Best Beer Bars

The Quest for the Holy Grain - Best Beer Bars

Washington

Red Monkey Lounge
25 West Alder
Walla Walla, WA
509-522-3865

The Red Monkey Lounge...I may be banned for life from the this place, I am not sure.
The goddam monkey is black. Plain as day it is a black monkey that greets you at the Red Monkey Lounge. No one could justify that to my satisfaction
All the same, head here for the 26 taps. 21 st Amendment had four beers on tap and I had three of them, all nice beers—Brew Free or Die IPA, Back in Black Black IPA, and Bitter American, because I am one! Red monkey my ass.

This is a lounge. Think Bill Murray on SNL and you have the atmosphere. We left when the MC arrived for team trivia. He had a microphone that could have been used to evacuate the state of Rhode Island.
The prominently displayed mission statement here is “Eat, Drink, Connect!” Puh-lease. We could not connect with our waitress who grew tired of us 30 minutes into our visit, despite the fact she could not explain why odd numbered addresses switched sides of the street in Walla Walla.
Nor did she care that the very excellent appetizer did not look exactly like the one on the website.
She was also unimpressed with the new baseball stat I invented while there—the Offensive Assists Award (OA). It is awarded when you move a runner, who subsequently scores, into scoring position. Hey, it ain't easy to invent new baseball stats. She was only moderately amused by my harangue about hamburgers. Hey I was trying to connect, it was their idea.
So maybe I was banned, maybe I just left.

Here is what I do know.
They have really good food. They have 26 taps and some of them are good.
It ain't a bad place to go and our waitress was actually fun.
But the goddam monkey is black.

Hudson
5000 East Marginal Way S.
Seattle, WA 98134
206-767-4777

Hudson is for lunch.
Located in a small, old industrial building, two walls of ceiling-high windows give imbibers a view on the world they probably do not want. That is one more reason to look at the half dozen beer taps. There is a Miller Light and five local Washington beers from different breweries. If you live in Seattle there is no reason to go here for beer, especially with Two Beers just down the road, but a beer with lunch is a nice option if you have that kind of job.
The barmaids are industrial to match the neighborhood and the sandwiches are good. If the Quest had more material on Seattle we would not need this lame review.

Collins Pub
526 Second Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 623-1016

Collins Pub is not going to show up on anyone's top 50 bars of Seattle, but maybe it should. It is an utterly soulless place that was probably very modern in 1970. Now it is just brown and unattractive. If art deco had not been already defined I'd be inclined to invent the term for this pub. Some uses of metal and wood are charming, this one is not, it is disturbing. Let's call the style art decrepit.
Our waitress asked if we'd like a drink.
“What do you have on tap? I asked with low expectations. “We have 20 beers on tap,” she said.
My hopes rose. “What do you have?”
“What do you like?”
Is this what fencing is like, I wondered?
“I'd like to know what beers you have.”
“Do you like light or dark?”
Clearly I was in over my head and up against an expert. I switched tactics.
“Do you have a beer list?”
“There is a black board by the bar at the front.”
“Thanks, for the help.” (20% to 15% and dropping. )
I trudge to the board and, son-of-a-gun, there are 20 nice western beers heavy on stouts, porters and IPAs with one red and one lager for variety. I had Great Divide Oak-Aged Yeti on tap and it is even better fresh.
The waitress must have been auditioning for a different career because she just did not have the idea of service down. Each time I wanted a beer I got up, took a half-day's rations of calamari and schlepped to the front of the place which had now cleared out quite a bit, save for a blonde goddess, to see what I wanted next. Sadly, the blonde goddess was not a beer.
(Note to self, take cell phone picture of the beer board-save time.)
If you're looking for a nice cheap meal, keep looking. The menu was probably modern in the 70's as well. Desperate, I went fish and chips. The coleslaw was made with lettuce, that is right, lettuce. Is that legal? The fries were wrapped in a used newspaper cone. My hopes were dashed until I ate the fish...that schizophrenic little joint surprised me again. But not enough to ever go back or recommend it to you unless you get caught in a 2nd Avenue Seattle shower—always a good possibility.