Why do restaurants neglect beer?

My favorite line in the article is about how a restaurant thinks they're too good for sutter home but only serves BMC. I've always been annoyed by that. the vast majority of nicer restaurants still consider beer to be low brow. On the other hand, things are about a thousand times better than a decade ago...so I can't complain too much

 

Craft Beer ~ 5% of the beer universe

 

The lack of beer is annoying, but I'm actually far more annoyed by the opposite. In NYC, it's easy to find bars with 100+ types of beer, but they'll only have limited selections of wine and liquor, if any. I can understand how wine bar owners could be fairly oblivious to the changing beer industry, but beer bar owners have seen the industry rise and have openly complained about the struggles the whole way. It seems ironic to watch them then do the same thing in the opposite capacity.

 

Here in our country, beers are still considered as an object firmly associated with "debauchery" with not even a hint of class. So it is not exactly surprising, albeit it is definitely frustrating, that most restaurants here do not serve beers as accompaniment to food. The beer industry here also produces beers that are targeted towards the enjoyment of their impact and not of their taste. It's a sad place for a beer enthusiast, really.

 

And which country is it?

 

Flossmoor Station lists beer pairings for some of their food.

 

Must suck where you live. I'm lucky enough to live in philly where you can go to a different world class establishment every day of the week and have spectacular food and beer every day.

 

im happy sierra nevada is referred to as a macro beer...its has a nice ring to it...waiting to get my hands on that pliny, imagine Pliny the Younger or Elder in every store...supreme quality at your reach...not that beer i dare not mention, excuse me, budweiser (i just got shivers and threw up a little bit in my mouth) sweet sierrea nevada to wash it down..time to choose a sixer or 12 pack...ill go with the 12 pack and i think ill try these can things (the vessles of bombness)

 

Well... "macro craft", not 'macro' in the old BMC sense.

 

That's because they are BEER bars. They specialize in BEER. WINE bars specialize in FINE WINES. There are bars that specialize in CRAFT COCKTAILS.

Why would you go to a wine bar for beer, or a beer bar for wine anyways? Would you go to a bar specializing in craft cocktails to do shots of bar rail tequila?

Would you go to a restaurant specializing in classical French cuisine and ask them why they don't serve sushi?

 

Beer Bistro in Toronto is AMAZING!!! Belgian Their menu is outstanding - the Belgian Frites are a must! The beer prices may seem rather high, but after noting the restaurant's ability to pair certain dishes with specific beers and vice versa, as well as the fact that some of the more expensive beers you can't find in Ontario or Canada, the prices are quite justified. It's still kind of a bummer that I had to pay $13 for a small bottle of Chimay Blue, but it's better than trying to go back 5 years into the past when the LCBO actually had the product in stores.

 

I don't think the restaurant example is analogous... and I recognize that there are a plethora of exceptions to what I'm saying based on niche interest. Hell, on Saturday I went to a restaurant in NYC that just served paella and sherry, no beer, liquor, or any other food. That was their niche, they did it extremely well and I wouldn't have wanted/needed/expected anything else.

However, as a blanket statement, I do think that as craft beer has become less neglected and more integrated in popular culture, wine has developed this perception of high brow elitism and is beginning to see the same neglect, which makes no sense as wine consumption is on the rise and prices are declining. Rather than become a cohesive culture of people who enjoy delicious, artisanal things, the two have becoming increasingly more niche and divergent. It's a pain in the ass for people like me who are interested in both and have friends that enjoy one or the other, as few places can satisfy both, at least within a reasonable price-point, so we're always in a position of having to pick and choose whose interests we cater to when we go out.

All I'm trying to say is that I wish more places would recognize the universal merit of all delicious things and offer more variety for their customers. I don't necessarily need 100 taps from my bars. I'd happily sacrifice half of them to expand on other things.

 

How does the old expression go - "If you try to be everything to everyone, you'll end up being nothing to anyone."

I'm not saying a wine bar shouldn't have any beer, or that a beer bar shouldn't have any wine. Your 100+ tap craft bar can have a few bottles of vino, but they should at least be good. Same goes for a wine bar and beer. They shouldn't try to be a wine bar though - it just distracts from their core business, and a specialist wine bar probably would do a much better job of being a wine bar anyways.

 

Philippines. I mean there might be an exception, but if there is, I'd reckon it's just for the members of the upper-middle class and upper class social stratification. LOL. As for the masses though, beer is treated as something in between recreation (it is a must-have on informal social gatherings) and debauchery. I honestly don't know what to make out of it. LOL.

 

The problem is we are still in the minority and craft beer is not necessarily in the mind of the restaurants. This is a huge pet peeve for me, if I am going to go for a real nice dinner with top notch food, it makes no sense to me not to have top notch beer also. One of my local restaurants lets me bring my own beer, great business move because given the choice of two restaurants, one where I can bring an awesome IPA or the other one that has only BMC, I will pick the place that lets me bring my own beer every time.

 

"What restaurants do you know of that have good food and beer pairings? (Not pubs and bars, restaurants)."

Note: I'm leaving off Tapas bars and Gastropubs with outstanding beer that I've also visited in the past year (which are many).

Rendezvous in Central Square
502 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 576-1900

Parc Restaurant
227 South 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 545-2262

Carmella's Italian Bistro
716 N. Casaloma Drive
Appleton, WI 54913
(920) 882-4044

Brasserie 73
4024 West Skippack Pike
Skippack, PA 19474
(610) 584-7880

Les Zygomates
129 South Street
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 542-5108

Osteria
640 North Broad
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 763-0920

Stella
2nd & Lombard
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 320-8000

Sbraga
440 S Broad St,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(215) 735-1913

 

Bump for Chinon01's bang on list of Restaurants.

Double Bump for his awesome handle. After I finish this Heady Topper I'm popping an '89 Raffault.

 

If anyone in management works at the restaurant who thinks anything about beer, then sure they could. But 95% of the people out there don't give a shit about craft beer. So it makes that many good restaurants don't give a shit about craft beer. If no one at the restaurant knows anything about beer, how could they think of any that would pair well with their menu items?

 

Here in Houston there are several places.

Queen Vic (awesome English pub food and Indian fusion, and ever changing craft beer list)
Pondicheri (another awesome Indian fusion place, a stabile selection of the best Texas breweries around)
BRC (one of the first in the new wave of gastropub and good beer selection)
Branchwater Tavern (very nice list of 4 craft beers)
Beavers (three Texas crafts, some of the best BBQ in Houston)
Liberty Kitchen (awesome seafood, 5 taps from Karback and nothing else)
Downhouse (awesome selection of 12 taps, and they try lots of different food options)
Hay Merchant (best selection in Texas, really interesting southern food options)
And on and on.

No shortage of good places to eat and have a good beer in Houston.

 

Barely Swine, Austin, TX

Killer place, hard to get a table.