Restaurants that dont give full beer names.

I wouldn't appreciate this either, however, reading a few reviews of Fat Head's summer seasonal offerings on here would give you a pretty good idea.

 

He's right. I don't expect much from staff at this type of place, in terms of beer knowledge, or even caring about beer.

 

Sound logic. I feel your pain. I had a similar experience. I went to a place nearby which really lacks beer knowledge. They told me they had (what I thought they said was) just an ipa. I scratched my head, but said, "sure." It tasted quite good. When I asked a second time what it was, they again replied, "just ipa." I gave up. Then, I walked into my workplace the next day and passed the craft section on my way to punching in. JUST IPA... as in the ipa from the JUST BEER project brewery. Makes much more sense.

 

Anytime I see *Brewery* Seasonal on a menu, I get annoyed.

 

One time I was at a bar in Cambridge MA and the menu had "Pretty Things seasonal." I had never tried anything from Pretty Things before and heard a lot of great reviews, so I was looking forward to ordering it. I asked the server which one it was, and she had no idea. After some goading I finally got her to ask the bartender, and she came back declaring, "It's a dark ale." Thanks for that...

 

It is sad a place serving beer can not even be bothered to state what they are serving. Some might say it is just beer, but would a menu just say "meat" under entre

 

I went to a bar once that an employee quit the night before and stole all the tap handles. The bartender had no idea what they were. The owner can trace the lines, so we talked him into a contest...he said that any person that can answer them all right got the beer free. Beer trivia at its best. I did lose, but it was fun trying.

 

It's annoying. My all-time pet peeve related to this thread regards establishments which list "hefeweizen" on their beer list without listed which brewery brews it. There are A LOT of hefeweizens on the market; educate me which one is flowing from the tap.

 

I tend to frequent more beer-centric places, but when I do find myself in a place like this, you just gotta laugh and shrug it off. I usually will know what it is anyway and kinda hint at it to the server in hopes that I'm educating them in the least demeaning way possible. "Oh yeah. I think it's ______." But I probably come off as a dick anyway.

 

I made the mistake once of asking a server at Chili's in San Diego the following: "So what is your local beer offerings?" Now, the menu did prompt you to ask such a question, but I should have known better. The server said, "um, I'm not sure, we have coors, something called Stone--but I don't think that's local."

 

I've just stopped ordering beer at my local Buffalo Wild Wings unless I go the bar area and watch the person pour it and ask them exactly what it is. So many times I've asked about, like, even which Shock Top they have on tap and they don't know. I used to get Cutters' excellent Scotch Ale "Floyd's Folly" there a lot, and one of the servers once asked when I ordered it, "Um...is that beer?"

Also went to a local Applebee's and they had literally three local craft beers. Not three breweries and a few selections from each, literally just three brews. I asked what craft beers they had, and the server had never heard of craft beer. He had to go ask the bartender, and literally write down on a napkin what they had. And then he didn't know the breweries. He just wrote down "Wee Mac, Deadeye" and it's a good thing I knew my local beer enough to know what those were. He said "Yeah I never drink that kind of beer so I don't know." If a server was that apathetic and unknowledgeable about the food menu, they'd be fired in a day. What an idiot.

 

I was at a pizzeria that specializes in craft beer and one of their beers kicked but they had a list of what was on now. it said Illinois Chicago, Illinois Goose Island Double IPA and every time the bartender told ppl the name she kept saying Goose Island Double IPA because they couldn't recognize from the sheet the name was Illinois of the beer for some reason this really irritated me. Then I pulled thine stick from my ass and enjoyed my vacation beer.

 

Yeah, I mean how exactly does that guy expect you to be able to check in on Untappd without a proper beer identification?!?

 

Its always a big gamble when you order craft on tap from these kind of sports bar type places. Bottles are usually the safer bet for many reasons.

 

Last Wednesday i was in a pretty cool craft bar in downtown NYC enjoying a nice little sour when i heard a girl 4 people away from me ask "can i have a Carton?" Turned out the "milk stout" scrawled on the mirror in white wax was ours. I had no idea, it just said "milk stout" she apparently was a regular.