Historic taverns (and good beer)

Pictured below:
McGillin's Olde Ale House in Philadelphia

Chicago's John Barleycorn saloon serves as a reminder that the desire to enjoy beer in the company of others is strong. John Barleycorn is a former "gangster bar," one of the speakeasies that flourished during the failed social experiment of Prohibition.

Today, you can visit museums that once were taverns, but thankfully, you can also visit places that once were taverns and still are -- and, as an added bonus, many of them serve flavorful beer. You can get a decent beer at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan, where George Washington once tippled, or enjoy Northwest craft beer in Washington's oldest bar, The Brick (yes, the Roslyn joint featured in the television show "Northern Exposure").

Some of these saloons are famous and some are semi-famous, but they are still pubs where people gather to drink and talk. When we were in Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland, Calif., during the holidays, a Santa that hung on the door played a Christmas tune whenever the door opened. Recently, one of us (quite sober, honestly) sent a glass of Rogue Smoke flying at the Deer Park Inn in Newark, Del. "You just got here, and you're flagged!" a regular said, using a term everybody else at the bar understood. He was drinking from a pitcher of Coors Light. The bartender came over to wipe down the spirit bottles now covered with beer. "Don't worry," she said. "This is the Deer Park. A lot worse things happen."

This column is the first of what will be an intermittent look at historic taverns.

Some of the best stories about John Barleycorn (658 W. Belden, Chicago; 312-348-8899) revolve around Prohibition. The area that is now the rear dining room was a Chinese laundry during the 1920s, and served as a front for bootleggers who rolled carts of booze through the laundry to the basement. John Dillinger is said to have frequented the saloon and often bought the house a round. The Biograph Theater, where he was gunned down, is just two blocks away.

The building dates to 1890 and contains the original tin ceiling, columns and two-foot-thick walls. Today, the most noticeable attributes are the handmade replicas of ships, some dating to the late 1800s, which an eccentric Dutch proprietor collected during travels to Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Europe. There's also an enormous moosehead, and a carving of a person wearing a crown sits above the cash register. The carving was discovered buried in the walls when the building was renovated 10 years ago.

The bar offers 32 beers on tap, with everything from craft beers to imports and mainstream domestics. Classical music always plays in the background, with more than 5,000 art slides showing continuously on three screens. The rear dining room has a fireplace and easy chairs, while there's a separate darts room just off the bar and a fine back patio. The menu is varied and includes hamburgers that repeatedly win "best of" awards.

Near the University of Delaware in Newark, you'll find the Deer Park Inn (108 W. Main St.; 302- 731-5315). The present building is believed to be on the site of the St. Patrick's Inn, built in the mid- 1700s. A favorite resting place for travelers passing through Newark, the inn housed Charles Mason, Jeremiah Dixon and their team of surveyors in 1764. The Mason-Dixon line, which divided Pennsylvania and Maryland, became famous as a line of demarcation between free and slave states. Rumor has it that an old Mason and Dixon border marker was once in the Deer Park's basement. During the American Revolution soldiers used the inn, and George Washington may have been one of them. Another illustrious lodger was Edgar Allan Poe, who stayed there in 1843. As he was attempting to descend from a carriage at the inn, he allegedly fell in the mud, and, according to the tale, was so upset that he put a curse on the building.

Fire destroyed the original building in 1851. James S. Martin built the Deer Park Hotel that year and named it after his farm, which in turn was named for a grove of deer that often filled the nearby landscape. The original structure was red brick and had four stories and was built entirely of materials from Newark. Jacob DeHaven was the first proprietor of the Deer Park, and the hotel housed a women's seminary for twenty years. The building's basement, according to legend, was part of an underground network during the Civil War. Rooms rented for $1.50 in the late 1880s, and permanent residence cost $10 a month.

The Deer Park had a succession of owners until 1976, when ERG Inc. purchased the building. Changes included an expanded menu, Sunday brunch and Sunday night jazz, a new bar, restoration of the original red brick, the addition of a new, Victorian-style porch, remodeled kitchen, bathrooms and dining area, and the removal of panel walls to reveal the original oak woodwork.

The main barroom has a comfortable, grungy feeling, as patrons sit on stools around a worn, formica-and-wood, square-shaped bar. Wainscoting runs up the walls. Draft choices recently included a Stoudt's product and a Pete's product and mainstream domestics, with nearly 100 micros and imports available by the bottle. The windows and door are kept open in summer to let breezes in, and ceiling fans whirl.

Diners can sit out on the covered porch or in one of several dining areas. The menu emphasizes Mexican and Tex-Mex food, with an assortment of sandwiches, burgers, fajitas and a Cajun crawfish quesadilla among the offerings. Nothing is over $10. The Deer Park Inn is also open for breakfast.

Writers and drink go way back, and one of the coolest historic bars has a direct connection with the man who wrote John Barleycorn, Jack London. Best known for his adventure tales, London was a regular at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon, located in modern Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif. (56 Jack London Square; 510-839-6761).

Originally called J.M. Heinold's Saloon, it is built from the timbers of old whaling ships. The bar's present name dates to the 1920s and derives from the fact that it is at the Port of Oakland, so it was the last bar a ferry passenger, and later a serviceman, could drink in before boarding ship, and the first one to greet him upon his return. As a good-luck talisman, servicemen would leave money on the walls, ensuring they would be able to buy a drink when they landed back on shore. Tragically, much of it was never reclaimed.

London would frequent the bar and listen to sailors' tales, and many of the tales and the tellers later appeared in his books. He wrote at a favorite table, and Heinold and the saloon are referred to 17 times in his novels John Barleycorn and The Tales of the Fish Patrol. Other former patrons of the saloon include President William Howard Taft and writers Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Service, Ambrose Bierce and Erskine Caldwell.

This tiny place (five stools, three tables) had been in business for 23 years when the 1906 earthquake destroyed San Francisco, leaving the floor, and everything else, severely tilted. It also caused an old clock to stop, and it still registers the time the quake struck. Heinold's coziness is made even more crowded by the plethora of stuff that hangs from the ceiling and walls and is otherwise scattered about. Currency of many lands, ancient newspapers, a deer head, spiny blowfish, old business cards, license plates and photos decorate the walls, with more cards on the ceiling. Many of the furnishings are original, including the old bar and worn-through rail. The original gaslights still illuminate the saloon, and the original, working pot-bellied stove was the only source of heat until 1989. The walls and decorations are stained dark due to creosote and smoke that built up over the years. The beer selection is small but includes craft beers by the bottle.

Drury Street in Philadelphia is but a block long, but McGillin's Olde Ale House (1310 Drury St.; 215-735-5562) is a fine reason to wander down what first looks like an alley. McGillin's is the city's oldest tavern, and the wall behind the bar is decorated with licenses dating to 1860, which somehow survived a devastating fire in 1971.

In the midst of them is a carved sign of a hand holding a bell, for which the pub was originally named. William McGillin converted a small "trinity" rowhouse into the "Bell in Hand" in 1860. He and his wife, Catherine, raised 12 children in rooms above the taproom, which eventually expanded into two adjoining homes. The McGillins offered free potatoes with butter, and when a patron ordered beer, William McGillin climbed into the cellar to get a foaming mug straight from the keg.

William McGillin died in 1901, but his wife, known as "Ma," lived until 1937, operating the tavern as a popular lunch spot through Prohibition and reopening it as a bar before she died. Two brothers ran McGillin's for 35 years, and in 1993 Chris and Mary Ellen Mullins (she is one of the brother's daughters) took over the place.

You wouldn't know today that disco balls once hung from the ceiling, and the walls were covered with paneling. A red tile floor dates to the turn of the century, thick pillars support the beamed ceiling, and historic pictures and signs cover the walls. Long wooden tables fill the tavern, and a large stone fireplace dominates the back wall.

There's little seating at the bar itself, because much of the space is given up to the area where food is handed out at lunch. McGillin's does a brisk lunch business using the ticket system. You pick out what you want, including beer, and a server marks your ticket. When you're done, you stop by the door and pay. Full service is available upstairs, where there is a second bar.

When Philadelphia's theater district was larger, this was a popular gathering spot for actors, who could slip in through the back door. Will Rogers, John Barrymore, Tennessee Williams, Ethel Merman and scores of others drank here. Billy Daniels even sang "That Old Black Magic" for customers one night.

McGillin's recently expanded its draft selection from 10 beers to 22 and offers a fine selection of regional craft beers.

This column originally appeared in All About Beer magazine in September 1996.