how much we love this place and their brews.

Good times with family and friends!

Mark from the brewery…

And family friends having a great weekend…

And, of course, we headed across the street to Toppling Goliath to try out some new beers and pick up some goodies.

One place we just had to stop and eat was Happy Joe’s, a legendary pizza place in this area of the country. We went there a million times as kids, and we had to go back to have some of their famous taco pizza, among other tasty treats.

I should have gotten more photos of the landscapes around Decorah, as it’s really such a pretty area. Instead, here are a couple from Luther College, one of which sort of shows the hilliness here.

Gotta love the blue football field!

A little mural I saw downtown…

And some more quality time with the fam…

And, that’s a wrap! I should have taken more photos as we did do a bit more than just go to breweries haha. But, that’s a good and unnecessary excuse to visit Decorah again. It’s a great town with great people – and great beer – and we highly recommend a visit.

Be sure to check out our other USA posts right here.

A very special and very big thanks to all of our family and friends, to all the brewery folks who welcomed us, and to all the fine folks of Decorah, Iowa.

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Have you ever been to Decorah? If so, what’d you think? If not, what say ye? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!