Still other classic beer bars haven’t specifically closed down, but remain stuck in limbo—a period of stasis that has lasted far longer than anyone would have expected as the pandemic descended upon the U.S. in the spring of 2020. The iconic ChurchKey in Washington, D.C., for instance, is still “temporarily closed” more than a year after it initially shut down, as its ownership seemingly continues to debate the correct time to reopen.
This is a story that has played out everywhere, and it’s a threat more existential than the still-onerous restrictions of COVID-19, a more pervasive sign that the time of the “craft beer bar” has simply come and gone in many locales. Because when you get right down to it, our patronage has increasingly shifted away from those old-school establishments, to the constellation of brewery taprooms that surround them. The more taprooms there are, the less often we make it out to the classic beer bar.
I’m as guilty of it as anyone, and it’s not as if there’s something inherently bad or undesirable about brewery taprooms. I probably visit several of them every single week, on average. These brewery taprooms have shaped the outline of modern beer culture for better or worse, however, particularly in the way that they’ve normalized the expectation that many breweries put out a new beer or two every single weekend, which hasn’t exactly been a great thing for quality.
And perhaps these businesses are indeed obsolete in a practical sense, given that many were founded in an earlier era when craft beer was simply much more difficult to find in the marketplace. Still, I find myself missing some of the things that a great beer bar provides, and that a brewery taproom doesn’t often supply.
Oh no!
Glad to see the write-up about this! We have to say the pandemic only showed how a three-tier system sustained bars. But with the change in brewery licensing + allowance of outside food options incl. BYO, Food Truck, & delivery, there will be others and soon!
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