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| - I have a love-hate relationship with The Pub at the Monte Carlo. Its extraordinary beer menu fills me with awe, and discovering a new beer often leaves me in a wonderful state of gratified bliss. But the service here leaves a lot to be desired.
I've never visited The Pub for its food. It's their beer menu that pulls me in time and again.
The beer menu is several pages long and offers you a choice of about 200 different beers. The selection is categorized by type, so you can quickly find an amber ale, some barleywine, a Belgian abbey-style ale, a Hefeweizen, an IPA or a lager. It always takes me a good 15 minutes to scan through its many offerings and decide what I want to drink, as their selection includes beers I have never seen anywhere else, or have only been fortunate enough to drink while traveling in Europe.
Some of the more interesting selections (for me) are from the menu's Witbier section, which are typically harder to find.
Witbier is Belgium's answer to a wheat beer. They are often pale and cloudy, and traditionally flavored with a concoction of herbs and spices, but its flavor profile generally incorporates coriander and orange into the mix. If you've ever had a Shock Top Belgium White, you might be familiar with these flavors, but here you can also find Joseph Spelt Ale from Belgium, a Gayant Amadeus Beer from France, and a Hitachino Nest White Ale from Japan that is oddly considered to be one of the better beers of this type.
I am also drawn to the dozen fruit beers they have on the menu, including the unique Morimoto Soba Ale from Rogue Ales in Oregon that has a honey-like graham cracker taste, Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat, and Wells Banana Bread from England that tastes like the delectable cake its named after.
While the beer menu can be intimidating, it is very well organized and it's relatively easy to find something you might like. Just look for a favorite and choose from the beers around it. If you're a fan of Chimay, which appears in the Trappist ales section of the menu, you will find at least nine other authentic Trappist brews ranging from $15 to $95 for a 12-ounce bottle.
Unfortunately, relying on the menu as your guide is the only viable way of discovering a new beer at The Pub.
On the three occasions I've visited The Pub in the past year, the waitstaff and a couple of bartenders I dealt with seemed relatively clueless and detached about the beers available. They were also very timid when asked for a recommendation.
One time, I inquired as to what the Hitachino Nest Commemorative Ale in the herbed and spiced beer section was flavored with or what I might expect, and was told a "mix of spices". Another time, I asked how the Yabun Kitsune rice beer differed from other Pilsners, and if it tended to be more floral or more bitter, and received nothing more than a shrug and a "dunno" in return.
Fine. I appreciate that the menu is vast, and I don't expect everyone that works there to know everything about each and every beer on the menu, but would it hurt to take a minute and ask someone who might know and be a little less dismissive? If a diner has a question about the way a restaurant dish is prepared, most waiters will pop into the kitchen and ask the chef if they don't know the answer.
On another occasion, I pointed to the seasonal beers section on the menu and asked the bartender serving me which beers were currently available. He replied that he was kind of busy and did not have time to go check what was seasonal. "Chances are there aren't any available, anyway," he added. Really? The seasonal beers were out of season and you you're too busy to respond to a customer's request?
When I first heard about The Pub, I was hoping for an experience of sorts. A place where a knowledgeable bartender would be able to tell you something about the beers that were available, introduce you to something unique, or make a confident recommendation based on your likes and dislikes. I did not expect them to have a cicerone (a beer sommelier) on duty, but I did hope to see staffers who were proud to be working there and who might take an interest in their grandiose selection of beer.
So while I have enjoyed most of the beers I have had here -- and there have been many -- the service at The Pub has had an impact on my initial impressions.
Maybe this isn't the right place for a self-proclaimed beer geek -- I certainly don't want to feel embarrassed asking questions that might come across as haughty or pretentious, but one would hope that with so many different beers available, someone working there would be equally geeky, or would want to share their contagious excitement about them. Instead, the staff I've dealt with has always seemed disinterested and maybe a bit overwhelmed, and might be more comfortable dropping a bucket of Bud Light Limes on your table.
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