The American pub is a distinct but hard-to-define category of dining establishment.
Beer reigns in the pub. The food, too, stands alone. Burgers, fish and chips, chili, nachos, a variety of sandwiches involving melted cheese and meats. Sometimes, pizza, or shepherds pie, or bangers and mash (or all three). Other places pick and choose from this catalog; the pub often offers the entire index, and more.
A great pub, though, also revels in a certain atmosphere, an energy heavy on warmth and wood and camaraderie. Few pubs pull off the whole trifecta – the stellar beer selection, the food rising above banal, and the all-important vibe.
If you’re a pub person – and I most definitely am – then the next time you’re in Boulder, visit Southern Sun Pub & Brewery.
The pub is broad and deep and high-ceilinged, with shiny oak tables and blandly upholstered booths.
The music is heavy on live versions of Grateful Dead songs – and the crowd matches the music, although it’s more earthy apres-ski than blond-dreadlocked. The service is gregarious slacker, and great. One server let us take advantage of the stupendous happy-hour prices ($2 pints) even though happy hour hadn’t started yet. Another brought us gratis samples of all of the pub’s microbrews that were especially hoppy, because we like hoppy.
The FYI Pale Ale brewed by Southern Sun was possibly the best I’ve ever tasted – heady with hop flowers, simultaneously astringent and smooth, flowery but not cloyingly sweet.
The chicken wings ($3.95 for half-dozen) were crispy, swabbed in hot vinegar and paired with blue cheese sauce – as they should be. The veggie black-bean chili ($1.95 for a cup, with $.50 extra for cheese) was shot through with spice heat, but not so much to hide the cumin and other good chili flavors.
The excellent Black and Blue burger ($6.25) came blackened in seasoning and topped with blue cheese. The meat was vegetarian-fed Colorado beef without antibiotics or steroids. Nice.
My daughters, Stella, 8, and Ruby, 4, have become obsessed with root beer, and they went crazy for the root beer ($2.50) brewed at Southern Sun.
The breakfast burrito ($6.50), a daily special, came packed with eggs, potato, bacon, cheese and chile, and the vegetarian burrito ($6.50, plus $1.00 for vegetarian green chile) was one of the better I’ve tasted in Colorado.
And the Tempeh Reuben ($6.95) – beer-baked tempeh with sauerkraut, melted Swiss cheese, tomato and Thousand Island dressing on rye – is worth the trip to Southern Sun itself.
Staff Writer Douglas Brown can be reached at 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
Southern Sun Pub & Brewery
Pub|627 S. Broadway, Boulder, 303-543-0886|$3.95-$7.95|
Monday through Thursday, 4 p.m.-1 a.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.; no credit cards, but checks are OK; parking|Second location, Mountain Sun, 1535 Pearl St., Boulder, 303-546-0886.
Front burner: Spectacular beer selection, both brewed by the pub and imported from around the world.
Back burner: The big space gets crowded most nights, and waiting for seating is the norm.
