Featured in Drink 2008

Looking to socialize? Bring friends or look elsewhere. HUB is all about the beer, as evidenced by stool after stool, table after table, of silently sipping souls. The brews are tasty enough to pack the house on a Monday night, and the food (vegan pizza, burgers, wings, etc.), isn’t bad either—at peak dining hours, the wait can exceed an hour. So which in-house beer should you pick? Regulars recommend the IPA, but don’t listen to them. Instead, try the fruity Velvet ESB or the Survival Seven-Grain Stout, an addictive brew finished with Stumptown espresso beans. Less delicious but equally enticing are enviro-friendly perks like recycled construction materials and biodiesel-fired brew kettles (which use waste oil from the fryer). What strikes most is the size—Hopworks has an amazing 3,400 square feet of indoor space, and when the patio’s open it can accommodate 238 beerophiles. Frankly, seeing so many people quietly drinking in one place is…well, it’s unnerving.
Perfect Patron: A middle-aged man, squeezed in between rambunctious couples, pairing his hops with Albert Camus’ The Plague. (JKM)
HAPPY HOUR 3-6 PM DAILY: $1.75-$3.75 FOOD SPECIALS.
SMOKE-FREE, PATIO, WI-FI.