Las Vegas: Pour 24 in New York, New York

The voice mail announcing Las Vegas as the location of our national business meeting struck terror in my heart: I don’t gamble, it’s a 5.5 hr flight from NYC and I can’t sit still for that long, I have no need for a Girl Delivered To My Room In Only 20 minutes!, and gasp, I might have to go without a good beer for 5 days. Egads. I sucked it up and came up with a plan. I would have precious little free time at the meeting and would only be able to check out the places within very close distance, walking or cabbing, to Caesar’s Palace, my base for the week. I looked up craft beer places online, created a Google Map, and studied the public transportation options – I was ready! After the long Monday morning flight, I had a few hours before the opening session that evening and I was thirsty. Out the front of Caesars, through the Flamingo, onto the monorail, down 2 stops to the MGM Grand, through the casino, across the street, and I was at my destination in no time. New York, New York, home of the new craft beer bar, Pour 24. Things were looking up already as the bar is right inside the southernmost door off the strip, no traipsing through the entire casino to get to it, a big plus in Vegas.

I settled myself at the bar and asked for the beer menu. I was given a steel covered book which contained all of the drafts and bottles, some nice beer quotes and offered several flight combinations, nice. I ordered up a custom flight of 4 and got out my little notebook. Let’s start with the pros: 24 taps, 14 of which don’t make it to New York (woohoo!), a large rectangular bar topped with cobalt blue geode slices under a thick layer of resin, about 30 comfortable backed and padded chairs surrounding the bar, free paper cones of sweet or spicy mixed nuts, a striking ice covered tap tower and educated bartenders. Yes, they all attended a 7 day school before they started, trying all of the beers, evaluating the aroma, flavor, and other aspects of each, and learning the finer aspects of craft beer. Well done! The major drawback of the bar is the atmosphere – it’s loud and exposed and rather ugly. The front of the bar is a major inroad of the whole place, with a mall-like feel it’s flowing with tourists and contains tacky gift shops, a magic shop with crazy sounds emanating from it on a regular basis, and the boisturous Coyote Ugly which provides the ever-present loud crappy rock music. The back of the bar overlooks the casino one floor down. The other con is that the beers are served a tad cold.

None of this distracted me from enjoying my flight of Alaskan ESB, Firestone Double Barrel Ale, Big Sky Moose Drool, and New Belgium 1554, served in 6 oz mini pilsner glasses for $14.00. 16 oz. drafts are either $6 or $6.50, depending on the beer and you can get flights of 5 for $16.50 or 6 for $19. The also stock bottled beer, including about 10 craft, most costing $5.50. I found those very reasonable prices for good beer in Vegas. My bartender was kind enough to give me a freebie and I finished with the Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, a perfect dessert beer finish to my first craft beer excursion in Vegas. He also told me that they are adding a new restaurant directly underneath the bar on the casino level that will share taps, something to look forward to should I find myself in Vegas again.
I highly recommend Pour 24 to any craft beer lover staying on the strip – the 24 taps, accessible location, and friendly bartenders make this bar a must.