Brewpubs serve their own beers

My most recent trips to Great Waters (last Friday) and Town Hall (last night) had two things in common. The first is not surprising and that’s great beer- Giant Star IPA and cask Gold at GW and Warrior and Cara-Java Brown at TH specifically. The second however is something I often wonder about how often it happens and that is someone coming into the establishment and asking for some macro, most likely a “lite”. At GW it was a woman, who upon sitting down at the bar was asked by the bartender what he could get for her. Her reply was “I’ll take a $*%&^ Lite.” And his reply, which I took an inordinate amount of pleasure in hearing, was “No, you won’t. This is a brewpub and we only serve our own beer.” Note, however, that he said this in the most reasonable voice without the sneering you would have heard if I had said the same thing. She ended up ordering a vodka 7.

At TH it was two twenty-something guys who ordered lite beers. The bartender proceeded to let them know that this was a brewpub that served their own beers, offering that there was a lager on tap as well as a wheat beer. I didn’t really pay attention to which they ended up ordering but they downed those beers in record time! That probably isn’t a surprise if they’re used to drinking beers with virtually no flavor. I’m not sure if they were short on time to begin with or decided their lite palates would be quenched more appropriately somewhere else.

I don’t know how all such interactions play out but I was pleased to see that in both cases the lite drinkers didn’t depart the bar without ordering something. I doubt situations such as these ends up in making converts of anyone but that’s ok. It leaves more good stuff for me!