Tag: menus

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No Menu

Courtney Iseman who writes Hugging the Bar brought up an interesting topic on her substack recently about brewery taprooms having no menus.

And while there is nothing more satisfying to me, than flipping through a beer menu, the idea has some interesting benefits to it in my mind.

First, you won’t default as quickly to a safe beer or your typical order.  Secondly, you have to improve your descriptions of what you like.  You just can’t say hoppy.  You will need to give more specifics like grassy or peach or soft.  Thirdly, you just might find a beertender who is on your taste wavelength and you will be able to find a new favorite beer.

I think it would be cool if a taproom had a no menu Monday to encourage those three items.

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Up to Date

Disclaimer: I try to keep the snarky rants to myself and focus on the great beer (which there is a lot of!!) But I have to offer up a suggestion to publicans.

Keep the beer list current and change the taps.

I walked into a beer bar and saw the distinctive Green Flash logo on a tap handle but it was a Berliner Weiss from the Bruery pouring from it. Laying aside that I hope the line was cleansed free of the mammoth amount of hops that Green Flash uses (which I like), but why not change out to a Bruery handle or a generic? Is it a time issue? If so, go with the chalkboard ones. Less fuss and lots of chalk dust.

I also make a plea here for an updated beer list. It doesn’t need to be fancy. The Verdugo and Blue Palms have great beer menus. One large page or two smaller ones, I don’t care. Which beer to choose should be difficult because of the well curated kegs not because I have to figure out whats pouring.

Thanks for listening.