April 25, 2009
Cool place. We had some decent apps. I like the beer. It was pretty quality stuff. They had a friendly and knowledgable staff. The location is good. Real good happy hour.

February 13, 2009
Everything about Barley’s is solid. That sounds like a recommendation (and it is) but you’d like at least one aspect of a place to be outstanding, and nothing was. The atmosphere is good, lots of polished wood and brass rails. The house beers were, well, solid (my stout was nicely roasty, and slightly heartier than a typical brewpub stout). The chili chicken wrap was pretty good. Beer culture-wise, a notch above most brewpubs, but nothing to blow you away.

February 10, 2009
Visiting Barleys was my first trip into downtown Columbus. The environment was nice, the food was OK, and the beers were pretty good. I was satisfied, but I was hardly blown away by my experience here. Ambience was nice...it has a nice bar feel to it that is neither scummy/divey nor snobby while making everyone feel at home. The first thing I noticed was that the clientele was mostly female, which I think was driven by an event downtown, and not by my other hypothesis (that this is the first lesbian brewpub ever!). I’d read in other reviews that the beers are approachable. I noticed this immediately when I sipped the 4 Seas DIPA. DIPAs (and everything else Double/Imperial) aren’t supposed to be approachable! For a brewpub, this place seemed to have a lot of choices of beer, including some guest taps. Food menu had some higher priced items than I expected. I wasn’t that impressed with my fish & chips, but I wasn’t much in the mood for food, so I wouldn’t take too muc

September 25, 2008
We went there around 10-11pm on a weekend evening and there were more staff than patrons, including us. Obviously, there was no atmosphere which was accentuated by poor pop music, expeditive service (despite no one being inside) and the very high ceilings which brought the emptiness of the place to annoying levels. They had 2 guest ales and 7 of their own and while I could clearly see I ran out of luck as they had a very good menu one week before my visit and seemed to have only their very regular stuff when I visited, I still found everything ordinary and thin. I guess I would still come back if I stayed in Columbus again, but only because I felt unlucky with the menu.

August 24, 2008
I hit Barley’s three times during a four day conference in Columbus. I didn’t miss a session of the conference (Hi Boss!) It is a typical brewpub with standard far. They just started daily food specials. Thursday is the day to go as they have $3 IPA’s and $3 ½ lb hot dogs. The pregnant bartender was nice too. Overall above average. The Bodega has a better selection but much worse service.

July 30, 2008
This place rocks!Thanx to BeerVirgin for showing me this place.I had sampled 7 of their beers in a sampler tray and the chicken gyro that was great.The beers and food were real good.Great place to go and the waitress was knowledgeable about the beer and her service was great.I really love the fact that they had a homebrew contest and the winner had their beer on tap.they also had 2 cask brews of their own on tap also.Thanx Dawn for taking me there!!

June 18, 2008
Both Barley’s locations are a short drive, relatively speaking. This downtown one is across from the convention centre, and in the touristy district. Very safe government area. Very large inside, the brewer was here, the bar was fairly large, the lighting was good. A great place to meet up with people , in my case, a few raters I have met before. Ohio is friendly and relationships count. About 12 taps of micros, mostly home taps but four good guest taps. Service was efficient. The beers are approachable, the stouts and barleys above average. Hops are rationed, and in the pales and scotch beers (at least 3 at both locations) an orangey like flavoring apparent, which the brewer says is not orange flavouring but was not more forthcoming. Worth a stop if in town.

May 17, 2008
Despite the more limited home beers selection I preferred this location over the bigger but rather boring location on Dublin Road. This one has a lot more of a pub feel, I could imagine myself spending an entire evening in that pub (not the case with the Dublin location). Didn’t try the food and only had one beer (they close early) but I know that these are the same beers as the other location so I know they are kick-ass beers cause I had many of them at the other location.

March 27, 2008
Dropped in briefly after a visit to Grapes of Mirth, picked up a growler of Alexander’s RIS. Handsome bar with wood tables, soft lighting, and a spare setting that I like in a brewpub. At midday there was nobody there, and I had no food (so can’t comment). But the staff were friendly and informative, and I was stoked to get a growler of this well loved stout.

December 6, 2007
Nice clean brewpub look with a decent sized bar and lots of booths and tables, real clean look. They had about 12 of their beers on when we were there with 2 guest taps. The kobe burger was very good as was everyone else’s food. Went on a sunday when they opened so of course service was just fine. The beers though were lacking bigtime in flavor and basically quality very light and flavorless except the imperial stout which was ok. Great place, great time, I’d go again but would go to #2 first that’s for sure.