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The facts:

Name: Benny’s Bagels
Pint size: 400 ml
Price: $3.00
MoA/D: 6.67
Beer: Okanagan Springs Pale Ale
Map

I remember spending many an evening during my university days, wiling away the hours talking to friends while abusing Benny’s free coffee refill policy. Then they started charging fifty cents for refills and any reasons I had for going there disappeared. Until one wonderful day I was talking to my brother (who has a nose for these sorts of things) and he let me know that Benny’s had installed beer taps. And the beer was cheap. Oh sweet revelation.

Ever since this has been among my favourite places to go for a post-word beverage. Uncomfortable seats and strange table designs aside, the decor is passable. There’s a decent south-facing patio for summer swilling, and a smattering of artsy types to make me feel as though I myself am somewhat trendy. There’s couches and a fireplace but I’ve never been able to get rid of the riffraff that appear to have taken up permanent residence there. One of the facilities that I’ll never use is the WiFi that’s apparently there. I hope that doesn’t give me cancer of the brain, or at least I hope it doesn’t do so while my liver is still functioning. The place is serve yourself so you do have to work slightly harder for your beer, but consider it as paying yourself a dollar to do so, since that’s basically what you’re saving on the beer.

Grade: B+

Submitted by Julie of macadamiaranch.com

If ever you’re in the mood for cold Old Style and polka tunes, have I got the place for you.

Midway airport, The Baby Doll Polka Club serves up spirits and polka music every night. There is a dance floor, mirrored walls, and a small stage where bands like the Polkaholics and the bar owner’s Eddie Korosa Jr and His Boys From Illinois (that’s Illinoize, youse guys) churn out the oompah hits. On holidays, or when she’s in the mood, Eddie’s mom (who tends bar) will sometimes bring in homemade potato salad.

The facts:

Name: The Railway Club
Glass size: 400ml/14oz
Price: $4.35 (on special)
MoA/D: 4.60
Beer: Okanagan Springs 1516 lager
Website: http://www.therailwayclub.com
Map

I am a great admirer of the audible arts (audio arts? audi cars?), and The Railway Club is one of the premier (and few) locales in Vancouver to see smaller and local bands. I believe our friend Brett’s band Girl Nobody has played there a few times. So you may be surprised that this was the first time I had ever been to this location to imbibe of the amber ale and take in some tunes. You may not be surprised that this review comes hot on the heels of the Tatlows review, and as such I had a six beer head start to ease me into the mood. In fact, you should probably take this entire review with a block of salt as at this point in the evening it’s entirely possibly I may have found Magaret Thatcher attractive (“You know that time, you know, when you kicked Chile’s ass on those islands? That rocked …Am I Tina? What? .. Are you Tina? No, you’re Magaret”). Also, I was forced to do my measuring on the ground, so I can’t guarantee the results 100%, for all I know carpets have higher density than tables, especially when they’re entirely beer soaked. You see what I go through for you people? You see?.

The band were very good, and his website has a cool name, IBreakStrings.com (lest you think he is attempting to mislead you, he did indeed break 4 strings during his set. I think he may have filed them down to weaken them). The Railway Club could be described as .. cozy .. as in you’re jammed in cheek by jowl, and getting a pint is an exercise in frustration. “Screw the band, can you people not see my beer is empty?!” I was wont to yell very loudly. Note: you’re best to keep your empty glasses to save on trips to the washroom. However the place is nice, there’s no denying that, and the music was good, so I’m inclined to overlook both the 30 minute extravaganza to get the beer and the highest MoA/D to date. I give it a 78%, or a B+. Lower the price of the beer (or increase the glass size of course) and this place could easily garner an A..

PS. There was also a $10 cover charge. I think the fact that even with that and the people and the price of beer (on special no less) that this place gets that high a rating could be construed as more of a comment on how much I’d had to drink rather than the bar itself.

The facts:

Name: The Fairview Pub
Pitcher size: 1,700 ml
Price: $10.50 (on special)
MoA/D: 8.10
Beer: Alberta Genuine Draft
Website: http://www.fairviewpub.ca
Map

Every once in awhile you stumble across a bar that reeks of history. A bar that you can see has been through the myriad eras of your city and has been imbued with the undercurrents of all that makes your city great.

This is not one of those bars.

The best I can say for the Fairview is they have a big tv screen for watching hockey. It looks like the bar was built about 40 years ago and nothing has been changed since, including the waitresses. Although to be fair, I think they bought the waitresses new outfits sometime in the ’80s. At best, and this is stretching, you might be able to say that it has a faux-biker-bar atmosphere. I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing or not, probably not, but it’s the best thing I can think of. I will grant you that the beer is pretty cheap, but then, I can take left over beer from the kegs of other bars and sell it pretty cheap too. But for my money I’ll wander around the corner to the Jolly Alderman which at least has NTN.

I’m giving the Fairview a 55%, or a D. It would have been lower but the prices were reasonable, and the Canucks won that night.

Note: they appear to have really bad music nights as well. I was pretty trashed and left my bag behind. When I went to go get it some blues band was playing way too loud, and I don’t mean as in my ears hurt, I mean as in I could hear them. They were terrible. But again, I was only there for a moment and I was pretty drunk, so it could have been John Lee Hooker just tuning up, but I really really doubt it. It’s like a poor man’s Yale, which, really, is all I should have said for the entire review.

The facts:

Name: Tatlows
Glass size: 400mls/14oz
Price: $4.25
MoA/D: 4.71
Beer: Okanagan Springs 1516 lager.
Website: http://www.tatlows.com
Map

The figurin’:
Well hello there! Our first ever review, and we here at thebarproject.com are very very excited about it. So excited that we chose what used to be our local pub to do our first review: Tatlows! Tatlows is a half a block away as the crow flies (a full block as the drunk stumbles) from our old abode and many a drunken night was spent there. The problem with this is that I’m sure the good memories have introduced non-scientific elements into the equation, and may have built up expectations that were doomed to be not lived up to. First disappointment, the size of the glasses. I was stunned to learn that for years I was drinking 400 ml glasses, while thinking they were 500 mls. My ego took a pretty severe beating there. No longer could I wander up to strange people and try and impress them by saying ‘I’ve had 9 pints and look! I’m not even vomiting on you yet..’ Also, the prices have gone up. Gone are the days when on Monday and Wednesday one could purchase a pint for a cool $2.50. Add onto all this the fact that this is my first time calculating the MoA/D on a pint of beer purchased in a bar .. let’s just say it’s a bit lower than the results from when I first devised the system. Am I surprised that chateau de cardboard is a better deal than bar beer? No, of course not, but I’m seriously thinking it was a mistake not to start up thecaskwineproject.com.

But that’s all in the past now, let’s focus briefly on the good things at Tatlows. There’s a good atmosphere there. A nice fireplace, some comfy sofas, the lights are turned down low so one can drink oneself into near oblivion without too many people noticing. There’s a large projection screen that pulls down for when there’s a hockey game, and there’s also a large chalk drawing of a man with a chicken in a rolled up newspaper. I’m not sure if that’s good or not but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, I’ve never really understood art. Also, there’s the twin girls that are always serving there. I’m not even sure if they’re attractive or not, but that’s sort of beside the point. Much like lesbians, twins are always alluring to your average male. They’re the sort of thing that 16 year olds (or 29 year olds with websites) stand around talking about in the hallway. That and lesbian twins. (I heard a rumour once that the government during the Second World War had a some lesbian twin catholic school girls, but had to contain them at Area 51, for democracy itself was threatened.)

So in spite of the vast array of disappointments, I’m still inclined to give Tatlow’s a passing grade. The beer isn’t incredibly expensive, and the atmosphere is nice. So, with that in mind, I’ll set it as the standard 75%, or a B.

PS. I should note that I consumed 6 ‘pints’ there that evening and then moved on for more beer, and somewhere in the process lost all my notes. I think I tried a Guinness, but I can’t remember what I paid for it. So if you come back and the facts have changed it’s because I’ve put my data up for ‘scientific review’.

The facts:

Name: Rugby Beach Grill Club
Glass size: 400ml/14oz
Price: $1.75
MoA/D: 11.42
Beer: Pacific Genuine Draft
Website: none
Map

Man, you know with a MoA/D like that you’re going to get a pretty decent rating. There’s no denying that the beer at Rugby is capital ‘C’ Cheap! There’s also a good selection and the food is good. This is also the first location to actually specify the size of the beer on the menu. In fact, it gets better, in that they list their beer at the 10 oz prices and then say that it’s “also available in a 14 oz size at the same price per ounce.” That’s the sort of attention to detail that I can relate to on a personal level. (In case you’re wondering, I still measured to ensure they weren’t ripping me off anyway).

All that said, I don’t think I’m actually that big a fan of Rugby. For one thing, do I call it Rugby? The Rugby? It isn’t “The Rugby Beach Club Grill.” And sure that beer was dirt cheap, but it tasted like it might have been brewed in 1998 (and it might have been, to the best of my knowledge I’m the first person that’s ever ordered a pint of Pacific Genuine Draft). Granted, you can get better beers for not much more money, but you run the risk of being called a snob, by me. If you want to go for a lunch-time beer, and I do, then (the?) Rugby is not for you. It opens at 4:52 (or some other similarly inane time). The atmosphere is alright, it’s suitably dark, but there’s a very very large fish hanging from the ceiling and I’m not sure what that’s all about. Actually, my biggest complaint is that it isn’t a ‘bar’ as such. And oh man do I ever want it to be a bar, and bad. But it’s a restaurant, which means that in spite of new legal .. uhh .. laws .. they still seem pretty insistent that you eat some of their food. And while their food is good, it’s also fairly pricey. So if one is meeting up for a post-work beer this really isn’t all that great an option.

But whoa man is that beer ever cheap.

So I’m giving it a 72%, or a B-.