Taste of the Town: Beer flowing at new Bulldog Ale House

NORTH AURORA – Those looking to try a new craft beer will find plenty of options at Bulldog Ale House, which recently opened at 459 S. Randall Road in North Aurora.

The restaurant offers 40 beers on tap.

“We stand for beer,” said Andrew Mondul, general manager at the North Aurora restaurant, which opened about a month ago in the former Golden Egg Pancake House building. “That’s kind of our big motto. It’s all about getting people to try something similar, but different. Right now, the big kind of hip word is IPA, India Pale Ale.”

Other beers that Bulldog Ale House carries include Two Brothers' Prairie Path Ale, which is a gluten-free, bottled beer Two Brothers offers. The beer gets a ringing endorsement from Mondul.

“I’ve had several gluten-free beers over the years, and most of them aren’t too tasty,” Mondul said. “But I will say that Two Brothers’ [Prairie Path Ale] is very good. It doesn’t have that cardboard taste of other typical gluten-free beers. They do a very good job of brewing their beers.”

The restaurant also carries five varieties of Bulldog beers: Bulldog Amber, Bulldog Creamy Dark, Bulldog Honey Weiss, Bulldog Pale Ale and Bulldog Sunset Wheat.

Bulldog has several other locations, opening its first restaurant in Carol Stream in 2011. It expanded to Roselle in 2012 and New Lenox last year.

Earlier this year, Bulldog opened a restaurant in Bolingbrook, and it also has plans to open a restaurant in Rolling Meadows.

The restaurant features low lighting and comfortable seating.

“It took about two months to get it completely renovated and ready to open up to the public,” Mondul said.

Besides beer, Bulldog Ale House offers an extensive menu that features such items as burgers, Cajun chicken pasta, buffalo wings and sandwiches. But the restaurant doesn’t want to be known as a beer and burger joint.

The restaurant’s flatbreads are among the restaurant’s big sellers, Mondul said. Bulldog Ale House offers four different flatbreads topped with a variety of ingredients.

For example, the Caribbean jerk flatbread features spicy Caribbean jerk sauce, grilled chicken, mozzarella cheese and corn salsa.

“It breaks us out of that beer and burger mode that a lot of ale houses fall into,” Mondul said. “We have a lot more to offer than just beer and burgers.”

The restaurant also does food and beer pairings, and tries to educate customers on what food might go best with what beer, Mondul said.

The restaurant’s Friday fish fry – which features beer battered fish – has also gone over well, he said.

“We use fresh beer batter,” Mondul said. “We take the beer straight from the tap. There’s also nothing frozen about the breading. It’s our own breading.”

The restaurant offers a family-friendly atmosphere, he said.

“A lot of times people are scared away by the fact there is a bar,” he said. “We don’t have a rowdy crowd. Kids are more than welcome to come in here.”

Bulldog doesn’t take reservations, which means customers may be waiting a little while to get a table. But the restaurant offers free beer samples for those waiting in line.

“That’s just another way we get people to try different things and expand their horizons,” Mondul said.

Bulldog Ale House is open from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Information is available by calling the restaurant at 630-264-0333 or visiting www.bulldogalehouse.com.