6/25/11
After a disappointing stop at Bru Room @ BAR down the street, we headed to The Cask Republic to hopefully improve on the evening beer hunt. We found some pretty good beer--and couldn't stand to stay there.
My wife and I spent the day being touristy while driving from Boston, so ended up in New Haven rather late on a Saturday. By the time we got to TCR, it was closer to 10 pm and the volume of the bar was unbearable. We drank in spite of the noise. In an earlier life, I was a bouncer in a college bar and understand why the level of noise increases as the night goes at a dance club. But this is a beautiful, dark wood bar with great beer--and no dance floor. No reason to be that loud. My wife went outside to answer a phone call--and two college students just opened the door, listened, and turned around immediately, saying that it was way too loud. Wish I had been that smart--but I didn't go to Yale. It took the entire next day for the ringing in my ears to go down.
As for the beer, excellent selection and well served. Very impressive and fun. Thus, my extremely mixed feeling about The Cask Republic. Had we gotten into New Haven in the afternoon and hit TCR earlier, we might have liked it a lot. As is, it's a painful memory that I suffered for too long for the sake of a good beer.
7/19/11
I received a very nice note from the owner of The Cask Republic, addressing my concerns. I both respect and appreciate his concern and effort to improve, so I'm adding it to the review. While the gist of my review stands, TCR is a place that I would most definitely return to drink, given the opportunity, especially if it was at a quieter time of day. Maybe not as clear as I would have liked in my initial review, the beer quality at TCR is excellent and is well served--a much harder and important factor than the cosmetic issues of volume and service.
No comments:
Post a Comment