Bukowski's

The original Bukowski's bar is in a parking garage in Boston, and the second outpost opened in Cambridge's Inman Square a couple of years ago; both are named for the legendarily hard-drinking author Charles Bukowski.

The two bars specialize in craft beers, and usually have a fine selection of local and not-so-local beers from smaller breweries on draft, as well as a decent selection of bottled beers. On our Friday night visit, we tried eight different brews between four of us:

Berkshire Brewing Company's Gold Spike Ale (Kölsch) - 2 (we've been very impressed by the BBC offerings recently)
Boulder Beer Company's Hazed and Infused - 3 (a standout example of the big, hoppy IPA)
Brasserie Lefebvre's Blanche de Bruxelles - 3 (nicely tart, looks great with a lemony colour and white head)
Unibroue's Ephémère - 1 (possibly influenced by the fact that this was not what was ordered!)
Allagash's Hugh Malone Ale - 2/3 (not everyone agreed that this was as good as the price might have implied)
Affligem Abbey Ale Blond - 3
La Rulles Tripel - 3
Schneider Weisse - 3 (an outstanding hefeweizen, one of the very best of this style)

Unfortunately, while the beer selection was good, with the opportunity to try a number of more unusual beers on tap, the service throughout our time at the bar was unacceptably bad. The staff paid little attention to us, served us the incorrect beer a number of times, made up a story about the lack of one beer, and were generally pretty rude when we tried to correct the errors or make other requests. We were extremely unimpressed, and will give Bukowksi's a wide berth for a while: there are other local bars that have a similarly good selection and a much better attitude to their customers.