Roeg's Picks for 2012: Best Regional Bar
Best Regional Bar: A regional bar has a
great beer selection (duh!), but goes out of its way to highlight local
beers. These are the spots you seek out
when you visit a new area. This year I
was lucky to be on the road to find three new favorite destinations.
Gold: Sheffield’s, Chicago, IL – A top pick of Draft
Magazine, Sheffield’s (http://www.sheffieldschicago.com/)
offers a slew of bottles, 38 taps and one beer engine feature American craft
standards and local suds and great Bar-B-Q. When I visited it was Kalamazoo
night, a great microbrewery from Michigan that brews Bell’s beers, and they
were offering food specials to match. I had
the Bell’s fried chicken, using Bell’s Two Hearted IPA in the batter, with
collard greens and red beans with rice. More
importantly I was able to try their Two Hearted IPA on draft AND on cask
(awesome), as well as their Cherry Stout on draft. It was a great dinner and a lot of fun.

Silver: Prohibition Pig, Waterbury, VT – The Prohibition
Pig (http://www.prohibitionpig.com/)
offers a great selection of VT’s finest breweries. Their tap menu was excellent, but I’d have to
say that their food was even better. Their
specialty is bar-b-que, smoking their meets and offering their own sauces. I went with their sliced brisket sandwich, to
go with my VT beers, Lawson’s Finest Triple Play IPA and the Hill Farmstead
George. I can’t wait to bring Jenn back
to stay overnight in Waterbury; Ben & Jerry’s, Cabot Cheese, the Alchemist
and Prohibition Pig.

Bronze: Bridge End Inn, Ruabon, Wales – The Bridge End Inn
in Wales was CAMRA’s 2011 Pub of the Year, the first pub in Wales ever to win
the award. A nice cozy pub, with a great
landlord and quite a talkative clientele, I was really impressed with the
diverse selection of Welsh beer. They
had Brains and Conwy beers, but I started with a McGivern (the house brewer)
Code Breaker and wrapped up with a New Plossey Dusky Maiden Stout. It was a shame that we were on our way to the
airport, because I could have easily spent an evening here (http://www.mcgivernales.co.uk/page5.html).
Honorable Mention: I
would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the Great Lost Bear (http://www.greatlostbear.com/), a
restaurant that gives ME brewers an opportunity to showcase their wares. I mean, GLB offers 4 casks and has Allagash
alley. How great is that?
"The best beer is where the priests go to drink." –
Anonymous
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