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The service is pretty unpredictable. There used to be a psychic waiter, who would materialize at the table just as the idea of another beer formed in your head. But I was there the other night for a drink and appetizer, and the waitress was surly and inattentive. The margarita was awful, which is what I get for not having beer.
I'll always give a brewpup a try. Some of them are lackluster, for sure. What I hate is that so many of their menus are identical and boring. I think this will be my new crusade -- decent brewpub food.
It's not American, but The Irish Heather is a great pub, and their food is wonderful. In the summer they put out tables in the pedestrian alley between the pub and their Shebeen whisk(e)y bar, so you're surrounded by brick and ivy and cobblestones.
Without the Albatross in Berkeley, no listing of the top 50 places to have a beer in America is complete.
Here's why:
-- Dogs welcome before 8pm
-- Scrabble, and other board games
-- Excellent beer selection
-- Many dart lanes
-- No televisions
-- Art by local artists
-- Generally awesome
The Federal in Durham has awesome beer selection and a yummy menu that's not typical bar fare. It ain't a brew pub as far as making their own, but they have a chef. And it's divey so it's the best of both worlds. :D
Yeah, that list is weighted waaay too heavily towards the northeast. There's not one Asheville bar - and this town of 65,000 people has not one, not two, not three but FIVE microbreweries, so suck it, beer adocate. Also, Max's on Broadway in Fells Point is one of the fifty great bars?!?!? Not. Not not not not not.
I thought the same thing, mgl. They didn't try very hard when they put this list together. Max's stinks.
And where the fuck are the dives? The best places in the USA to drink beer have billards, darts, jukeboxes, cheap Bud, Karaoke Fridays, Thursday ladies nights, both baseball games, NASCAR, locals, plastic cup ashtrays, and bartenders who tell you what to do instead of asking you what you'd like. Plus drunk young ladies who ignore you until you drop a quarter in the buck-hunting machine.
And pimps yelling at their girls, "Getcha back up off the bar before Jimmy runs the tab on me; you disrespect that bar one more time and you won't be sitting down for a month, honey.... It's all good, Lee, teach her a lesson next time. She just young and dumb, think she learn a trick or two just 'cause she turn a trick or two. Get up off that stool and on your feet, shake yo' ass a little for the custom."
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
