We went to the new
Slater's 50/50 in in San Diego's Liberty Station on Friday night. Before we went I had seen on Slater's website that it offered a good selection of craft beers. I had also read
The Hop Daddy beer blog, which mentioned that Slater's had 111 taps. Slater's
website only lists a handful of its beer options, shortchanging, for some reason, its actual number of taps. I don't know if Slater's really has 111 taps (the manager told me there were 111) or whether near its closer to 80 taps (like Slater's website states), all I know for certain is there are plenty of beer drinking options.
Some restaurants have a large number of taps, but upon closer inspection, you are left with about three beers you'd want to drink (read: Yard House). But Slater's 50/50's 111 taps were stocked with mostly good stuff, including Stone Brewing, Ballast Point, Bear Republic, Alesmith, Port/Lost Abbey, Iron Smith, and Green Flash beers to name a few. Plus, there was a fair number of quality Belgian beers. Sure there were a handful of macros - Bud, Bud Lite, Ultra, Stella, Blue Moon etc. - but with 111 taps seeing these beers is expected, and who really cares because the important point is that the tap choices at Slater's are heavily weighted towards good beer.
I told a friend about Slater's, which has only been open about a week, and he immediately started putting it down. He didn't like the namesake 50/50 burger, which is half hamburger meat and half bacon, the regular burger patty that he had fell apart, and other people he knew didn't like it either. How can someone form such a negative opinion on a week-old restaurant? I thought the food was good. Slater's is a brewpub-type burger joint, and it fits this style well. I don't eat hamburgers that often, but I have no problems with quality of Slater's burgers. (I had the Thanksgiving Turkey Burger and liked it.) The service was friendly and attentive, too. With about 90 to 100 viable draft beer options to enjoy, what the heck do you want,
The French Laundry? My friend and his negative cohorts can avoid Slater's, this leaves more beer for the rest of us.
(The picture above is a Lost Abbey
Red Barn in a fancy Lost Abbey glass.)
2 comments:
Will they be able to move enough beer to keep it fresh? I love variety and having plenty of options to suit my mood, but not at the expense of freshness and quality. Seems like too many taps unless they're pouring A LOT of beer.
Good question. I guess the main and interesting beer will move. I am not so sure about the boring beers, or expensive Belgians.
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