Barspy - Bier Hof
November 26th 2009

Hof the scale for its beer selection and tasty pizzas
Our visit to the Bier Hof on Sauchiehall Street wasn't planned. Right at the student end of the street and with all of our party old enough to get second looks from all the freshers congregating outside Mr Chips, this was never going to be our choice destination.

But the problem was we wanted a Republic and a few exotic beers to shake off the gallons of rain lashing off the streets and our usual favourite, the Great Western Road Republic was closed. And not just early orders closed - kaput, no more.

So we wandered down to the Hof, the youngest in the chain.
Making our way through the teams of Topshop-clad drinkers and Calvin Klein scented students, we descended into the basement bar. It might be a different location, but it is immediately recognisable as a Bier Halle.

Like its sisters, it is basic, functional - but stylish. Exposed brick, low lighting, wooden booths and a massive wall-sized image of a Bavarian mountain landscape.
And it was busy. Early evening and already almost every booth was taken.

Mercifully the faces looking at us as we walked through the narrow passageway to the rear of the pub looked roughly ages with our own. Unless we were looking worse for wear already.
The familiar menu that looks more like an atlas was there. More than 60 beers winked back from the page, some as expensive as good bottles of wine and some with names impossible to pronounce when sober, never mind after having a few. The nationalist in our group let out a sigh when he spotted Tennent's on the menu. My eyes turned to the Schnapps before I spotted Quilmes, the Argentinean beer that can be found to rival Corona and Sol in a lot of Glasgow's trendier bars.

I decided to order a bottle to see what the fuss was about; a bottle of Brooklyn Beer (from the USA if you are interested) and a bottle of Budvar (Czech) made up the rest of our round.
Bizarrely, but rather nicely, the table of guys eschewed in the booth next to us had eschewed beer entirely, drinking a round of teas and coffees and sharing two very tasty-looking pizzas which had the effect of whetting our appetites.

Half a bottle of beer down and the mood and the atmosphere was good. The music was at a decent level and there was a great hubbub of conversation There was plenty to look at too. Our booth was opposite the bar and kitchen area so when the chat lulled, the entertainment was still good.
Another round followed and we had to order pizzas with them. One spicy merguez, one margherita and one chorizo. Different flavours, but they all had one thing in common - they were brilliant, seriously brilliant.

Then things changes, the dj made his way to his wee booth and the background music went all the way up to 11. It was the moment that reconfirmed that we were too old to be in this end of town at the weekend. As one booth went wild for the noise, we all looked at one another and uttered the same words: "Let's head to the Griffin".