A friend of ours was having his 30th birthday at the German themed Atlanta Beer Garden. He’s a beer fiend, so it didn’t especially surprise us that he might choose such a venue. But I’d never heard of it before and was interested. A whole garden of beery delights? 

When I say German-themed I’m only mostly serious. The decor is painted to look along the lines of a sort of Germanic building. But then, the seating is all long benches like a good picnic setup, which definitely seems to invoke the images of Oktoberfest (incidentally, Oktoberfest traditionally occurs in September. Go fig.), though without the Bavarian wenches. That’s ok though, because needless to say the key ingredient here is the beer. They have a whole menu of beers imported from Germany and Belgium, and the few I got to try were great. But there’s two important things to know about the place.

1. They serve their beer by the liter, and by the half liter.
2. A half liter is a surprisingly cheap $6. A liter is, expectedly, $12.

Given that there are places where you get to shell out $7 for a 12oz bottle of Newcastle, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal. I do recommend that you go with the half size. The friend who threw the party managed to down two liters while we were there (probably got in a third after we left). 

The food they had was good too. There were assorted sausages and the like, complete with potatoes, blah blah. We tried the Saurbraten which by any other definition is a wonderfully tender pot roast, with gravy, great fries, and red cabbage. Quite good. They also have an enormous pretzel as an appetizer which looked good but we didn’t get to try.

Anyway I quite liked the place. It wasn’t too terribly busy on a Friday night, though not empty enough to look like it’s on the way out. Might hit it again sometime. It’s a shame it’s such a hike over there.