Capital Ale House

If you come here during the day time it's unassuming at first. Then you see the huge coolers filled with hundreds of different beers from across the county in bottles and 50+ beers on tap of both local and national macro and craft. Well shoot this is a close to a tap house/bottle house as I've ever seen outside of my hometown.

With this many beers to choose from it's hard to distinguish, but still they take care of you with categorized, described and  filtered menu's with all the info you'll ever need. The staff really knows their stuff when it comes to the beer.

The ice bar in the middle of the bar upstairs is where you place the beer to keep it cool as their small beers are 12, their large beers are 20 imperial pints. They have a stage with live music throughout the week and a downstairs bar and outdoor patio. This place is way more than meets the eye. Prices are average to pricey, but can be pretty inexpensive with their weekly specials and easing back because I can imagine how hard it is to get national favorites. They are open late which is nice when on Sundays and Mondays the rest of the city is sleeping, they aren't actively trying to kick you out.

Fried cheese curds make mozzarella sticks seem like fish sticks. Not only do they add fried sliced garlic, but the aioli sauce has a sriracha-esqueness about it. Deviled eggs topped with spiced Chesapeake crab was excellent. Pretzel is huge and should be shared and they do not skimp on the salt. The mustard is sweet with very little bite. Garlic herb mussels were good, but to me had very little garlic flavor, 1 pound for $10 and 2 for $19. I'm not a fan of the cream sauce on mussels due to the clean meatiness of steamed mussels and even though the cream may have bacon you should stay classic on this. Spinach dip was ok.

Downstairs bar has slightly different kegs, which when not busy they don't mind getting, but when it's slammed it becomes a nuisance. Darts, but no pool downstairs. Outdoor patio is actually pretty big with direct access to bathrooms without the need to go upstairs. Usually slightly understaffed unless it's the weekend. With many great bars in the area I kept finding myself returning here for the variety, patio and a surprisingly good menu for somewhere I might not consider a gastro pub. Gastro concert house may be more appropriate.

Protip: You will get lost and drunk trying to try them all. Stick to your usual category and go by their suggestions as their staff should be considered Subject Matter Experts on the stuff you don't know about. I made the mistake of trying most all their VA beers to support local not remembering that no breweries have all excellent beers, all make a few mediocre' s and many make more average than good beers.

Let's start w/the good:  Mad selection of brews in bottles and on tap.  If they don't have it, then you don't want it.  Barkeeps, in my experience, are very knowledgable as is the wait staff when comes to the beer selection.  If you love beer, then this place is for you.

The food has been decent in my past visits, and today was no exception.  I ordered the black bean burger with sweet potato fries.  The BB burger was filling, a bit on the spicy side, and generally pretty tasty.  The optional sweet potato fries were great.  Not too greasy, and served in a decent portion.  Wife ordered the Peppadew Chicken sandwich w/regular fries, and commented on the somewhat spicy nature of the sauce.  She was pleased.

The service:  The waitress was pleasant enough.  She did disappear for a time, but the place was busy, and I'm sure she had other tables far afield from ours.  No complaints here.  Service was adequate.

The wait for food, however, was 45 minutes on the nose.  We walked in and were seated immediately at 12 noon on Tuesday (today) for lunch.  We placed orders quickly, but after being assured at the 30 minute mark that lunch was on the way, had to wait another 15 minutes.

I believe it was a manager who delivered the food, and immediately apologized for the wait.  She comped the entire meal.  Big kudos for that gesture.  The place was busy, and she didn't have to do that.  It was a class move.  We didn't have to ask for it.  She just did it.  That's why I'll go back, and well, the beer, of course.

The food was excellent and the service was below average. We were grateful to not have to wait (they were very slow for a Fri night), but after placing our order, the service really slacked off. The food made up for it, and I would be willing to go again.

Out of the four of us that went, two ordered beers (our server made excellent recommendations), two ordered burgers, one ordered the bean burger and one ordered the prime rib sandwich. Everyone was extremely happy with their food.

Service was again sub-par as we waited a long time to receive our check and for our payment to be processed.