America’s Best Beer Bars?
Came across and article on Digg.com today from Men’s Fitness titled “Pub Crawl: America’s five best bars for beer lovers”. You can peek at the article here but I’ll have you the time and publish their list:
- Freakin’ Frog, Las Vegas
- The Map Room, Chicago
- Kennedy School’s Courtyard Restaurant, Portland, Ore.
- Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn, N.Y
- Brickskeller, Washington, D.C.
I will readily admit that I haven’t been to any of these places. For all I know, they could be “all that and a bag of chips”. I’m just curious as to why these places are the best. What are the author’s criteria for choosing these places?
But what makes a bar a “best” when it comes to beer? Should it have a great selection of beers on tap as well as on bottle? Should the people who work there be knowledgeable about beers? What about the atmosphere? How about all of the above?
I guess I’m just a little surprised with the omission of some very notable California beer bars. Just in the San Francisco Bay area alone I can name three places worth your time and a drive: Toronado, The Trappist and The Bistro. The Toronado is one of the veterans in the Bay Area craft beer scene. They were serving craft beers before it was fashionable to serve craft beers. The Trappist, while relatively young, has a well-earned reputation of being faithful to the Belgian beer bar experience. If you’re a hophead, there are few places better than The Bistro.
While I believe that San Diego has it’s fair share of excellent bars such as O’Briens, Churchills and the San Diego version of Toronado, I’ve only been to each of those places once and can’t really say anything about some of the other aspects that should make a beer bar great. I will go so far as to say I did have a good time at each of those places.
I would love to hear from any of you about your favorite places to grab a beer. The selection has to be great, the people have to know what they’re talking about and the atmosphere appropriate for a bar. No sleek, boozhee (Bourgeois), Euro crap need not apply. This is beer we are talking about.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:22 am
[...] Original post by pestaniel [...]
November 11th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Bay Area folks are definitely spoiled, but we got nothing close to what Freakin’ Frog has. About 10-15 taps, but a large menu (with sorts by beer style, and alphabetically by brewery) awaits you at the bar and they have over 500 different bottles available in their cold room, and they’ll take you back there to pick a few out if you can’t decide.
Was just at Kennedy School a few weeks ago, not sure why it made the list, because it only offers the McMenamin’s family of beers. But as far as atmosphere, it’s tough to beat. Who wouldn’t want to have an adult meal with adult bevs at an elementary school?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
As they say, beauty, in the case of beer bars, is in the eye of the beer holder. If you get to NYC, check out BeerMenus.com to find great beer and beer bars and beer events. Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn s there and it’s good but there are many others.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:09 am
In regards to the original list, I can tell you that the reason the Brickskeller in DC is listed as a great bar is because of the insane selection available. They’re reputed to have the world’s largest selection of beers, though I’ve seen more than one place make that claim. In the case of the Brickskeller, though, it seems like they have good reason to boast - the beer menu is (based upon my last visit) about ten pages long (with tiny font print), and lists beers by name and country of origin. The downside to it all is that they run out of a lot of the more exotic beers soon after they’re delivered, so you can’t always get your first choice.
Still, it’s a great place to try new beers…