Strange Brew

August 9, 2009
Nice bar on a brick sidewalk side street in Manchester. 1800’s mill building, all brick and wood inside. Amazing, in my experience, selection. over 70 taps. all decent beers too!. Prices weren’t bad either. It is a little hard to find, but well worth it.

July 15, 2009
A very friendly and active bar, on a major league scale for a small city. The bar was jam packed at 5 pm, with a few people outside mulling about including some staff who found an excellent beer to try. There are long horizontal tables, encouraging conversation, as you can see most people here wherever you are. Very good selection of taps, fresh as a derivative of turnover, although focused on what’s available. I understand that this state is hard to cover, and nationally available "hottest rated" beers are not to be expected. Decent upscale area. Staff was a bit harried, prices very good, $3 for a DIPA pint on cask!

June 7, 2009
This is a fun place. Great beer selection and their food is pretty good. Better than most bars. It’s a big time college hangout during the school season and all the students hang out downstairs while just about everybody else hangs out upstairs where the bands play. I usually go here when I’m up in NH.

April 17, 2008
This is a fun place. A little hard to find the first time as it’s down a small side street right off of Main Street. Nice beer selection, at least for the area, live music (depending on what night you go), good crowd, tv’s with sporting events usually on and they’ve got games as well. A good all around bar to hang out at.

November 1, 2006 [ Updated October 25, 2007 ]
11 months later and Strange Brew is as good as it ever was unless, of course, you’re a smoker... in which case the new state motto of Live Smoke-free or Die really bites. It would be nice ti see all those anti-smoking types show up to replace the smoking crowd, now that the state have been forced smoke-absent. As ever, Strange Brew pushes the limit of number of draughts you can keep on form in a city the size of Manchester. But the beers I had were excellent (particularly the Smuttynose IPA), the music (while absent while I was ther) is still reportedty great, and the wait staff friendly, accommodating and fairly efficient. This is the one establishment _not_ to miss in Manchester.

October 31, 2006 [ Updated November 5, 2006 ]
It’s pretty fun.. I’ve seen great blues bands everytime I was there. Great selection of beers for NH, but I’m just spoiled from my local places in NY or OR. I enjoy that they have Woodstock Weasel Wheat. One of my fav NH beers. Food is great for the price, awesome appetizers. Good for the college crowd.

August 18, 2006
2 dollar draft specials great for the college crowd

July 27, 2006
A really huge selection of beers on tap... that’s the big draw for this place. That, and the free popcorn, as mentioned by user "BitchesBrew". This place is always pretty smoky and packed with college-aged folks... but they do have live music pretty much every night of the week. I usually end up here now and again, but due to the majority of the clientele being fairly obnoxious, I’m never really DYING to go back. Two dollar beers on Tuesday is a major plus though.

December 29, 2005
This placed was really crowded when I went here. They were letting people in only as people left making for long lines outside. Very large inside, crowd was a diverse mix. The beer selection didn’t impress me much, lots of taps dispensing worthless crap and only a few with anything decent. A fun bar to hang out in, but not the type of place that would get most beer geeks excited.

September 14, 2005
Strange Brew is one of my favorite places in Manchester. Two floors, both very different. The basement gets the younger crowd, while upstairs gets the live music and the older crowd generally. Usually a few bikers hanging out. The bands can be great at times, also a back room to play pool or foosball. Free popcorn (which is a big plus in my book!). Large selection on tap for the places around here (not like the Yard House in Cali though)