Draft Barn (CLOSED)

The Gowanus beer hall offers “anything you can’t get in your local deli,” said our tight-lipped server of Draft Barn’s 250 brews. We enjoyed specialty suds such as Pauwel’s Kwak—a rich Belgian amber with a fruit-and-berries bouquet, served in a foot-long, thermometer-shaped vessel. Food, like the faux-Euro beer hall decor, skews Eastern Bloc: Bracing pickled herring and onions complemented our silky, chocolaty Sri Lankan Lion Stout. The staff is knowledgeable, but a bit taciturn— if they could muster more enthusiasm than a Duane Reade clerk, this so-far-uncrowded hall might pack them in.