Sunday Confession

Forgive me, Beer Geeks, for I have sinned. Maybe that's being a little dramatic but earlier this week I did finally cave to the pull of $1 happy hour beers at Splash Bar. As you may have read about over on The New School, Splash Bar offers pints of their house beers - currently three of them - for a mere $1 during happy hour and $3 the rest of the time. So with a little time between their 5pm opening time and dinner plans with friends I stopped in.

Going in I had set the bar pretty low in my mind for what the beer would taste like and a first glance at the surroundings, beer pong tables set up for play and a shot bus just inside the entrance, didn't do anything to improve my expectations. Nonetheless I was there and I promptly ordered up the first pint - Tiger pale lager. It shouldn't come as a surprise that it's quite similar to a beer of the same name from Asia Pacific Breweries. For a buck, sure, I'm in. Perhaps even for $3 although I'm pretty sure it would be a weird experience to be at Splash Bar after the end of happy hour when the age of the target market would leave me feeling older than I want to.

Since Mag was joining me I ordered up a second pint, Jaws IPA. This is not your typical NW IPA; instead it's a mild version and apparently it's specifically designed to be more approachable for a crowd that probably doesn't get into hops the way you and I do. Again, exchanging one dolla for a pint of it is an acceptable transaction. However between the pale lager and the IPA I have a slight preference for the lager. I'd rather either have the hops be there or simply drink something where they aren't expected to play a prominent role.

While we could have finished those two and split the third house offering - Lava Hound Hefeweizen - we decided to shove off to meet our dinner companions. Perhaps I'll stop back sometime when I'm in the area to try that or something else they've brewed up. If you're nearby, feeling thirsty but not particularly discriminating give it a try. You've probably spent considerably more to be disappointed by at least one other beer in the past.