Stub & Herb’s has been awarded as a college bar, but it is more like a beer-lover’s bar on a corner adjacent to the University of Minnesota campus. The two walls facing S. Washington Ave and Oak streets have decorative frosted glass. The tables and open booths are pretty basic, but the bar and nook booths on the interior wall have so many ornate and beautiful touches. Molded designs on the ceilings, cut wood, decorative brass work lining the front edge of the bar, pillars with “carved” grape vines…lots of great little touches.We sat at the bar, where Jake took brilliant care of our beer needs. He made great recommendations, and allowed us to sample quite a few things we were unsure about. He was right every time, too. For instance, when he told me the Summit Stout was “just okay”, I tried one and made the exact same assessment - it was just okay… We unfortunately didn’t get to meet John, the General Manager who gets credit for the fabulous selection (32 taps!)
The beer menu features “Beer School”, which is a listing of style definitions from beeraddvocate.com, followed by the beers currently available in that style. For those who don’t require the style guide, there is an All American Tap List, featuring Minnesota beers on the top, American microbrews in the middle, and at the bottom of the list, a bottle list including domestics, imports, Belgians, ciders, malt liquors, wines and champagne. The beers are also prominently featured on two chalkboards.
Happy Hour is 11 AM - 7 PM and 10 PM to midnight, and with the exception of a few select drafts, pints are $3.50. There is NOTHING macro on tap - not even Guinness and Newcastle. Great music plays (probably satellite radio), and for D’s benefit, there are probably seven televisions, all showing NCAA games right now.
We had several tasters and a couple of pints. D reviewed them, but I just enjoyed drinking the beers and sitting around watching people (they threw a vagrant out - that was fun to see) and of course, the snow which continues to fall… We also chatted up with Jake quite a bit.
Here are the things we tried:
- Flat Earth Belgian Pale Ale (MN) - 5.2% ABV
- Surly Mild (MN) - 4.7%
- Tyranena Bitter Woman (WI) - 6.6% ABV
- Surly Furious (MN) - 6.2% ABV
- Summit Stout on nitro (MN)
- Schell Einbecker Dopplebock (MN)
- Surly Two (MN)
- Rush River Lost Arrow Porter (WI) 5% ABV
Fun fact - right now the backs of their t-shirts say “Your Grandpa Drank Here,” but the next run on them will say, “The Bathrooms are Downstairs” - they say it is the most frequently asked question!
Hey everybody - I know it’s been a long time since we rapped at ya’, and I apologize for that. Matty and I took a trip down to Texas for the SXSW music festival and to try and wrangle up a few new beers. While the beers didn’t flow so well down in Texas (at least the good ones didn’t), we’ll hopefully get around to writing about our experiences and the 2 real beer havens we found while down there. In the meanwhile, I’m going to get the ball rolling with this quick review of a New Belgium offering that I found in San Antonio.
This is about as pathetic as it can get. In Oklahoma, beer wholesalers have lobbied to be excused from some of the most basic requirements of their obligation to provide the public with 