John Harvard's Brew House

I was really surprised by how large this place was. Compared to every other brew pub I’ve been to, this place is huge. The layout is split into the bar and smoking area on the left, and the family dining area on the right. These two sides are separated by a superfluous windowed wall. It looks all right, and maybe it does divert some of the breeze, but it seemed to be primarily for show. We chose the non-smoking rout and were given a booth in the back. Looking around, the place seems to be primarily dark stained and painted woods that give the place a decidedly dirty look. The well worn dingy carpets didn’t help this effect at all as they looked like they either belonged in a Vegas Casino or in a Catholic Church. This motif was further propagated by fake stained glass windows that had faux religious icons with their heads replaced with modern people. These were all faded badly and gave a really cheap feel to the atmosphere. I was curious about who these people as they were depicted in fake stained glass, but the quality was so miserable, I generally tried not to look at them. I imagined this place making a lot more sense if I had just gotten off of a fishing vessel up in Alaska and was looking for a beer and a hot meal. Fortunately, the bar side was much more pleasant. There’s a big U-shaped bar with mugs and glasses hanging down from above. At the top of the U, there are a series of stainless steel tanks with a little railed wall in front of it. There were a few guys hanging out here enjoying their beers. The drinking atmosphere here seems to be quite pleasant. The eating atmosphere around the bar again seemed a little too big for its own good. This area was surrounded by entirely too many tables and booths. Its nice to have ample seating, but this just made it feel deserted. The high ceilings and over all dirty and deserted feel of this place still reminds me of a destitute fishing village in Alaska that’s trying to look nice for their burly clientele.

The service was a bit startling. I was surprised that our server didn’t just sit down with us and hang out for a while. He seemed new but boy did he like to talk. This was fine by me, as I enjoy flapping my gums when it comes to beer, but he seemed to be a novice. I ended up telling him a lot more about beer than he told me. He just went on and on about the specials, the beer and brewing in general. He nearly forced us to go on a tour of the place as well. Also, he said the brew master was on his way over to chat about beer with us. This never happened. Other than being extremely talkative, he did all right and brought things promptly. However, he managed to spill a beer all over the lap of a patron in the booth next to ours. Too bad for him. Talkative or pushy? It was borderline.

The food was all right. I got the shrimp and Thai peanut salad, and my lady friend got the veggie burger. Both were perfectly acceptable. Nothing fancy, but satisfying.

I was surprised by the beer. It too wasn’t award winning, but it was a hell of a lot better than BMC. I really enjoyed their Big Tex IPA. It was a true hop bomb with out much malt base, but I was in the mood for an amarillo onslaught. Their bock was all right, and their Belgian was a good starter brew for those who are hesitant to try foreign styles of beer. The quality wasn’t mind blowing, but there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with it.

Over all, the experience was good, but there are a lot of other places that I’d like to go back to first. Unfortunately, this is the closest brew pub to my place, so it looks like I may be coming back a lot sooner than I would expect.

Although I've been to this store many times before I've never reviewed it, and I guess that's because I've been avoiding it.

In general, I feel that the entire John Harvard's chain is poorly run; and offers a subtantially lower standard of service than most other brewpubs. And that dates back to over ten years ago when I walked out of the original location after being seated, and then never even approached by a server.

But that original experience didn't set me off against J.H., I'm just pissed that I constantly have problems there. And it's the stupid stuff that tends to bother me. For example, in Springfield I can't get extra beans on my $8.95 Chicken Quesadilla because it will cost more... even though I ordered it without chicken! And management's answer to that is that there's no way to key it into the register??? Hello... it's not a problem in Delaware!!!

The beers are good, the food is mediochre, the store is dirty, and the service is below par - and that runs to management too! I understand that they hire college kids, and that's OK, but management has to work harder, and back that up when it goes wrong. They don't (or at least I haven't seen it). And believe me, I'm going easy on them here because I've worked within the industry.

If you'd like a beer or two and an appetizer at the bar, great, this is the place for you. But if you expect a decent meal at the prices they call for, look somewhere else.

I was passing through Springfield the other day, and so I decided to stop at this John Harvards since I had never been to one. It was a pretty good idea.

The atmosphere is kind of blah, with a big u-shaped bar, and some nice wooden tables all over the place. Nothing stupid, but nothing charming either.

The quality of the beers was pretty damn good, and since this is a chain establishment I was very suprised at that. The selectiona nd value was also very good with 10 beers on tap, and a 10 beer sampler going for only $8.50!

The service here was very good! Our waitress got our sampler quickly, with free glasses of water, and some awesome bread served with basil infused olive oil on the house. She explained the beers pretty well, and all of the glasses were clean, I nored.

The food was good, but we only had the free bread that the waitress gave us. It was a very awesome loaf of bread, and it was made even better by the fact that it was free. Sure the atmosphere is lackluster, and some of the beers are boring, but i'd definately come here again if I was in the area. Next time i'll try the food, hope there is a nice new seasonal on tap, and pray that I get the same awesome waitress.

Well, considering I live right down the street, this is my local bar. I'm sure most of us are familiar with the John Harvard chain, so I won't go into detail about the layout of the bar or the food. The one problem I have with this particular outpost is that I feel that they dumb-down their beers for mass consumption. Example: they have a decent scottish-style ale that is not quite malty enough for me. The IPA, while nice, doesn't have that normal 'bite' that I expect from a well done IPA. That being said, I still like to stop by now and then because they have a prolific brewer who is cranking out different styles every few weeks or so.