"college towns" news and stories

Trappeze Pub in Athens, Ga. Image: Trappeze Pub.

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

It's summer. School is out of session. Probably seems like the wrong time to be hitting up bars in a college town like Athens, Ga. , home to the University of Georgia. But Trappeze Pub sees slightly smaller crowds during the summer months, making July and August the perfect time to stop by this sophisticated suds spot.

"Some bars close down for a month and a half in the summer," explains owner Eric Johnson about the fate of other neighborhood watering holes in need of student bodies to fill their spaces. "The lion's share are all about who has the best keg deal on. Even the local beer geeks said [Trappeze] would never work!"

But work it did. With 39 taps and a beer engine containing only "the best of the best" in the brew world, this pub quickly made a name for itself. After being open for only three months, in early 2008, the pub bought the coffee house next door to accommodate crowds. "Turns out there was a sizable group of folks in Athens that were just waiting for a place to do craft beer well," Johnson told us.