Governor’s Quarters: A basement bar with crafty brews, a name in limbo, knotty pine and tiny bubbles

Governor's Quarters: It's in the basement

The hairy guy’s report:

Bars can be havens for strange snack foods. Pickled eggs, for instance. The only time you’d yearn for a pickled egg would be after some beers, if ever. Same thing for fried stuffed olives, which Esquire magazine declared a few years ago to be the best bar snack ever.  (“Screw truffled popcorn,” the magazine said.)

But we’ve never seen a bar advertise pickled eggs. Presumably, patrons just notice the jar and eventually try one. The hairy guy, who never has, figures a pickled egg sounds like it could quickly end any happy hour (though as a kid, even peas turned out to be OK once he tried them).

So when a west side bar was actually hyping on Facebook (days in advance!) that it would have liver-and-onion sausage on a certain Wednesday – apparently calculating that this was something to draw in customers -- well, that was too good to pass up.

As it turned out, the sausage – and more -- was free. We ate it. And we liked it.

And as it also turned out, the sausage was an anomaly for a place that’s quickly gained a following among local fans of craft beer.

At Governor's Quarters, the big guy's out, Cicerones and sausages are in, and is it deja vu all over again?

The bald guy’s report:

This trip we visit the recently-opened Governor’s Quarters (aka “GQ” and “the Guv”).  And just in time because I see he’s running for re-election and there’s a list of things I wanted to talk to him about. But, drat the luck, he wasn’t in, so maybe next time.  But they might do a better job of scheduling him, otherwise, like me, you’re just taking your chances.

Anyway, maybe it was for the better; he’d just be a diversion because besides, of course, beer and serious journalistic pursuit, word on the street was tonight there was going to be a gastronomical oddity that none of us had ever heard of but intriguing enough on at least two levels to warrant further investigation:  First, who would make this and second, who would make this the top draw?