Tippin' one with the bros
A grown-up's guide to college bars
Tiffany Mason
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If you're over a certain age—say, 25—in Madison, you may not have stepped into a college bar since your ID read "Bjorn" and you were a fresh-faced underage drinker. Sure, college bars can be loud, trashy, and low on the drink quality, but a few downtown bars have something more to offer the young at heart. Decider recently got up off the couch to investigate these beer fountains of youth and found a few with adult appeal.
Red Shed
Most off-putting: The bargain-shelf paint color doesn't bespeak class. Nor does the Red Shed's legendary Long Island Iced Teas, which seem engineered to yield the loud drunk crowd you wanted to avoid.
Redeeming factor: There's a reason those Long Island Iced Teas are legendary—they are enormous and cheap, but most of all, they are delicious. Available in three sizes—"shorty," "medium," and "the real deal"—and priced at $3, $4, and $5 respectively, they are best enjoyed in one of the cozy wooden booths lining the walls. If you haven't had a Long Island in a while, a reintroduction is in order.
Library Café & Bar
Most off-putting: A poorly lit doorway in the hard-to-reach purple complex crammed between University Avenue and West Johnson Street.
Redeeming factor: Comfortable couches, a fireplace and walls lined with books—likely from the "free!" bin at the real library, but all the more entertaining for that fact. Titles include An Illustrated Travelogue Of America, which features Pleasantville-esque Technicolor photographs of the nation circa 1956; the past is even funnier with alcohol.
Mondays
Most off-putting: A shabby, dark exterior with windows that seem to obscure rather than illuminate the interior. Plus, the vaunted garden patio is really a depressing concrete pad, totally enclosed by a fence that traps people, sound, smoke, and carousing in a boxing ring-sized space.
Redeeming factor: Mondays won a number of Best of Madison awards in the 1990s, which may have something to do with its better-than-average drink list, including more whiskeys than just Beam, the college bar staple. Stay inside and add a Dum Dum sucker from the bar top candy cups, and you'll both look younger and feel nostalgic for your younger self, all at the same time.
Church Key
Most off-putting: It looks like a liquor store, not a bar. There's a good reason: it is a liquor store, just one with a bar on top.
Redeeming factor: A surprisingly large, multi-level space with huge booths and benches offers an escape from the requisite college-bar game-tuned TVs. More interesting, though, is the craft-beer selection, including an exceptional variety of Amherst, Wis.-brewed Central Waters beers on tap.
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