Stephanie's Restaurant and Lounge Sports Bar

Let me say up front that I only entered the upstairs bar and didn't try any food. So, for all I know, they might make a tasty burger, but I'll never return to find out.

A friend and I who hadn't seen one another for a couple years were looking for someplace in Doylestown to catch up. I like craft beer and he likes any beer, so we decided to try Stephanie's given that they present themselves as a bar for "beer geeks" (it even says so right on their cheesy coasters). The beer list on their website wasn't spectacular, but it had some interesting selections. The actual bar, not so much. In fact, as soon as he handed me their beer list, the bartender warned me that he was out of EIGHTEEN beers. Given that there were 31 beers on the list, that means nearly 60% OF THEIR TAPS WERE DRY!

Oh, well, we were already there. And Racer 5 was one of the few kegs that was still on line. Of course, when he delivered my pint, I learned that it was $8. To put that in perspective, on a per-ounce basis, that's about 3.5 times the retail bottle cost. If you were to calculate the per-ounce cost based on the cost of a keg on a commercial account, I'm willing to bet their mark-up is more like 6-8X. I later decided to switch to Founders Breakfast Stout .... oops, make that NINETEEN dead taps (we've now crossed the 60% mark). He added that the only stout or porter still flowing was Guinness -- what is this, Applebees? Actually, no, because I suspect Applebee's prices their wares much more fairly than Stephanie's does. So, I gritted my teeth and settled for another $8 Racer 5.

Well, maybe I was paying for the lovely atmosphere, right? Well ... no. The 10 or so TVs scattered around the place all had the same hockey game on, all with the sound turned up loud enough to make conversation difficult, but possible. I suppose I should have counted my blessings, however, because not much later some chucklehead with a Mr. Microphone cranked to 11 began blithering about trivia questions and conversation did become impossible. The thing is, there were only six of us in the bar (gee, I wonder why) and only 3 people seemed even marginally interested in playing this nimrod's game, and they were all seated at a table FIVE FEET AWAY FROM HIM. Yet, he still apparently needed a PA system cranked to the max to add to the "fun." it was at this point, I finished up and left.

On the plus side, our bartender seemed like a nice guy. Still, would it have killed him to knock a buck or two off my second pint to acknowledge that they were basically running a bait-and-switch operation at this point?

All things considered, judged by their self definition as a beer geek bar, Stephanie's can only be considered an EPIC FAIL.

Get the Guinness burger if you like onions on your burger.  One of the best burgers ever!

We were randomly walking through town on a Friday night looking for a drinking establishment. We found this place, and thought for sure it was going to be another douchebag sports bar with shitty beer.

We were so pleasantly surprised to find a super friendly bartender, an amazing beer selection (including three Michigan beers to cure my homesickness!), and decent bar food.

We were a little confused, as there seemed to be a club in the basement with scantily clad women filing in as it got later. We weren't brave enough to check that out, but the main floor pub is definitely worth a look if you're a beer fan.