Strange Brew Tavern

I like their service, their wait staffs are nice and good looking.

Started going here about 3 years ago, service was ALWAYS spotty but food and beer selection always good. Now service is poor all the time, restaurant can be almost empty and we still sit and wait for service even for a drink. Twice we have gotten up and left after waiting 15 minutes for staff to come to our table. Staff is standing at the hostess station chatting away and IGNORING paying customers! Food is terrible, super greasy, no flavor and you need to change the oil in the fryers every so often. Great beer selection??? My husband rarely is able to get his first, second or third selection because «the keg just kicked». Why advertise all the beer when the reality is you only have ¼ of what you advertise. We will not be going back. What happened to the owner, he actually used to take pride in his place. Now it’s just a crappy dive bar like most of the others in Manch!

Great draft beer selection, lots of comfort food items on the menu. I had the Guinness meatballs over mashed potatoes, Sheryl had the meatloaf which was enormous. LJ had mac & cheese with bacon — but you can get it with sausage or Hamburg. Great taste.
We had zucchini fries & a hummus plate as apps. Oh and HAPPY HOUR! Us Massholes don’t get that — so when we head north it’s a bene! ½ price beer & apps from 4 – 7 on a Saturday night. You betcha

The only reason I am giving this two stars is because the food was good, especially the pickle chips. Our waitress who was the hostess was terrible. We came in not very busy loving the atmosphere of the restaurant. We saw the stage and got excited to come back for live music but most likely we won’t come back. The waitress/​hostess was very rude and took about 10 minutes to get us our waters and then we had to wait more to order our drinks. We both ordered flights and the bartender put a maple beer in the fruit flight, the seasonal or local flight absolutely, but not the fruit flight. The overall experience was ruined by the waitress/​hostess and she never checked on us after we had gotten our meal and we needed ketchup for our sides, that we never ended up eating because it took too long. The only remark about the food was that there was sweet potato fries mixed in with the regular fries.

This very popular bar has excellent food but miserable service. Every time we have been there it’s nearly impossible to get any reasonable service. The place is so uncomfortably crowded also. If you’re into wall-​to-​wall people and don’t mind extremely loud then it’s a good choice

Luckily I was fortunate to come in a few times when they had blues night and a band was playing. Good vibes and music. The food wasn’t the best, but they have a good selection of beers if you’re into that.

Definitely a dive, but if you’re into that, this place is great. The crowd is normally pretty good, and they have a ton of beers. I stop by when passing.
Keep in mind, you’re not walking into a restaurant at the Ritz-​Carlton. It was pretty grungy, but I don’t care. I’ll be back.

I only every visit this place on Tuesday nights, so take my review with a grain of salt. However, Two Dollar Tuesdays are awesome. They have a HUGE selection of draft beers from all over, and many of them are selected as $ 2 drafts on Tuesdays. They also offer half priced appetizers as well. There’s a blues band that usually plays in the main room. It can get a little loud, so I like to get there early and snag a table in the back. It gets pretty busy, and not just for a Tuesday.

They had a good happy hour deal and a large number of beers on tap. I sat at the bar, had wings and beer and the bartender was very attentive. Nice bar atmosphere, good looking menu. I’ll go back.

I only came for drinks so my review does not include food. My boyfriend brought me when we were in the area recently because it was one of his college hangouts. I’m from out of state and was shocked to see the kind of deals they can have on drinks. We got 2 beers each and only paid $ 12 total. The beer selection was huge with lot of unique hard-​to-​find selections. The interior of the building with exposed brick reminds me of some of the older bars in Boston. I definitely would go back if I were in the area.

Just moved here and popped in for dinner as it is close to my place.
The good: Beer selection and price, live music every night.
The mediocre: The service, lots of «server gangs» going on. The food runner does not know the table/​seat numbers.
The bad: My burger was over cooked, as were the french fries, there was one piece of bacon on the burger… the guy sitting next to me said his chicken was dry also. It is some pretty simple stuff here to get right.
Will try again, hopefully it was an «off» night.

The atmosphere of the place is so cool. It was super busy and our waitress still managed to make sure our drinks were always filled and we had everything we needed. When we ordered our first round of beers we were informed that they were out of many beers, which was a bit annoying because the menu did not indicate which were out so we had to pick our multiple beers just in case they were out. Other than that, we ordered the jalepeno poppers which were perfectly spicy and cheesy (and half off on Saturday nights!) and the Guinness meatballs and jambalaya. The jambalaya was delicious but the meat balls were out of this world.

Well I heard so many good things about this place and thought I’d give it a try, I am in the customer service biz myself and What a disappointment, we sat at the bar, 6 of us, Hardly a soul in the joint and it took forever to get any response, Now we are visiting from out of town but if you were a local you were So catered to… remember just a few people in there at 430pm… Bartender could give a rats ass. First time. last time… And I will pass the word around. .
I believe in 2^nd chances but he, the bartender could care less

Strange Brew is a solid, local watering hole with an unbelievable tap list.
It sits in Manchester’s downtown area among the brownstones near City Hall. The atmosphere is dark and rustic with wood floors and modest, ski-​lodge style décor. Don’t be discouraged by the «No colors» sign that hangs beside the front door; while the place is frequented by biker types in the summer, I’ve never come across anything remotely close to a «situation» in the years that I’ve visited the Brew.
The tap list was running over 70 beers last time I checked, and their selections run from popular domestics (Coors, Harpoon IPA), to more obscure imports like La Fin du Monde, and deep locals like Kelson’s amazing brown ale.
The food at the Brew is your typical pub fare, but their nacho mountain –its ridges and overhangs oozing cheese and other tasty glop– is very popular and a staple on the menu. I ordered the pulled-​pork sandwich, last night. It was decent but the pork was overpowered by a jalapeño flavor, almost as if their nacho makings supplement the pulled pork filling.
Regardless, the Brew is worth checking out, especially if you’re not a local. If you’re a long time local, Strange Brew doubles as a disparaging existential nightmare land-​mined with people from your past.

This place manages to stay one of Manchester’s most popular restaurants despite being slightly off the Elm St. path because if its massive beer selection and specials. Beyond the typical ladies nights and beer discounts, they have senior appreciation night for people over 50, 3 dollar mixed drinks and a $ 5 burger night to take advantage of.
The inside isn’t fancy and is pretty dark, but they have done a good job of utilizing the space by dividing the bar and restaurant sections, as well as having a stage and a back room with a few pool tables. It’s not filthy, but they clearly don’t clean it as they should. The staff is usually some snotty college kid, which make up a lot of the place’s clientele anyway. The negative reviews regarding service are spot on, I’ve had many bad experiences here from argumentative waitstaff to ones who «forgot» we were there.
It’s a menu of mostly pub fare, but good quality. The burgers are a favorite of many including myself, but the fish and chips and pulled pork are great too. It has made a name for itself by having a broad appeal to many people. It’s a decent pick if what you’re looking for is an affordable night out or a quick bite and a beer, but it’s not a destination restaurant and there are far better choices for a sit down meal.

I like Strange Brew. Best beer selection in town. I go quite frequently and generally enjoy always myself. It does have some downsides though.
Food– Food is… okay… but forgettable. This is straight bar food. Average cheeseburgers, nachos, wings and the regular cash-​cow American dishes. However, the beer is kick-​ass. Good selection and local NH Beer and other craft brews galore.
Atmosphere– Dark and dingy with a Jazz/​Irish pub feel. Assorted music and beer related wall décor is everywhere. They have a upstairs and downstairs area too.
Price– Reasonable prices with very generous happy hour specials.
Staff– Ahh the staff. This is where other Unilocalers have ripped Strange Brew to shreds. Look, some of the staffers suck, some don’t. Sometimes I have great staffers, sometimes they give you the stink eye. This is America and that’s how it goes. Get over it.
Overall– You get what you get a Strange Brew. A good beer selection, average food, and reasonable prices.

Normally I love the Strange Brew. I don’t want to crucify the place, but I had the absolutely worst customer service experience of my bar going years there on Friday.
I went with a buddy, intent on grabbing a late meal, and having some drinks while enjoying the band. We arrived around 10 PM, waited in front of the wait station for about 5 minutes while three servers ignored us and had a personal conversation. A fourth server was coming toward us and at least made eye contact, so we asked her if we should seat ourselves or if they were still seating people at the dining tables. She looked sort of frazzled and we ended up agreeing that the open back corner table was fair game and we were going to go sit there.
Waited 10 minutes, no one came to get a drink order or offer a food menu. We decided we were going to leave, but normally really loving the place, I convinced my buddy to give this one more shot. I walked over to the wait station again, asked the server who was one of the original three chatty Cathy’s what time they stop taking food orders, she told me in about 10 or 15 minutes. I informed her we had been there for 15 minutes with no service, and would really like to order food and drinks. She told me she was going to get our waitress and then disappeared. I sat back down, confident that salvation was coming.
I then watched for another 10 minutes as that fourth server who had told us we could sit in the back corner, bussed tables, brought other people drinks, took other people’s orders, and still never came to see us.
We left. Upset, disappointed, hungry, and with no alcohol having been consumed at a normally favorite Manchester night life spot. No amount of popcorn or good music could have turned that visit around. Wasted a half hour in a bar and restaurant, without ordering or receiving a single food item. Wouldn’t be so critical if it weren’t for the fact that the place wasn’t packed, and the fact that we were just straight ignored from start to finish.

What a disappointment. Went here with a big crowd from work and called ahead to make sure they could accommodate us. The place was empty when we arrived, so it was strange the female bar tender had an attitude. We wanted to put everything on 1 tab and apparently this was a HUGE inconvenience. She made it very difficult for us all to grab a drink, so we decided to leave and go somewhere else. If you like rude bartenders, this is your place.

I have nothing good to say about my experience at Strange Brew Tavern. I had dinner here last night with 3 friends. I thought for sure that we would have good food given how crowded the restaurant was when we arrived. Oh how wrong I was.
We had Jen as our server. She was nice whenever we saw her, which was not often. Also, it’s not impressive when you take our order and don’t write anything down. You are pretty much just guaranteeing that you won’t get everything right for our orders.
All of the food that I had was awful. I ordered the buffalo chicken wrap with onion rings, but it came out with fries instead. The menu said the chicken would be crispy, but it came out grilled and dry. Half of the wrap was put on some pickles and was completely saturated in pickle juice. That half was inedible to me. The fries were cold, gross and stale tasting. It’s obvious that our plates had been sitting for a long time before they were brought out. It took 10 minutes for our waitress to come check on us. She did bring me some onion rings, but those were equally gross and soggy. Two of my friends ordered burgers and a side salad. The burgers were over cooked and the side salads forgotten until they asked for them.
All in all we were in the restaurant for over 2 hours because everything took forever to come out and our waitress was completely inattentive to us. The food was so bad that we left hungry. You couldn’t pay me to come back to Strange Brew Tavern.

It makes me sad to write this and give SB only two stars… It used to be my favorite Sunday afternoon tradition with my then-​boyfriend now-​husband, and we’d frequently choose this as our group meet-​up spot to start a weekend night.
But now just a few years later, it’s changed. We’ve all moved to different cities but reunite in Manchester and today we went back for old times sake. The patio and outdoor games were lovely, but the rude greeting we got from the waitress set the tone that we were a nuisance. A group of twelve, polite and willing to be flexible on how we split checks and just wanting to relax were served up a whole lot of attitude and food that was just plain bad. Old soggy fries, heavily battered fried fish/​scallops, it was just… Not good. Not to mention when a friend was given the wrong food and reminded the waitress what she’d ordered, little miss cranky rolled her eyes and snatched the food away without a word.
Even going inside to use the restroom, the hostess was sassy when I walked the wrong direction, and gave me the stink eye when I laughed at my mistake.
Sheesh. Is it new management? New kitchen staff? Whatever it is, this place used to be packed and today it was dead… and now we know why. The staff need to go!