William’s Uptown Pub and Peanut Bar

November 21, 2008
Wow.. this place is disgusting. Imagine a bar with every single BMC offering on tap, All the AB seasonals, Blue Moon seasonals, whoo-hoo! Red Hook and Widmer too! What?!? Sam Smith? So they have 75+ taps and the same # of bottles? Doesn’t matter if you don’t clean your lines and your bottles are past expiration date. Atmosphere is incredibly broder-forward and the place is insane on weekends. Sure... weekday happy-hours are pretty fair with the occasional Surly deal... No proper glassware. No snifters. Annoying and obnoxious... a glorified Old Chicago. How the hell this is onthe "Minneapolis Brew Tour" is beyond me.

August 1, 2008
William’s is almost like the wanna be beer snob’s sports bar. Not in a bad way, just that they have a great selection AND they play it safe. They have a great tap selection, but nothing too off the wall (no cask tappings) as well as all the sports bar standards in the bottle and a couple on tap. The food is nothing to write home about but I wouldn’t turn it down if it was sitting on my table. The weekend sometimes draws some undesireables but that is just par for the course in Uptown. The prices are good, which is very nice and the staff don’t really have a big head. That is always a plus. Worth the visit if you and your friends can’t agree on a place where they can watch the game and you can get a good pint.

July 6, 2008
Yack. We went here on a Saturday evening and at first it didn’t seem too bad. The price coding was cool and I easily found what I wanted. The furious I got was pretty gross. Uh oh. We sit down away from the bar and by the time our drinks were empty the place gets packed. Hey awesome now I feel like I’m back in Iowa City. Everyone was drinking giant mugs of yellow beer, making it easy to see why I got a crappy Furious. Oh well. I never saw the need for such a giant tap selection, especially one so boring. I never bothered to check the bottles upstairs, maybe they had something interesting. I don’t think I’ll be coming back to find out.

February 25, 2008
I was here this past Saturday night and I believe it was much later than 1 am, but I could be wrong. My good friend and Minnesota resident took us downstairs to the taps and the free peanuts. I looked over the very well-done menu and understood the excellent pricing system (each tap is assigned one of 5? colors, denoting a price class). I ordered a decent Belgian style, Ommegang Hennepin, and tried to find a quieter area to sit. The tap area is frat central, so we headed upstairs to the quieter bottle bar. Unfortunately, the peanuts must remain downstairs. William’s does have an incredible number of beers available (though, as another rater said, nothing too crazy) so it’s worth checking out. Definitely a college bar though. One guy elbowed his way to the tap bartender and demanded a liter mug of Coors Light. Really? Over 70 taps to choose from and he’s determined to chug the Silver Bullet all night? Come on.

January 5, 2008
With the promise of 75 taps and 300 bottles, the selection at Williams bar is surprisingly disappointing. They have managed to stock every commonplace beer possible, avoiding anything particularly interesting. Drinks are pricey, but the peanut bar is a good time and popcorn is free. With a list and description of all the beers that is updated weekly, I feel like Williams could take the sales risk (even with the college crowd) and venture for a few notable taps.

October 19, 2007
Great bar. This is a must stop for any beer enthusiast. 300 beers in bottles and 75 on tap. Downstairs you get free peanuts and popcorn all that you want. They also have food specials and there food is not bad at all. Plenty to do with deer hunter, several dart boards and a few pool tables.

February 18, 2007
A few things to consider: I don’t like spending my evening avoiding pools of vomit. I don’t like women who assume that the fact that they’re attractive necessitates attention (and makes groping strangers like me from behind just an ok thing to do). I don’t like paying huge prices for average beers. The menu includes only portions of the unique choices available elsewhere - and is then packed to the brim with stuff that isn’t worth paying for. And...thank God Bryant Lake Bowl is only a few blocks away.

February 2, 2007
Meh. Yeah, they have 308 bottles, but most are pedestrian and overpriced. Pour comes in a pint glass. Draft selection was even less exciting. An over glorified Old Chicago. Pool was a ridiculous $2 per game. Won’t be going back here...

October 25, 2006
Stopped by for a couple of beers. Still have 308 beers on the menu plus 70 on tap in the basement. We didn’t go down in the basement because we were only there for a little while. Had a couple of good but expensive bottles. They had $1.50 cheesburgers and fries that were surprisingly good considering the price, on Saturday. Overall I would recommend it although I agree that there weren’t many rare beers on the menu.

November 24, 2004
Fantastic draft selection in the basement. Also good (yet odd) beer/food specials: liter of beer and free liter of spaghetti. Some unique beer selections, but you’ll have to pay. Not a cheap watering hole.