Beer, bar, and a birthday

Recently, two of my best friends (and best drinking buddies) turned 22. For one, we celebrated at the already-reviewed Redline, for the other, we headed to John Harvard's on Monday night for some beers, half-priced appetizers, and major academic procrastination.

John Harvard's Brew House is a restaurant/brewery chain with eight locations up and down the east coast. The place prides itself on its homemade beer that ranges from pale golden light lagers to coal black stout. And while some beers are brewed regularly, other on the menu are seasonal. The restaurant is pretty good too, but this is a bar review -- eats are secondary to drinks.

Even though it was a Monday we still had to wait a few minutes for a table -- apparently Mondays are John Harvard's quiz night. College students packed the place, sitting in booths and at large round, wooden tables, while the few older people there stood at the bar.

After being seated, we excitedly grabbed the menus off the table to order our half-priced apps (a Monday night special), but discovered only certain appetizers (read: the less popular ones) feature the discounted price. Although we were disappointed, this was our sole disappointment of the evening. The service was excellent and the food (we coughed up the extra dough for nachos and spinach artichoke dip) came quickly.

As advertised, the beers are distinctive, tasty, and light-years away from the Natty Ice served straight from the iced-up tubs at house parties. The company's enthusiasm for beer can be seen simply on its menu, which includes a glossary of beer terminology, naming the specific hops, malt, and original gravity for each drink.

The birthday girl ordered the beer sampler, which offers a sizable sample of each on a little tray for only $4.95. In general, the prices were reasonable; a pint of their pale ale costs $3.75 which, considering a bottle of Bud can cost $5 downtown, is pretty good. The sampler gave us a chance to try all the beers; we concluded that the Colonial Kolsch tastes like Corona.

The atmosphere is casual, but lively, with most people wearing Harvard hoodies, t-shirts, and visors (seriously, it was like the COOP exploded in there). The quiz night created an intelligent and competitive vibe, but we didn't participate, choosing to play our own drinking game instead. And actually, except for one super enthusiastic group that pushed two tables together for their team, many people didn't pay attention to the questions.

Oddly the music was inconsistent, but we figured this had to do with the somewhat annoying quiz night DJ. They played something old -- Paula Abdul's "Straight Up," -- something new -- the tech remix of Bryan Adam's "Red Heaven," -- and something random -- unidentifiable teenybopper music. The music blasted like in an Abercrombie store, making it difficult to have conversations across the table (and of course, just as you to start to yell, there's a pause in the music, so everyone can stare at you).

Although somewhat crowded, the place wasn't too crazy (after all, it was a Monday night), but that seemed to fit what we were looking for -- turning 22 is a touch more "sophisticated" than turning 21.