Altered Genius Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Ambridge

TL;DR: The beer is great, the food and service need work. Lovely atmosphere. Recommend people go here, and hope the establishment keeps improving because they have lots of potential.

First off, the positive: The atmosphere of the place is very cool, modern, and casual. Definitely a good spot to hang. Also, the alcohol—I had the milk stout, my fiancee had the seltzer—was very good. This is coming from someone who can only handle VERY dark beers with little tang. There really is something for everyone.

Now for things to work on: My fiancee and I shared the soft pretzels, crabcake sliders, side mac and cheese, and cornbread. The food is decent, but needs refining.

The soft pretzels (which seem to have become a gastropub industry cliché; not saying, just saying) were average. Two of them had a bit of crunch on the bottom which reminded me more of a hard pretzel. Then, funny enough, the top of the pretzel was very pillowy, and could be squished down easily. This suggests to me that they pretzels may not have been parboiled, which gives pretzels (and bagels) their characteristic density. Lastly, the color of the pretzels was a rather dark brown, and neither golden nor glossy, which felt a bit lackluster. May have been an issue with egg washing. The beer cheese and mustard served with them were good, but I felt the mustard could have been punchier.

The crab cake sliders were of similar quality. The chips served with the sandwiches were good and need no addressing. The crab cakes were rather small on the sandwich. This might seem natural for a slider, and it's true they need to fit on the bun, but crab is a subtle and delicate flavor, and it was often lost when eating the slider. The crab-cakes needed to be taller and better held together, so that the crab could be tasted and so that the crab-cakes did not break apart and fall out of the sandwich. I might suggest scaling up the size of the crab-cakes generally. Lastly, the crab-cakes had a lot of breadcrumb mixture, which is typical outside of places like Maryland, and doesn't necessarily need to be changed; but it did make it even more difficult to taste the crab itself.

The cornbread was good, and at $1 reasonably priced, but came to us in the form of a small corn muffin, in a cupcake liner, and as far as I know, no butter was available for it. It was a bit underwhelming; I'd rather pay a bit more for a larger slice of cornbread, get some butter, and not have a cupcake liner strip the crust off.

The Mac and Cheese was excellent and needs no refining. However, it tasted as though it had beer in it. This is not a problem for me, and it made the Mac and Cheese really excellent, but this was not stated on the menu. I think it should be. There were other such uncertainties on the menu (some dishes say "chicken" is an ingredient, and others say "grilled chicken", and none say fried or breaded chicken...so is the "chicken" in some dishes grilled, breaded, fried...?)

The service was friendly and professional in presentation, but seemed unorganized. There were numerous instances where they checked-in on our table, but did not ask us if we needed/wanted anything, nor remove clearly empty and finished plates (I ended up clearing these things myself; thankfully the food was served in those baskets like at many pubs, and the station for throwing out the trash and placing the baskets was nearby, but every other table was cleared by staff). Then there were periods where my fiancee and I felt unattended. It was difficult to flag them down, and they seemed very busy despite the rather small size of the establishment (also limited by COVID—the date was 4-17-21).

This place has a lot of potential, and I recommend people go there, especially for the beer. At the same time, I hope the establishment accepts my critiques, as they were meant...

I've heard great things about this place so we decided to try it out today for the first time. First off the atmosphere is really cool. Very clean... the outdoor seating is a great idea especially for the area. They have heaters up now which kept it nice and comfortable. The service was a little slow. We waited around 15 minutes to order our drinks even though there were only 2 other tables filled. The menu was smaller than I expected but interesting items. The beer we ordered was great and they had a decent selection. The food was very average at best. The burger bun was on the stale side. I had the portobello panini which was good. The beer pretzels were ok but with a very small plastic dish of cheese. We both wanted waters and they brought bottle water. They had no ice. Pretty pricey dinner of $56 and we only had a beer each. We are planning on returning when it warms up to try again hoping they just had...

We had a blast out on the enclosed patio. I'm not a beer drinker( I'm a vodka drinker) but honestly there is something for everyone! They had beers that my husband loved,. What I would consider beers that most beer drinker would enjoy. Our waitress asked me some questions about my tastes and I told her I like sweet and fruity things and I don't like the strong taste of hops. Next I know she was bringing me a beer (something Virtue) with a pump of raspberry in it and it was delicious! If they can figure out a beer drink that I would love then they will find one for any nonbeer people. Plus they have ciders and seltzers along with the dark and light beers! The food was also good. My favorite was the pretzels and beer cheese appetizer! I hope you give them a try. I think you will be...