At Independence Beer Garden, a democratic menu of bar fare

MODERN RANCH: Independence Beer Garden is doing bar bites and craft beer with historic views.
Mark Stehle

Michael Schulson is all over the place, geographically and stylistically. The chef and restaurateur counts Izakaya in Atlantic City (Japanese), Sampan on 13th Street (pan-Asian) and opening the St. James in Ardmore (American) among his ventures. This summer, he added a beer garden to his portfolio. 

The aptly named Independence Beer Garden sits across from the Liberty Bell’s lawn, occupying the front patio and cavernous central plaza of the historic Dow (formerly Rohm and Haas) building. In July, the empty area was transformed with picnic tables, plants and a pair of bars stocked with watermelon sangria. 

The gun-metal-gray shipping container that’s set way back houses the kitchen, the purview of chef Travis Masar. The Colorado native relocated here from Denver during the airing of Top Chef Season 11, where he competed alongside homeboy Nick Elmi. Masar’s boyfriend was already here to attend law school, “and it made sense to try out Philly,” he says. “I wanted a change of scenery.”

A friend connected Masar with Schulson, who was looking for a chef at Sampan. Schulson remembers Masar being late for his tasting audition: “I wanted to hate him, but he did a really nice job,” Schulson says. Masar got the gig — and six months later Schulson tapped him for the new beer-garden project. Masar remembers it this way:  “He told me we just had to keep it American.”

You might think it would be difficult for a chef who’s spent the past few years immersed in Asian food — he opened Uncle, “Denver’s version of Cheu Noodle Bar,” before coming to Philly — to switch gears like that. But Masar said, “growing up in Southeastern Colorado, in what I consider the Midwest, it came easier for me than you’d think. I had to take a minute to remember the classics I grew up with, but the menu developed to include some things I loved as a kid.”

Like white gravy, flavored generously with rosemary and splotched over slender, prefab fries and cheese curds for an American take on poutine. And ranch dressing. “Ranch went on everything,” he says. “Salads, pizza. … I grew up with ranch with my wings instead of blue cheese.” And that’s how the crispy, twice-fried, chipotle-honey Buffalo wings come at IBG, only instead of importing the dressing from Hidden Valley, Masar makes his own, folding cucumber and fresh dill into the tangy buttermilk base.

The ivory dressing also complements the chicken tenders — actually a boneless, skinless breast in a crust of herbed bread crumbs sliced into strips and perched on fries. “Mike felt people with kids would be drawn to them,” Masar says of the tenders.

Who is Schulson kidding? Everybody likes chicken fingers, even passively crappy ones like these. And come nightfall, there ain’t no kids at this rambunctious urban luau set to a soundtrack of  ’90s hip-hop and clattering Jenga towers. It feels like Rush Week with better beer.

If you want to avoid the frat party, go early enough to nab a coveted table under the private-feeling front arbor, a construction of coppery I-beams, chain-link and trees wound in lights that twinkling against the building’s menacing frame.

The scenic front patio feels like an island, jewel-like and disconnected from the larger main space spread beneath the concrete canopy of the building’s central courtyard. This area is charmless, particularly on the outer fringes. Landscape design lab GroundSwell has crafted space after compelling outdoor space in the city, sensual, delightful, multi-textured places you want to touch and explore (PHS Pop-Up Garden, Spruce Street Harbor Park), but they’ve under-delivered at IBG with a look that’s formulaic and stingy. String lights here, Ping-Pong tables there, abracadabra: beer garden! The Fire Department has extinguished the pits where s’mores were briefly roasted, and some of the plants are dying. 

My “minute“ steak, a cut from the back of the strip loin, also looked near-death. Ordered medium-rare, the beef had a brownish-gray complexion surrounding a thin stripe of pink. Some pieces were exquisitely tender, others had wads of fat I had to extract from my mouth like bubble gum. 

The burger, meanwhile, arrived undercooked, closer to rare than the requested medium. Blended and formed by Esposito’s with tenderloin, brisket and short rib, the tall patty on a sturdy Carangi Bakery roll dabbed with garlic aioli packed major umami. I could even forgive the shredded lettuce (never a good look) matted to the melted cheddar like newspaper in a rainstorm.  

But don’t miss the cheese curds, light little poufs of tempura-fried Vermont goodness served with sweet, smoky tomato jam, the marinara to these new-school mozzarella sticks. The same preserves color the rouge planks of herbed focaccia that frame a lovely mahi-mahi sandwich, layered with fresh cucumber and pistachio pesto. Paired with the fish, one of three salads — go for the lemony heirloom tomato and mozzarella — can make for a reasonably healthy meal. Everything else is deep fried and served with fries. Keep that in mind. Independence Beer Garden will disappear this winter; but your gut won’t.

INDEPENDENCE BEER GARDEN | 100 S. Independence Mall W., 215-922-7100, phlbeergarden.com. Sun.-Mon., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-midnight. Appetizers, $5-$8; entrees, $8-$14; desserts, $3.