The Brickskeller

October 6, 2008
I have no idea how many dozens (likely hundreds) of times I’ve been to the Brick. I grew up in the area, lived in Dupont for a good stretch, and basically found my way into the world of craft beer by navigating the menu. I will never stop being fond of dingy checkered tablecloths, Creedence on the juke, fucked up cans behind cloudy glass casings, and a general sense of decay all around. It seems so fitting. Average pub fare. The service has always ranged from atrocious to superlative. And the selection is, ahem, variable as well - if they had everything they listed (most of it pretty overpriced) it’d be a solid 20, even a 22. Decent taps upstairs, although a few too many GW students at times (y’all pipe down). I love the joint, but it’s hard not to admit that it’s gone downhill in the last 5 or so years.

September 9, 2008 [ Updated September 11, 2008 ]
Great beer menu. They weren’t out of any of the three beers I ordered. Nice waitress was pretty knowledgeable. Some of the bottles are ridiculously priced, but others are fair. Food is decent, but not really the selling point here. By the way there are about 10 good beers on tap, not 2 as listed.

September 1, 2008
The amazing selection is the draw here. The staff was friendly but seemed a little overworked on the busy night we went here. Food was okay for what it was, but nothing special. Definitely worth the trip.

August 27, 2008
It’s like I died and went to beer heaven. All I can say is, if you’re looking for a bar to spend a few hours in and try and bunch of different types of beers...then this is the place! The food there was decent at best...but who the hell cares about that. Our waiter was fairly steeped in beer knowledge, and pointed us in the right direction when wanting to try something new. My only gripe was requesting about five different beers that they didn’t have available.....oh well.

August 5, 2008
Nice food. Nice long beerlist. Not too much really good, rare beers though. But some nice ones. Don’t forget your ID..

August 2, 2008
OVER-RATED. The menu was on typing paper, which was stained and old. The glasses were whatever just came out of the dishwasher, often still wet. Waiter knew little about what they had, and over half of what we ordered they did not have. The only plus is that even so the selection is amazing. Oh, and they aren’t open Saturday afternoon, duh.

August 1, 2008
Beer heaven, nirvana....whatever you believe to be the ultimate stop this is it. Best beer selection, cool staff, decent food, nice atmosphere for drinking beer. Get there and check it out for yourself, you wont be disappointed.

July 31, 2008
I got here pretty late at night on a Tuesday, so I will rerate it when I go again another time. Overall, the feel of the place was pretty good and one of the stronger points of the place. The food was good, but not great, and the beer list (although amazing in length and variety) is certainly not up to date. Having heard in advance that the list being outdated was a problem for many, I picked 3 beers that I thought were common enough to at least get one of them. This was not the case though, and since it was getting late I was forced to quickly pick a beer that I wasn’t really looking for but that I knew that they would have. The prices seemed a little high to me for imports, but DC is fairly expensive overall, so it probably was fair. Service was surprisingly slow considering the small number of people there, but the waitress was quite friendly and helpful. One final thing to note is that mice were running freely about the floor as I ate...so if you have a fear of mice you may want to go when it is crowded enough to scare them off.

July 11, 2008
must have hit this place on an off day. the beers and the selection available was great pity about the waitress service. May try again if i get back to washington.

July 1, 2008
The food was great, the atmosphere was good, the service was excellent but the beer was Oh My God overwhelming. Great place but costly because I wanted to try them all, but would end up dead.