Beer Lover & Ranch Brewing: Detroit Pizza Pub in Euljiro

Originally reviewed on April 22, 2020

Name

The name at this restaurant is both slang and wordplay, making it very difficult to 1:1 translate. 맥주덕후, or maekju-dokhu, is a mixture of beer and otaku, meant to portray someone who loves beer—a beertaku. The last part is simply a loanword for the brewing company which sponsors the pub half of the restaurant.

Price

Price is a rough average per head, excluding drinks.

Operating Hours

Takes a minute for them to bring the food out, as it's made fresh. Come an hour or more before they close if you want to take your time.

Location

You can't miss this place, it's a very famous storefront with a vending machine as a door and the entire surrounding area is gray and bleak. This pops out like a sore thumb, fortunately.

Seoul Seek Recommendations

• 👑 Signature
• ✅ Counting Calories
• 🌶️ Spicy

There are a lot of pizzas here we've tried, but the NYC-Detroit fusion of a spicy supreme is the best. There are some gimmick ones, so use your judgement.

The sampler sets differ in type; ask the waiter what the day's special is.

Overview

This is a popular spot among the younger crowd in the area, but is left off a lot of food guides. The reason may very well be that this is actually a pub-first restaurant, sponsored by The Ranch Brewing Company.

This spot's signature is that every pizza crafted under their roof is a Detroit-style pizza. Yes, even the pizza we ate, despite New York in its name.

The Detroit pizza has a long history which at first glance, may jog your memory of a classic Sicilian pizza. You wouldn't be completely wrong; as the story goes, the first Detroit pizza was made with a Sicilian dough recipe, but hairs split when it comes down to the actual thickness of the pizza.

Depending on where you look or who you ask, the answer varies. In general, however, Detroit pizzas are much more thin than say, a slice of Joe's Sicilian on Broadway, and toppings are much more extravagant; no Plain Jane here.

We'll break everything down, but at a quick glance, the pizza was very good tasting and more akin to a fusion between Detroit and Sicilian if we kept tabs on traits. The sausages were perfectly cooked, and my wife says the beer was good.

Arrival

Yeah, like I said... this place is very hard to miss, it sticks out like nothing else on the entire street that it sits on. The entire storefront is custom, and the door is a functioning vending machine which you can get tallboys from. Over time, this place has become known as a go-to for pizza, and a pub second.

If you don't know how it works or need visual assistance with opening the door, there are indicators to help. Although it may seem obvious with a large PULL shown on the "handle" itself, it may be confusing to some.

The Drinks

The Pizza

The pizza comes out about 15 minutes after we order; we ordered ahead of time through the owner; expect about a 20-minute wait if it's packed. You should be fine if you order a drink.

It is served on a grated cookie tray with a small spatula to lift each piece if it's too hot for your hands. There was no plates that I could see, so it's just a lift-and-eat type ordeal. I would have preferred a plate, personally; if this were a fat NYC slice I could fold, I'd be indifferent.

The pizza contains some pickled jalapenos, pepperoni, sausage (in-house ground meat), black olives, ham, yellow peppers, red peppers, and a light coating of garlic powder. Surprisingly, although I thought it did at first, there is no corn on this pizza.

The crust was a perfect golden brown, the dough was bodied and very nicely cooked. Everything was going for this pizza, even though I was skeptical about the ingredient mixture at first, especially the seemingly-random assortment of toppings. It works, though.

The Sausage

The sausage here is homemade and made with a 60/40 mixture of pork and beef; the fat from the pork and the lean beef allows the sausage's flavor profile to be more akin to that of a normal link you'd find stateside, or perhaps a veal bratwurst, more soft in nature.

The dish we get is one of the side-menu favorites, a mixture of various types of sausage, none explained in detail, with two large pieces of grilled corn, and small cherry tomatoes as a garnish. A few scallions trail the tomatoes.

The corn is deemed "drug corn" as slang, because it's so good, it's like a drug or something like that. The corn was alright, according to my wife. If you want something better, try going out on the streets and finding a powdered cheese corn stall.

Summary

I have eaten a lot of pizza in my lifetime. I've eaten a lot of pizza in Korea. Although this is not outright the best place for pizza I've been to in Seoul, it would be completely fair to say it is comfortably above average.

As we said, this felt (physically) and tasted like more of a hybrid between what would technically be a Detroit pizza and a classic Sicilian slice. The thickness was smack dab in the middle of the two, the dough style was closer to a Sicilian, and the toppings were 100% Detroit.

The atmosphere feeds into the full experience; as you have a bite of pizza, you look around past the person you're talking to, to admire the interior which is plastered with small details the more you look.

The chairs were admittedly uncomfortable, but we sat at one of the oil drums, so can't comment on what a normal chair feels like. The sauce for the sausage was disappointing; I would have enjoyed something else, ketchup even, instead of that instant mustard sauce every Korean kid knows the flavor of from childhood.

The wait staff are kind, the service was great, and it tasted good. If you like pizza, definitely give this a shot, especially if you're used to eating traditional pies and have never tried a deep dish.

Be sure to take a pic by the vending machine door, too. That's singular.