HH BEER x2
The beer at this place wasn’t great and the cocktails worse, but he liked that the bar opened out to the sidewalk and allowed in the fresh air. It was on his way home, and on hot days like today the slightly flat yellow beer was a reprieve from the sun and concrete. They also opened at four, and four is better than five when it comes to grabbing a drink.
It wasn't that the place was all around bad, it just wasn’t that good. The bartenders and servers changed regularly as the management stayed and aged, though that was to be expected in a college town, he surmised. The menu was on a knockoff iPad covered in smudged garlic butter fingerprints that he always refused to touch. All the booths needed some upholstery attention and the decor needed a time machine, but he had always been a sucker for a bar with an open door.
Even though he stopped by once a week, the bartender always asked the same questions. Water? Bread? Are you joining us for dinner? No. No. No, just a beer, please. Beers on tap were half price for happy hour and subsequently half carbonated, but for some reason he didn’t care, and a Stella was the best offering available.
His beer arrived with zero fanfare in a classic thick walled pint glass with little to no head to speak of. He had seen beers at a ballpark poured better. Looking at the glass and the slowly rising bubbles reminded him of a fish tank. Through the lager, he could see a man at a high top swirling a glass of white as the bartender lazily polished some stubborn lipstick off a glass.
He always drank the first beer quickly and usually ordered another unless it was threatening rain—today was bright and sunny. For the first time, the bartender didn’t ask and simply poured another one to replace his empty glass. She dropped it off with a receipt that read “HH BEER x2.” Odds are she would be gone by next semester, but until then, she seemed to have his regular order down pat.