Hale's Ales Brewery & Pub

FirstMan

Massachusetts

3/5  rDev -18.3%
vibe: 3 | quality: 3 | service: 3 | selection: 3 | food: 3 | $$

Hale's is located about halfway between Ballard and Fremont on the northern side of the ship canal in Seattle. Kind of in a no-man's-land between two great Seattle neighborhoods, which really serves as a wonderful metaphor for the place in general.

Hale's brewpub is a nice-looking place to have a meal and a beer, and if you aren't terribly adventurous and want to find a fairly "safe" place to bring a group for dinner and a beer, give it a shot.

I'm not too high on Hale's beer, which sort of colors my experience every time I wind up here. I specifically say "wind up here" because I'm not sure I've ever actually planned on going to Hale's. It just seems like I wind up here when noone can decide where else to go for food and beer. It's sort of a twilight zone of beer indecision for me.

The bar area is best as there are nice leather chairs, a large wood bar, booths and all the other accoutrements. I always find myself thinking that a bar like this is a little out of place in Seattle. It's almost too nice, too clean...

There's a larger restaurant style seating section to the right of the entrance, which can handle pretty large groups, but I've never actually eaten in there.

The food here is not bad, but without much diversion from the standard pub fare. I'd actually come here for the food before I'd come here for the beer. Some people like Hale's beer, and I think they do pretty well around the area, but I think everything they make is mediocre.

Hale's is "Safe", which may be why I'm not thrilled with it. If it wasn't for the out of the way location, I'd think it was built to cater to out-of-town tourists who want a Seattle brewpub experience.

About as average as I can imagine - not bad, yet not great. 3's all around.

08-24-2005 16:55:18 | More by FirstMan

RoyalT

Ohio

3.58/5  rDev -2.5%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 4 | service: 3 | selection: 3.5 | food: 4

Atmosphere – First off, parking just stinks here. I hate to start off with a negative, but I can’t believe that they don’t have anyplace for the patrons to park.

Having said that, the place is pretty cool when you step in. The pub just reeks of grain and all those smells that you get from brewing beer. The huge metallic vats are in giant rooms visible upon entry. There’s a small bar area and a restaurant-style seating area with about 18-20 four tops. The best part about this place is that the entire pub is smoke-free.

Quality – The quality here is great. The building is in an older part of town but it’s anything but a dive. The furniture especially is nice and they even have a couple leather couches in the restaurant area where you can lounge around and eat and drink. Nice touch.

Service – I was perplexed at the poor service here. Like I said, the restaurant seats about 80 people and when I came by for lunch on Saturday there was about 20 people there and three waitresses. They were running around a lot but not really doing everything, and EVERYBODY in the restaurant was getting impatient.

I hate to complain about service because I’ve worked in restaurants myself over the years, but I just don’t get it. I ordered a sampler of beers, then later ordered a burger, and I didn’t get my samplers until 30 seconds before my food was done. I had to wait 10 minutes just to talk to a waitress and, of course, my food order was wrong. Go figure.

Selection – They only serve their own beer. Having said that, they had about a dozen regular beers and a few special offerings, which was nice.

Food – The burger I had was spectacular! It was a huge hunk of juicy, high-quality choice beef in between some great-tasting hard bread. They actually cooked my burger rare like I asked, which most restaurants won’t do anymore. They served Jo Jo Potatoes on the side, which are baked potato wedges nicely seasoned.

03-13-2005 01:43:22 | More by RoyalT

jreitman

California

3.85/5  rDev +4.9%
vibe: 4 | quality: 3.5 | service: 4 | selection: 4 | food: 4

The Hale's brewpub is located on a strip of industrial buildings halfway between ballard and fremont in Seattle. When you walk in the front doors, you see all the brewery equipment on the right with the pub on the left. The pub itself has a nice feel to it and feels cozy. In one area, there are leather sofas and chairs for people to hang out on and several booths along the bar. There is also a section of tables devoted to families with kids. The food is standard pub fare but was pretty good. The beers are what you would expect from Hale's line. Nothing stood out as anything special, but they were decent examples of their styles.

07-27-2002 09:02:03 | More by jreitman