Beer list: Jack Fry’s Restaurant.

Recently a diligent patron dropped off a current beer list from Jack Fry’s Restaurant, and as I was looking it over it occurred to me that information like this may be of interest to readers.

Admittedly, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve dined at Jack Fry’s, but the experience has been uniformly excellent during these past visits.

Here’s the history of the restaurant, as described by Louisville restaurant critic Robin Garr at Robin Garr’s Louisville Restaurant Guide:

The original namesake and owner, Jack Fry, started a neighborhood tavern with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and ran it as a local institution until the late '70s, whereupon - gentrifying in step with the neighborhood it's in - it went upscale under new management, shedding its stale-beer-and-peanuts ambience in favor of something just as comfy if a bit more dressy.

And suddenly it's been a quarter of a century, and the "new" Jack Fry's has earned a place in Louisville's heart.

That's what I call enduring popularity, and Fry's has earned it the old-fashioned way, by consistently offering excellent fare in a comfortable setting. I rarely leave here after a meal without a happy, satisfied smile.

For the food menu at Jack Fry’s and further information, visit the restaurant’s web site.

Here’s the beer list, with the price following the beer. I’m assuming all these are 12-oz. bottled selections; it’s possible that a mainstream lager is on draft.

BBC Altbier 4
Bitburger Pilsner 4
Pilsner Urquell 4
Hoegaarden 5
Harp Lager 4
Sierra Nevada 4
Anchor Steam 5
Bell’s “Oberon” Summer Ale 5
Samuel Smith “Nut Brown Ale” 7
Rogue “St. Rogue Red Ale” 5
Abita “Turbo Dog” Dark Brown Ale 4
Fuller’s ESB 5
Hennepin “Belgium Style Ale” 6
Orval Trappist Ale 10
Guinness Stout 5

At the bottom, and appropriately, there are insignificant others: Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite and Beck’s NA ($3 each) and Amstel Light ($4).

Jack Fry’s qualifies as “upscale” in the Curmudgeon’s lexicon, and this perhaps explains $10 for an Orval, although it strikes me as gouging to charge $5 for a bottle of Oberon. The remainder seem reasonably priced considering the setting.

As with other restaurants of a similar ctaegory, good beer may not be the reason you choose to go ... but it helps to know that it's there, all the same.