This place has some fine brews. Kay had the sampler, which consists of the six or seven brews on offer at that moment. In the normal run of things, this might be all you would want in a visit. Of the seven offerings in the sampler, a couple were lager-style beers of quite good, but unspectacular quality, one was a stout, interesting but awfully bitter for our taste, and the rest were ales. A couple were just lovely, nutty, hopsy bitters that equal what you might get in England. I subsequently has a pint of the red, and it was delicious. Tony has the same.
I will have to return: The prize-winning blackberry ale was not available the evening we called in. Rumour has it that it was amply worthy of the first place it achieved in the recent judgings.
The decor is modern wood-and-wire, spacious, with an outdoor area heated with the sort of brazier-lamp found in cafe's along the Southern coast of France in Winter. The outdoors exists for smokers, chiefly, all smoking inside being banned in California. There was a TV going, tuned to sport, as in all American Bars, but we were easily able to position ourselves out of earshot, and for me at least, out of sight.
Food-wise, the menu was well above what you might expect for what is basically a bar near the heart of town. It was one of the laminated-fold-out variety, so I presume it was largely fixed. There were some chalkboard specials, most featuring oysters as we came on oyster night: Thursday. The menu offered pizzas, sandwiches, burgers, entrees, appetizers, etc., about six entries in each category.
I had cajun shrimp, which was nice but not very hot. (It was, as advertised, beery, though.) Tony has creamy pesto chicken sauce on spaghetti, and Kay had roast chicken. No complaints from anyone, but no recipes to write home about. We had, as a starter, some "garlic-parmesan chips" and they were VERY garlicy indeed, and some calimari, whihc was in a good beer batter but a bit chewy and clearly octopus not calimari.
Scores: 5 for food, 9 for beer.