I'll probably be checking it out this Friday, but even then, they may have not run out of their current kegs to start putting on the Keith's.cratez wrote:That was two years ago. Besides the regular IPA (lager), I haven't seen any Keith's on in a very long time. The abandonment of micros wasn't apparent to me last week as they still had ~13 crafters on (and good ones at that), but based on what Matthew has learned, it sounds like The Shire won't be worth visiting anymore. I'm surprised the new manager has chosen to go macro since they could've easily capitalized on the fallout from Gambrinus closing. What a boneheaded move.ErkLR wrote: I guess I'll go in and see what the selection is like now. I remember when they had 3 kinds of Keith's on.
ErkLR wrote: That could explain why they had no more Railway City beers when I went last month and it seemed as if they were done with that brewery.
IMHO Railway was one of the weaker micros that they carried. When faced with the choice between RCB stuff and beers from Denison's, F&M Stone Hammer, Spearhead, Grand River, and Great Lakes, I always went with the latter. But they did get some decent seasonals from time to time, like the Sham Bock.
I agree that there's better stuff out there than Railway City (except I think Dead Elephant is excellent), but the bar guy seemed to imply that they were upset with Railway as if they had a falling out, though he didn't say specifically. I think you're right, with Gambrinus being on hiatus, The Shire could have gone for some of that business. Oddly when I was in there several Fridays (>a month?) ago, around 6:00 the entire clientele was >60 years old. I don't know what that means, could have just been friends of the guy playing guitar.