Chef & the Farmer

Great restaurant in a small North Carolina town, co-owned by Vivian Howard, who is the star of "A Chef's Life" on PBS. Food is outstanding in all respects, along with the service. When we had dinner, there were 20 beers offered, all of them from local brewers: Mother Earth (a block away), Tarboro, Double Barley, and Duck Rabbit. There is an interesting mix of styles - IPAs (of course), Gose, Stout, Porter, Dunkel, Kolsch & Wit beers. I liked the fact that they bring the bottle or can to the table and pour it for you, then left it on the table. It gave me a chance to check out the artwork and written content on the bottles/cans. I only saw one draft beer on the list, an American Ale from tarboro.

I guess what is so nice is that at such an excellent restaurant, beer is treated with the same respect as wine. That isn't often the case with the fine dining establishments.

Big city restaurant in a small town. Great beer selection always have at 15 different beers on the menu and 4 taps, 3 are normally reserved for Mother Earth and 1 is rotating. The bottles they have are normally pretty unusual stuff, Flemish reds, saisons, and then always a few stouts, IPAs, and pale ales. Nothing rare or anything, but always solid.

The bartenders are my favorite always helpful, very friendly, and will always answer any questions you may have about a particular beer.

Food is very good, I normally pass on it because it is a tad pricey, but totally worth the money, great place for date night.