TO THE LEFT of the hostess station at 5 Seasons Brewing beer pub, there is a small dry erase board scribbled in tri-color with the daily specials.

Pay close attention to this board — chef and co-owner David Larkworthy has almost as many daily seasonal specials as he does mainstays on the menu. It will tout goodies such as Malpeque oysters on the half-shell served over wakame and doused with a bit of pickled new garlic, Asian pear and house-made soy; local steelhead trout with pink-eye peas and fried okra; or panko-encrusted fried organic squash.

Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
You can count the fried chicken with smashed potatoes, zucchini and squash as well as granny serrano pizza among the winning dishes.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
One of the kitchen's strengths is the fine Insalata Caprese, made with juicy tomatoes layered with mozzarella and nutty pesto.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
The bar serves up homemade brews, including Lionheart Pale Ale and Bavarian Ecstasy Festbier.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
Home-spun ice cream is yet another example of how the brew pub comes up with fresh, cool concoctions.
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So much for chicken fingers and hot wings. OK, there is a plate of fried chicken and fish and chips: The chicken is a poussin — a small hen that 5 Seasons brines, poaches in duck stock then fries in pork and duck fat. The fish is fresh Georgia trout.

Everything about 5 Seasons Brewing (except for perhaps the gigantic salt water aquarium) says brew pub. The high, open-beamed ceiling looks like an Aspen retreat, the bar is dark and a little dingy, the beer vats are shiny and looming. The brawny waiters are not shy, and can be overheard saying things to one another like, "This is hot; it will burn you and I will laugh," just as a friendly caution.

But then there's the menu, which really belongs more in a Midtown bistro than a Sandy Springs brew pub. Larkworthy told me by phone that everything except the andouille is made from scratch. (He gets the sausage, like his crawfish, from a gentleman who drives up from Louisiana twice a week to sell it.) He tries to go organic when he can. He and brewmaster Glen Sprouse use the spent grain from the brewing process to flavor the whole grain bread (which is a doughy, warm mass of heaven) and give what's left (about 3,000 pounds a week) to Gaia Gardens, a local organic farm that uses it for composting. Many of the other made-from-scratch breads are made with a starter created in 1990 from a bottle of Bordeaux Larkworthy received for his 21st birthday.

Something tells me these guys — Larkworthy, Sprouse and co-owner Dennis Lange — get it. When I asked Larkworthy why he spends the considerable amount of extra time and money on ingredients and technique in a venue that profits little from either, he said, "Because I can read," alluding to the head-in-the-sand approach many restaurants take toward sustainability these days.

So what of it? After so much ado, just how good is the food at 5 Seasons? Pretty good, especially if you know Larkworthy's strengths and weaknesses.

Put on the strengths list that yummy fried chicken, fresh vegetables (especially field peas, fried okra and squash blossoms stuffed with chevre-toasted pine nuts and fried capers) and an insalata Caprese made with fat, juicy heirloom tomatoes layered with mozzarella and a fresh, nutty pesto. Oh, and anything made through fermentation, from pizza crusts to triple ales. The house-spun ice creams are darned good, too, especially the blackberry.

Put on the weakness list a filet au poivre so poivre-ed that it just about burns your mouth out (thank goodness for the house-made hefeweizen!), pan-fried tuna gyozas void of tuna and flavor, overcooked kurobuta (that's fancy Japanese pork) and all the busy little melon and vegetable coulis that make many of the dishes just too, well, busy.

You win some, you lose some. I can't fault a place for trying, especially when the alternative is chicken fingers and hot wings.