4 hours of Hannah Montana and showtunes.

$7 beers.

This cute kid:

The bar's jumping at Local 44 by acnatta on Flickr.

Yesterday was my first trip to Prohibition Taproom in what my friend informed me was the “Loft District.” It was a great time. The bar was not too busy and the atmosphere was easy going. They had a limited, but well edited selection of draft beer and an excellent selection of bottles. All craft beers.

While hanging with the awesome bartender, John (who is apparently a crazy Prince fan and fellow home brewer), we started discussing Top Fives.  So in the spirit of High Fidelity, here are my top five Philadelphia bars.

My requirements are simple. It needs to be fun, have a good selection of brews, and better than decent food at a reasonable price. There are a number of great bars in Philly with fantastic food and beer that haven’t made this list simply because they are pretentious or a pain in the ass (Monks, I’m looking in your general direction!) There are even more that I just plain don’t know about.

Here’s my list, in no particular order:

• Memphis Taproom – Small place with a fantastic draft and bottled beer selection. The bottle include some incredible vintages. The staff is extremely knowledgeable about their beers. One of the bars raided by the PLCB in the recent and controversial crackdown on unliscensed beer. Fuck da Man!
• Swift Half – Kinda new-ish, at least to me. It sits on the Piazza up in Northern Liberties. So you can take your beer outside onto the piazza and watch a phillies game on the ginormous jumbo-tron. Another great selection of beer with an option to get 10 oz “half drafts”. Perfect if your goal is to taste a few different beers without committing to a full pint. $3 bar food menu is a definite plus.
• Kraftwork – Serving a rotating selection of 30 or so draft beers (no bottles here!), Kraftwork also serves half drafts. The food is killer. This just edged it’s way into the top five since it tends to get loud and crowded with Fishtown hipsters later in the evening.
• Local 44 – Another of the raided bars, this place is similar to Kraftwork in that it only serves draft beers (about 20 or so). Nestled in a nice neighborhood of West Philly, Local 44 made it well into the top five simply due to the fact that it has really good beer and food, a super chill atmosphere, and is well within a Sunday bike ride from my apartment in the burbs.
• Prohibition Taproom – Prohibition is just plain cool. It kinda has and old timey, neighborhood bar feel. But the staff is by far the friendliest in the city.

What’s your five favorite places to imbibe in Philly? Put your suggestions in the comments!

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See if you can guess the theme.

…typical.