The Bier Stein

Excellent beer, and good service. Two complaints: not much seating and they close ridiculously early (11 pm?). Come here for the beer!

I know why there's so many 4 and 5 star reviews for this place, I completely get it.  I'm coming in with a rare 3 stars.  Obviously the selection is huge.  I believe they said, "over 900 selections in the cooler."  Which i've seen 90% of the same beer at Market of Choice.

My friend and I settled at the bar prepairing to consume pints of beer.  Reading through the beer menu, there wasn't much that piqued our interest. There were 2 IPA's, and lots of Ambers and Ales.  Considering we both love IPA's and all the hoppy goodness it contains, Ambers and Ales have fallen off our list of brews to drink.  Just not enough hop to it.  Dont get me wrong, Abominable Winter Ale is a winner for sure, there are a few out there, but not at The Bier Stein.

I did find an IPA from Anderson Valley brewing that wasn't too bad.  It was 8.5% yet really smooth drinking. Where am I going with this? As my friend and I were drinking the beer, we wanted something else hopefully a bit better.  So we asked for a taster.  Holly shit was that a mistake...

The first 2 tasters of 0.5 ounces of foam were interesting.  We worked with what we had, and though we were *kinda* able to tell if we wanted it or not, it was pretty sad to get a literal .5 ounce of foamish beer.  Mind you we are paying for brews this whole time.  When we asked to taste something else, the bartender decided to lay the law.

******Hear Ye! Hear Ye!....Thou hast broken the law of foam!!******

Since we already tried two foam tasters we had reached our limit...ALTHOUGH we were allowed JUST ONE MORE. You're kidding me right?? You're gonna roll your eyes and act like an ass over tasters that have more foam than beer? Bullshit! I would like to know who came up with this narrow minded, business detouring idea.

We love drinking good beer, but the thought has clearly never crossed their mind that maybe we wouldn't have to keep tasting if we could find A GOOD BEER to get a full pint of.  We had already bought a few beers, it's not like we walked in off the street, demanded 10 tasters and walked out the door.  Their view of "tasting" is completely backwards.  Perhaps enforce that "rule" when someone is trying to abuse the system.  Dont be an ass to the 2 guys with their wallets out ready to spend X amount of $ on delicously brewed beer.

Since what they had on the board was a miss, we split a 22 of GoodLife's Descender IPA and bailed.  We were gonna be pretty bummed if we didn't at least have 1 solid awesome IPA.  

In summary:  Service was great up to the point the lady had to be a foam nazi, Beer selection wasn't too impressive, didn't try the food, which I would like to do if I'm still allowed to visit after breaking the sacred rule of foam.

Cheers!

Tons of beers to choose from in the coolers that line the walls and an always amazing, rotating tap list. The staff is helpful and super friendly.

Of course the Bier Cheese soup is the standard favorite, and it's great, but they also have a full menu of other great sandwiches and apps. Everything can be done vegetarian friendly, made with Tempeh. I personally love the Tempeh Reuben.

The only downside is that it's often quite difficult to get a place to sit. The place isn't that large, and it fills up quick and gets a bit loud. The lighting is kind of oddly bright as well. Though soon this will change as I hear that they are moving to a new location in February, 2013.

Check out this place if you are in town for sure. If you are a beer lover then the Bier Stein is an absolute must.