Home of warm beer, bad food and grumpy owner

Happy New Year!

This week we’ll look at a beer bar outside of the normal Mile High view. We’ll travel across the country to Ludlow, Vermont, home of Okemo Mountain Resort. We’ll look at a bar that I’ve been to more than any other bar. A bar that, over the past ten days, I’ve visited more than ten times. A bar I visited three times yesterday alone. We’ll visit Tom’s Loft.

For this review, I’ve enlisted the assistance of my friend Chris Del Sole. Chris is fellow ski instructor, the writer for snowboarding.about.com, and a good friend of mine. What I’m trying to say is that we go to the Loft together a lot.

“Home of warm beer, bad food and grumpy owner” – that’s Tom’s Loft Tavern for you. With a motto like that, one would expect little in the way of, well, beer, food, or service, but The Loft, as it’s known, actually manages to impress on all accounts.

The Big Red Barn

Housed in a big red barn (i.e., a building that’s impossible to miss) strategically located between the base of Okemo Mountain and the resort’s parking lots, The Loft manages to be all things to everyone. It’s a quintessential locals bar, “HQ” to hundreds of ski and snowboard instructors, lifties and other resort personnel. It’s a tourist trap, the place for hoards of Joeys to congregate in their ski boots and tell war stories of their “wicked crazy” exploits on the mountain earlier that day. And it’s a family restaurant of sorts, albeit one packed with locals, ski instructors, and joeys. Oh, one more thing – if you have to ask what a joey is? Don’t.

PJ and Tom in the kitchen at Tom's Loft

Being a part-time ski and snowboard instructor, The Loft is my home away from my home away from home. After spending eight hours chasing little kids around a big mountain (kids that are deceivingly mobile!), nothing tastes better than a cold craft brewed beer and some chicken wings at the Big Red Barn! The best thing about the place is it’s as genuine as they come – no chain restaurant crap here. The food is, in my opinion (and I’ve eaten a LOT of it), on the high end of bar fare, with cajun scallops and buffalo encrusted scrod offered alongside huge burgers, platters of nachos, and a to-die-for artichoke dip. Oh, and you can actually find Tom at Tom’s Loft Tavern most nights. He’s a character for sure, but he’s also a really great guy. If you see a big guy with a ponytail, don’t be afraid to say hi!

The Loft is not only our local hangout, HQ, stomping ground, or whatever you want to call it. It’s also a beer bar.

The beer list

They currently have more Long Trail on tap than the Long Trail Brewery offers at their own pub. At the loft, you can find beer from other Vermont breweries, such as Harpoon, Otter Creek, and Rock Art. There’s even Stone Arrogant Bastard and Rogue Yellow Snow on tap. Order an Apple Pie, and you’ll get a mixture of Harpoon’s Cider and Winter Warmer. It’s actually pretty good. Interesting, at least. Worth a try, at least once.

The prices are decent too. Almost all of the beer is $4.50, with a few options, such as Long Trail Triple Bag, going for $5.50 or $6. A Kona Pipeline Porter is only $3.50.

I’ve tried most of the beer on the list, but as a group, our general go-to beer after chasing eight 7-year-olds around a crowded mountain, trying to keep everyone’s mittens and limbs intact, is a Long Trail Ale. With almost a dozen Long Trail beers on tap, you can still just ask for a Long Trail, and get the Ale.

The next time you’re at Okemo, in Ludlow, Vermont, stop by the Loft. Say hi to Tom. Buy your local instructor / ski patroller / liftie a brew.

And watch your head. The ceilings are low.

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