Duringst an online chat session with fellow Midnight Son ryan97ou, who was recently in The District of Columbia for a concert review, he sang the praises of one Biergarten Haus (1355 H St NE). Biergarten Haus opened roughly a year ago in DC to much fanfare, what with its authentic German beers (over 20 on tap, natch), authentic German cuisine including Schniztels, Pretzels, other things that end in “zel” or “aten” and an outdoor patio , the reviews don’t seem to be overstated when they claim that Biergarten Haus is “pretty gnarly” (exact quote). And based upon these reviews I’m fairly convinced that a) I need to go there as soon as possible, and b) Baltimore achingly needs something similar.
In the brief period of time when Taps was shuttered and fairly quickly auctioned off and transformed into Delia Foley’s, commenters on ye olde Midnight Sun kicked around a few brilliant ideas for the building, one of which included a German Beerhall type establishment. To my knowledge, there aren’t really such places – heck, even German restaurants at all, aside from Eichenkranz (611 Fagley St, Highlandtown) – in the city, and in my humble opinion such a place would rule XTREMEly hard, and probably make a gajillion dollars within 48 hours. Maybe once Obrycki’s in Fells Point finally shuts its doors for the last time this year, it could make a suitable inhabitant? O’Bryckenstein’s?
My main point here is I want to eat very large pretzels and schnitzels with gigantic steins of beer in Baltimore proper, preferably with patio seating. Can’t someone make this dream a reality?
YES OF COURSE.
plus there is NO WAY that DC should have a place to shove your face with endless ounces of beer and “the drunkest city in america” doesn’t. TRAVESTY!
also a trip to blobs park is also in order.
the pic you put up also is old. they have now put up roof on top of the first outdoor biergarten (yes there are TWO) which has multiple projection screens and a bar in the back, as well as an open garten in the back with huge fransiskaner umbrellas. they are also almost done building a deck on the roof in the back.
rumor has it you need about 2 weeks notice to score a table in advance.
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/100904/GAL-10Sep04-5638/media/PHO-10Sep04-249673.jpg
consider that photo replaced broseph
natch
Co-sign!
Want!
i volunteer my german-language skills.
I don’t care much about the beers, but I do like pretzels and outdoor seating, so sign me up.
Sincerely, Midnight Daughter
What, you never were around for Baltimore Brewing Co.? That was the “German” in my old “We’ve got an American brewpub, a British brewpub, a German brewpub, a Belgian brewpub, and a tourist trap brewpub!” declaration…….
The old Pabst Castle on Charles/Wells Street would be a PERFECT location…if I had a capital investor (calling all applicants), I’d run the joint for sure…quit my job and devote myself to drinking authentic German beers and entertaining people for the rest of my life
Actually yeah, that would be a prime location. Rumor (it was only a rumor) last summer was that Baja Beach Club was going to resurrect there – if there were a parking garage in that vicinity (something that area desperately needs anyway) it would be an absolutely perfect place for it
We need 101 Wells to invest…they could make money from the parking garage as well…and the residents at 101 Wells need somewhere besides RUB with it’s dry excuse for BBQ and even drier selection of good beer
Oh hey, remember DeGroen’s? We had that….and Capitol City Brewing on the second floor of the Light Street Pavilion? Yeah it wasnt a true Haus, but it was nice and had local suds on tap with some bad ass pretzels. The problem with Baltimore is that some asshole tries to reinvent it every few years with their huge capital investment property (Ritz Carlton, Harbor East has too many to count, Silo Point, and the North Shore in Canton) and guess what? We get ritzier places to go that command a lot to eat and drink driving up the rent to prevent something as fun and family oriented as a beer house. If you want a “Haus”, stop supporting the new places and when they fail, gobble that shit up and let’s do it!
PS, Ryan97ou….I miss your musk.
Review of the Biergarten Haus on H street in DC
1. The area should have been the first indication that our experience was going to be bad 2. The food was not good (AT ALL) and made us all sick
3. You are charged for refills on soda 4.
I had 3 in my family and went with another family with 4 people. They automatically added a 20% tip and the service and food was terrible. Not only was my meal brought out before everyone elses. But after I was done eating they brought the other meals and forgot one of my children’s order. No apology, no nothing. Just the waitress stating that meals don’t come out all at once, they come out sparadically. Fortunately I wasn’t out too much money for such a bad meal since I purchased a Groupon. I will go to every website possible to warn everyone
Lotsa crankypants on this thread.
Bmore needs a biergarten, no question. Kinda odd visualizing a “new” sort of biergarten though. Can we make one that already looks 200 years old? I kinda like tradition.
The beauty of it is a lot of the architecture (used and/or unused) in the city is mostly old as hell and wouldn’t need a lot of work to achieve that goal, finding a bunch of old-but-in-good-shape long tables made of oak could be tricky though…
Since this post is still one of the first things that pops up when I
search for “Baltimore Biergarten,” I figured it was worth checking in
with some 2012-era options: Leinenkugel’s opened downtown last year and
is a full-fledged biergarten.
Cafe Einstein opened near Broadway and Eastern a year or two before that
and is just a small cafe, but it has a heavy German focus, with all of
their staff being fluent in either German or (in the minority) Polish.
AFAIK, Eichenkranz and Blob’s Park (both quite a bit farther from
downtown) are also still chugging along, so give them your business too
if you get a chance. I also hear there’s a German place in Catonsville,
though I’ve never been to it.
On the beer end of things, Union Craft Brewing and the resurrected
National Premium are both good recent additions. The former just opened a
shop at Clipper Mill, and while I don’t know if they do retail, their
staff should be a great resource if you want to learn about the local
beer scene. The same can obviously be said about Brewers Art on Charles,
among other places.