Mikro Beer Bar is a newer beer bar in the New Haven area. It's been open a little while so I thought it would be a good time to make the short trip from New Haven to Hamden last night. They are located at 3000 Whitney Ave. in Hamden in the middle of small shopping plaza.
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The first thing I notice when I walked in was the size. Mikro is a pretty small place, but a nice feature of the space is that the ceiling is really high. I think this helped cut down on the noise in the room and made it feel a lot more spacious. There is a large chalk board on the far wall that has a list of the 18 beers on tap along with their ABV and price. The beers seemed a little pricy, but I'm kind of spoiled by the Prime 16 happy hour prices I guess. There is a smaller bar with another quasi-bar with stools right behind it towards the middle of the room. The tables are arranged around the outside of the room. The seating is fairly limited. The atmosphere seems like a typical pub. Lots of darker wood and random beer paraphernalia. Nothing was overdone which kept it looking pretty respectable. There is one TV up in the corner of the bar, which due to the size of the room can seen about everywhere in the place.
When we walked in we ended up standing by the entrance for awhile. Is it wait to be seated or seat yourself? After waiting a few minutes without any staff even looking our way we decided it was seat yourself. After another 5 minutes or so the waiter finally noticed us. I found this rather annoying. Once he got to us he was pretty nice and seemed knowledgeable about the beers. I am not a fan of the way they seat here. There is limited seating to begin and no one seats you. As Mikro got more crowded later in the evening I saw people watching like hawks for a table to open, sitting down at table that weren't cleaned off yet and people were coming up to take chairs from other table. This is just really unorganized.
Their tap choices were on par with Prime 16 and Cask Republic. The only real stand out that was up tap when we were there was Cisco Winter Woods. I ended my night with this beer. It was fairly interesting beer with a plenty of winter spice and wood flavor. It was served ice cold, which totally incorrect for this style of beer. This is really a growing pet-peeve of mine. If you are going to specialize in craft beer serve them at the right temperatures! Mikro is definitely not they only place guilty of this sin, but it always annoys me. I also tried their "East Coast IPA". When I asked the server who made it, I was told he wasn't allowed to say and they were thinking about making it a house beer. It's a pretty hefty IPA at 8% ABV. I was able to get him to tell me the brewery is out of state. This is pretty lame if you are going to have a house beer. It should be made locally. That said it was a pretty solid IPA, better than average in my opinion. Heavier of the bitterness than hop flavor. We were never given a bottle list so I don't have anything to say about what they have in that department. There were 4 drafts missing from the board the entire time we were there. Would have been nice if they were filled in or our server could have let us know what else was on tap.
The food menu is rather short, but covers a decent amount of ground. It was cool to see poutine on the menu. I opted for the pulled chicken flat bread. At the $13 price tag I was expecting more. The flat bread came off as a recipe from a "how to cook in your dorm room" book. Crunching down on a few pieces of bone they missed pulling out was not pleasant either. The side of fries we ordered for the table were the highlight sadly. Perhaps they are going for more of a simple pub focusing on the beer, but when you have a menu, especially at the prices they were asking, things should be much better.
Overall Mikro ranks dead last in terms of the beer bars in the New Haven area. Prime 16 and Delaney's have much more reasonable prices and better selections of higher quality food. I think out of the two newer beer bars I've visited lately Cask Republic has a much brighter future. I don't see myself driving out of to Hamden to visit Mikro since there are better options in New Haven with more space, lower craft beer prices, and better food.
I'm not sure I agree that the tap choices were on par with Prime 16 and Cask Republic. With 4-5 of the taps not running (or, at least not on the board) that really limits the selection. There was only one or two I was interested in at Mikro, while Prime 16 had a few that night that I was more excited about. Prime 16 has more taps, and Cask Republic has a lot more taps.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, you were spot on. They need to cut their food prices in half, and then up the quality. $13 for a toaster oven pita is not acceptable. $5.50 for an order of fries is too much as well. For half the price of that order I could get a burger and fries at Prime 16 that would be vastly more enjoyable. Throw in happy hour pricing at Prime 16, and there is no reason to ever go to Mikro again.
Sadly, I think Mikro is already in need of a redecorating. Don't put the tap list right behind two tables, you can't update it when the taps change. Plus, when I want to see what's on tap, I have to stare right at someone that is trying to eat dinner. And why have that bar in the center, when there is a ton of space left over? Either replace the bar with tables, or put two extra bars in there to fill the space. There is not enough seating, you have to use all the available space you have.