Brewery Fare: Good for What Ales You

Let's say you have a Thursday afternoon free from work. You could do worse than spending it in Berkeley on a sunny East Bay Veterans' Day enjoying brewery food.

That's what Marina and I did, meeting her mom and sister and brother-in-law and nephew at Pyramid Alehouse on Gilman Street. We sat in the beer garden, surprisingly vacant except for one other woman drinking ale and reading a book. It was enclosed by metal walls, decorated with climbing plants with pink flowers and room for Boden--the nephew--to march around the table at will. The sun slanted down between the vaulted ceiling in a soothing fashion until it got too hot and we had to retreat to the shade.

Marina and I arrived first and ordered nachos and a beer sampler, the latter proving a fantastic deal. It was comprised of five generous pours for $7.50, which amounted to close to two pints. My two favorites were the Snow Cap and the Thunderhead IPA. The remnants of a six-pack of the latter are in our fridge as I write. Ironically, the two that I can best describe are the two I liked least, which seems to offer a commentary on something about human nature, but I'm not sure what. Or maybe just about me. Maybe I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy. The Apricot Ale was sweet and pleasant enough, but the taste of apricot was undermined a bit by an acrid taste of popcorn butter. The Crystal Wheat Ale tasted like flat tonic water. But they were good, and there is always another beer to order, so really, I think I'm a glass half-full kind of guy when it comes to a brewery, especially when I don't have to drive.

You really can't go to a brewery without eating fish and chips. Well, apparently you can, as most of the others ate something other than fish and chips, which bewilders me, but who am I to judge the eccentricities of others? I'll be honest in saying that I can't always taste much difference between fish and chips from different establishments, but they would have to be really poorly done for me not to enjoy them, and that was not the case here.

And after the beer sampler, a full pint of Snow Cap to go with the food. It's a simple meal, but perhaps that's why I find it so tasty. I've enjoyed other meals at pubs in my time--I often had very tasty pasta dishes at Sean Kelly's in Missoula--but I always come back to beer-battered fish with a side of beer.

What are your favorite pub-dining experiences? You might expect that my all time favorite would have been in Wales, but actually, my memory of the fish and chips from the shop across the road from the University is a bit soggy from excess grease and oil. That's right, even the memory itself is soggy; that's how greasy the fish and chips were. I would say my top five favorite pub-dining experiences, in no particular order and encompassing all sorts of criteria beyond just the quality of the food, are The Irish Bank and The Pig and Whistle in San Francisco, the Drake Hotel in Toronto, Sean Kelly's in Missoula, and Pyramid in Berkeley, but that could be way off. Still, it's a jumping-off point for conversation.