The Bar Towel

The campus pub at Georgian College has a rotating schedule of daily drink specials. They just don't have a good selection of beer.

Best deals in Ottawa are at Hooley's.
$4 for Keith's and Rickards on Tuesday
$4 bar rail on Wednesdays
$3 Coronas on Thursdays
$4.50 domestic between 4 and 9 on Friday (and domestic includes Kichessippi)
Throw in $3 baskets of popcorn or pogos and it's a pretty cheap evening.

Cass wrote:Dug up this old thread after seeing this on Toronto Life. Nice to see a couple of places taking advantage.

http://www.torontolife.com/daily/daily- ... appy-hour/

Oh, 3 dollar beers at the Maddy - you served me well...

The obvious difference between here and down south is that U.S. micro beer bars regularly offer happy hour deals on beers and food that are actually worth consuming. And sometimes the deals are more like steals.

This last trip I saw $3 craft/import pints at Mr. Dunderbak's and Shores Festhaus...everything from Cigar City Jai Alai to Spaten Optimator to Terrapin one-offs. Grand Trunk in Detroit probably has the cheapest one I've come across with $2.50 micro pints on Sundays. Though I'm not sure whether it's linked to/only offered during the college football season.

I think the reason we tend not to see these types of deals at our good local beer bars is because they face a completely different environment and set of circumstances i.e. higher property taxes, more expensive keg prices, possibly higher licensing/renewal fees, no established happy hour culture, etc.

I still remember a dive bar in Erie a few years back offering jugs of Southern Tier IPA for $2.50 (Coors was $4.00). They had to clear out a keg before it got too stale!

cratez wrote: I think the reason we tend not to see these types of deals at our good local beer bars is because they face a completely different environment and set of circumstances i.e. higher property taxes, more expensive keg prices, possibly higher licensing/renewal fees, no established happy hour culture, etc.

The drinks deals are essentially illegal / the price has to stay the same all day if I recall correctly? The lack of food deals is another question.

reading through torontos 'best' happy hour deals makes me long for my annual trip to california. Happy hour at my favourite place there has 1.75$ pints of craft beer from 4-6 every day.. Stone Arrogant Bastard etc. for 1.75$

JerCraigs wrote:The drinks deals are essentially illegal / the price has to stay the same all day if I recall correctly?

That used to be the case, but isn't any longer. That was part of the point of the Toronto Life article linked above.

GregClow wrote:

JerCraigs wrote:The drinks deals are essentially illegal / the price has to stay the same all day if I recall correctly?

That used to be the case, but isn't any longer. That was part of the point of the Toronto Life article linked above.

Apparently I should have clicked the link ...

mistermurphy wrote:I can't think of any other good bars with really appealing special nights or hours. I bunch of places seem to focus on the food as a way to draw customers in. As an example, a few places have an "appy hour" for half price appetizers.

Bar Hop and The Only both do $5 pints on Sunday and WVRST does $5 pints on Monday.

Matt

Bar_Hop wrote:

mistermurphy wrote:I can't think of any other good bars with really appealing special nights or hours. I bunch of places seem to focus on the food as a way to draw customers in. As an example, a few places have an "appy hour" for half price appetizers.

Bar Hop and The Only both do $5 pints on Sunday and WVRST does $5 pints on Monday.

Matt

Volo does (or did?) $5 pints on Mondays. In terms of wine, fancy shmancy places like Edulis, have Sunday lunches and half price bottles of wine which at places like that, is usually a pretty good deal.

Bar_Hop wrote: Bar Hop and The Only both do $5 pints on Sunday and WVRST does $5 pints on Monday.

Yeah, these limited ("select" OCB taps) one-day offers are pretty modest compared to the dirt cheap, everything on tap, multi-day deals in the States, but still decent value considering many draughts in T.O. run for $7.50 or higher.

And as I mentioned above, it's probably unreasonable for us to expect our good micro bars to offer American-style happy hours when they face higher costs and taxes and have more regulations to comply with.

Just using keg prices as an example, I know of several OCB draught beers that cost hundreds of dollars to purchase, whereas Bell's seasonal kegs sell for ~$100 in retail (i.e. including the store's markup). If a bar pays $80 for a keg of Bell's Octoberfest vs. $250 for Spearhead HSPA, that undoubtedly makes a difference in whether or not they can afford to offer rock bottom drink deals.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see $3 pints of Karma Citra at my local every Mon-Thurs, but I'm guessing the bars would already be offering this if they could do it without losing their asses. Presumably they can't.

Russian River
Santa Rosa, CA
M-F
4:30 - 6:30
$3.25 Pliny

They could call it something less American-sounding. They could call it "less of a rip off" hour. Or "Screw the insane taxes, we love our costomers" hour.

Hmm, that would just make Ontario look bad... but anyway, cheers to 'freedom of speech' hour!

Looks like Bryden's might have the best happy hour deal in the city - albeit only one day a week - as they offer $10 Great Lakes pitchers and $6 appetizers every Monday. Haven't found out whether this applies to the Karma Citra (which is almost always on tap) but assuming it does that means you can get 4-5 glasses of Crazy Canuck/Karma and a pound of wings for $16. I think I need to start coming on Mondays!