Strange Brew Tavern

On what felt like the coldest night of the year, Andrew and I hit the road to visit Andrew's friend (and groomsman) Matt in Manchester, NH for the first time.

After admiring his studio apartment's prime location in the heart of Manchester, we walked a few chilly blocks to Strange Brew Tavern, as Matt and their website told us, is rated the best place to have a beer in NH.

This is where Andrew and I did a very bad thing. We have been eating healthy all week and getting great use out of our treadmill. We took look one look at their appetizer menu and realized it was 1/2 price appetizer night, and any thoughts of eating healthy flew out of the window.

The three of us decided to split orders of their chicken chili nachos, buffalo wings, "beer" cheese with crostini and fresh veggies, and...


...their appetizer platter with buffalo tenders (Andrew insisted on tenders, Matt and I were wing fans), jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks and potato skins. The funny thing is that the waitress actually asked us if we wanted bacon on the potato skins - um, yes please! Who asks NOT to get bacon on their potato skins?

Needless to say, we dove right in. And I'm still feel gross over it today. But it tasted good in the moment and we had a ton of food left over. It's such a great deal and I can't believe they would run a special like that on a Saturday night!

We moved into the bar area after eating and managed to score some stools (which was quite a coup considering how packed the place got while we were eating). The next few hours were spent reminiscing and people watching, as Strange Brew attracts a wide variety of patrons of all ages, including students to Harley Davidson types to swing dancing elders. It was fun to hear Matt and Andrew catching up and laughing over stories from their high school days:

At one point of the night, a few of Matt's friends joined us for drinks. One of them asked Andrew if he was Matt's friend from high school. Andrew replied yes, that he was his friend from high school, from middle school and from elementary school - I loved how this illustrated their long history together (that's the envious Army brat coming out in me).

Here's a better shot of our gracious host:


It was fun hanging out, although it was a long drive home back to Boston at midnight (despite the nearly empty roads). Next time, we'll have to convince him to drive down to Boston!