Sometimes enjoying your favorite pint in the comfort of home isn’t enough. Sometimes it’s just plain better to belly-up to the bar and enjoy a fresh ale. But, if you’re a craft-beer nut like me, it can be tough to find a place that couples the right atmosphere with a robust selection of beers at a decent price. But never fear, because this week, instead of reviewing beers themselves, I’m scoping out a couple of locations that keep the beer flowing in mass quantities.
Novare Res Bier Café –
Exhange Street
Don’t ask me to pronounce the name of this delightful little watering hole because I’ll fail miserably. But I think that’s the point. It fit’s the whole motif of this place to feel a little uncomfortable. Offering over 300 bottles of beer and 25 rotating taps, Novare Res is like the Crime and Punishment of bars. You know it’s something you should try, but when you’ve finished you feel a little befuddled.
Located in a beautiful nook that’s reminiscent of an old-school college quad, Novare Res is a dimly lit “bier” haven. It’s like heaven for beer nerds. Serving up beers from all over, including the most impressive Belgian and German selection I’ve ever seen, Novare Res will keep you on your toes.
What I can only describe as an ingenious blend of redemption center and super-trendy-hipster-bar, Novare Res has the incredible quality of transporting you from the hum-drum of other Portland bars. The quad-like set-up is reminiscent of old European cities and beckons you to try a 750 ml bottle of enigmatic beer, which is this place’s best quality.
But, if you’re not into the trendy scene of beers from all over – and I don’t necessarily blame you – the Bier Café can leave something to be desired. The bottles can be exorbitantly priced (and with good reason) and the draught selection is a veritable revolving door (which isn’t all that bad). But Novare’s does offer some killer nights when they offer great specials on themes. Whether they’re showcasing a particular brewery or a theme (this weekend it’s chocolate flavored beers in time for Valentine’s day), the folks at the Beer Cave, as I fondly call it, know good beer.
Great Lost Bear –
Forest Avenue
Built on the back of a massive draught list (roughly 60 beers), Great Lost Bear (GLB) is somewhat of a Portland icon. Without the moist and cloistered atmosphere of Novare Res, GLB is more warm and inviting than their more trendy counterpart (probably a product of their Grateful Dead-esque theme).
With an awesome showcase of beers from Maine, GLB gets points for staying local but loses points on diversity (especially since most of the Maine beers they have on tap are available elswhere in the city). But beyond the confines of the state, GLB also offers some great breweries from around the country like Stone and Rogue, which offer a West Coast alernative to the somewhat homogenic beer selection in these parts.
More visually stimulating than the dark and bland Novare Res, GLB couples Beericana with random artifacts of American signage to create and eclectic drinking environment.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays at GLB are the best since they offer 22 oz beers for the price of a standard pint, but even on their non-promotional nights their prices are a little more palatable than Novare Res’. But lower prices are invariably reflected in the bars’ respective clienteles.
To keep the same literary theme going, GLB is “The Old Man and the Sea” of bars. GLB is simple like a finely-tuned Hemingway sentence, but let’s you maintain your beer-geek status without trudging through the foily-corked waters of pretentious beer.
No grade this week. I think it’s a push, anyway. More than anything, it’s great that a city the size of Portland can support two bars of this quality.