Bear Market
Downtown’s New Belgian Beer Hall

Current condition of the EU: medium to shaky. Current condition of beer coming from the EU’s founding member: strong as ever.

Also: newly plentiful Downtown.

Welcome to Little Bear, a vast Belgian hall of obscure beers and grilled cheese stuffed with bacon, now open on Industrial Street.

You’ll recognize this as the former home of Royal Clayton’s—exposed pipes, a front wall of windows, a preference for artsy European loft-dwellers—but it’s lighter. Brighter. And much, much beer-ier. (It’s brought to you by the guys behind the Oinkster and that hallowed beer cavern the Surly Goat.)

So yeah, come here with a bunch of friends, take over the communal table in the middle of the place and get to work on the list of rare brews from all over. Try the Bruery’s Wanderer (it’s an extremely sour ale) and some good rare stuff from Russian River. Save room for some Belgian Owl—the only Belgian whiskey available stateside.

In these environs, you’ll probably be hanging around long enough to get hungry. So you should know they’re serving Belgian classics here: Belgian fries, waterzooi (it’s chicken stew) and chocolate waffles. Oh, and plenty of grilled cheese, filled with everything from bacon to brisket to apples—may not be Belgian, but hey.

It’s grilled and there’s cheese.