The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [171]
There’s a good and varied food menu, too, with beer snacks (like house-made pretzels and ale-battered chicken fingers), burgers, salads and some beer-friendly entrées such as shepherd’s pie and fish-and-chips, and the prices are very reasonable: there’s nothing on the menu over $9.
PHILOSOPHY
Beer appreciation is the focus here. To allow and encourage conversations and cater to the naturally curious drinker, there are “no televisions, no neon, no obnoxious music and no major domestic beers.” This is the beer enlightenment in action, but it’s not dull or pretentious.
KEY BEER
This is surely one of the only places in the entire American South where you could find a beer like De Proef Signature Ale, a collaboration between Lost Abbey/Port Brewing’s Tomme Arthur and Dirk Knaudts of the famed De Proef brewery in Belgium. Their 8.5% ABV golden-colored ale is tart, big, and funky, and as Michael Jackson described it, “Everything promised by the brewers, and more. Aromas fresh as a forest. A hint of green wood. Firm, smooth, rounded body. Lemongrass, lemon zest, and cedar. A suspicion of sulfur and sweat. A long and distinct finish—you don’t want it to end.”
Atlanta
THE PORTER BEER BAR
1156 Euclid Ave. • Atlanta, GA 30307 • (404) 223–0393 theporterbeerbar.com • Established: 2008
SCENE & STORY
This diminutive Little Five Points area bar is small in layout but mighty in stature. Along with Decatur’s Brick Store, this is one of the premiere beer bars in the South, and the interior is a home run, with long wood benches, cool metal tables, white-tiled walls, and a collection of retro plastic and vinyl suitcases. With thirty taps and four hundred bottle selections to choose from, the owners go out of their way to print pairing suggestions for the haute-rustic bar bites like pork empanadas with golden raisins, adobo almonds, and cocoa pineapple-jalapeño sauce, hush puppies with applewood smoked bacon, and Fuji apple sauce, and wild Georgia shrimp po’boys.
PHILOSOPHY
Thorough. With both a food and beer blog, a beer list updated “daily by 6 p.m.”, beer flights, and other considerations, this beer bar is going the extra mile.
KEY BEER
Hitachino XH, a Belgian-style brown ale, brewed in Japan and aged for three months in shochu casks—the kind of beer-world curiosity that is generally far tastier in concept than in execution. But this strong, spicy, frothy oddity is delicious, with a wine like bite that would work well with those bacon and apple-kissed hush puppies (7% ABV).
BEST of the REST: GEORGIA
TWAIN’S BILLIARDS and TAP
211 E. Trinity Pl. • Decatur, Georgia 30030 • (404) 373–0063 • twains.net
Brewer Jordan Fleetwood is ramping up the fresh tap offerings at this popular pool hall and lately, brewpub, with various Belgian-style, smoked malt, fruit-enhanced, and barrel-aged experiments to go with his popular pales, IPAs, and brown ales. The interior has cool tealand-blue tile floors, copper pool table lamps, local art, green wooden chairs, and exposed gray brick.
TERRAPIN BEER CO.
265 Newton Bridge Rd. • Athens, GA 30607 • (706) 549–3377 • terrapinbeer.com
Opened in 2002 by friends John Cochran and Brian “Spike” Buckowski, this is a young brewery growing fast (18,800 bbl and climbing) with ever more adventurous styles and interpretations. Tours of the 40,000-square-foot space turn festive with live music in the taproom. (Tours are offered Wednesday through Saturday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.; $10 tasting glass fee.) Look for the Side Project beer series, such as Monk’s Revenge, a superstrong (9.6% ABV) Belgian IPA with intense flavors of sweet and ripe citrus with an herbal, hoppy finish.
YOUNG AUGUSTINE’S
327 Memorial Dr. • Atlanta, GA 30312 • (404) 681–3344 • sites.google.com/site/youngaugustines
A chic and airy haven of variegated wood paneling and polished cement floors, this bar was a service station before it became a beer-focused gastropub