John Harvard's Brew House

Mall type location, this location is on the concord tpke, not far from Brandywine state park and its excellent and fun Disc golf course. You'll find pleanty of dark wood in this chain operation, medium sized, pleasant feel. Bar to the right side as you enter, fermentors visable in the rear. middle of the road beer style selections, cant blame em for brewing what mosts apealing to the masses, clearly not taking too many chances or making too many interesting brews. Staff was friendly and semi-versed in beer, some nice stained glass in the joint as well as a mug club. Menu features typical pub grub, no time to give it a try. Its a beer brewery, but its pretty dull, for something more interesting try the Iron Hill Brewery downtown by the water

I've been to this location two times during visits to Delaware. The first time was mid week afternoon and I got their beer sampler. Included was 6 or 7 beers (everything they had). Some were better than others, and a few were not really that good. During this visit the place was dead, lunch rush was over I guess. It was like I had my own personal waitress. She caught me taking down some notes on a particular beer and asked me what I was writing? .... embarrassed, I said I was writing a book on beer. "Really?!" - she said and sat down. oh, jeez... caught in my own trap of lies. See where reviewing beer gets you?

Anyway, the second time we visited was after shopping with my girlfriend and we stopped in for lunch on a Friday afternoon. I got the beer burger, which was ok, a bit burnt and my gal got the fish and chips, which was decent.

BEER:
I got two free samples from our waitress, who never stopped smiling and was all too happy to ablige, of their Loch Lanier Scotch ale - which sucked, and their raspberry wheat, which was even better than the last time I sampled it. Getting smoother, very nice. The highlight was a glass of their Grand Cru, which they had just put on the tap that day - a beautiful beer.

Overall a nice place and decent beer on the whole. quoting Awnold

- "I'll be back"

I had never been in a one of these restauarnats until the other day. It was not bad. There was nothing special about the food (mostly sandwiches and other pub grub), but it was good for what it was. The service was quick and friendly. The beer selection was only 5 beers: Raspberry Wheat, Pale Ale, Scottish Ale, Grand Cru, and Robust Porter. I thought that 3 of them are good beers while the other 2 (Pale Ale and Porter) were just average. Not bad for a chain, which I was skeptical about for a brewpub.

There have been some great beers to come out of this J.H.'s including a Schwarzbier that was just phenomenal. In fact, I think their interperetation of most of the J.H. standards is better than alot of the other locations. Additionally, this is a big location that's laid out differently than most of their other stores and has the bar off to the right hand side. It seems smaller, and has a more local feel. I don't necessarily feel that I'm at a "John Harvard's" when I'm there. I also like that they have some tall chaired, long tables near the bar. Essentially, they're cocktail tables, but they have a kind of a "Fest" feel to them. Food is standard J.H. OK, but nothing special.