Big Pappa's Bar Guide: The Ugly Mug

The Ugly Mug
AREA: Capital Hill
Metro: Eastern Market
(Blue/Orange Lines)
723 8th St., SE
(202) 547-UGLY

Mon-Thu: 11:30am-1:30am
Fri: 11:30am-2:30am
Sat: 11:00am-2:30am
Sun: 11:00am-1:30am

Beers on tap:

Bare Knuckles, Bass, Bud, Bud LIght, Foggy Bottom, Fosters, Guiness, Harp, Harpoon IPA, Hefewiesen, Miller Lite, Red Hook IPA, Sam Adams, Smithswick, Stella Artois, Yuengling, plus a few others.

Daily Specials:

Monday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm: 7:00pm - close:	Half-price beers and cocktails $2 Miller Lite bottles
Tuesday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm:	Half-price beers and cocktails
Wednesday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm:	Half-price beers and cocktails
Thursday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm: 7:00pm - close:	Half-price beers and cocktails $2 Miller Lite bottles
Friday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm: 7:00pm - close:	Half-price beers and cocktails $3 Foggy Bottom drafts
Saturday:	4:00pm - 7:00pm: 7:00pm - close:	Half-price beers and cocktails $3 Heinekens and Amstel Lights

Reviews:

The latest addition to the Barrack's Row scene is a welcome. With two other bars on the same block -- Fin Mac Cool's and Tapatini's -- The Ugly Mug adds yet a different atmosphere to the scene. With 9 plasma screen tvs, 5 big ones on the wall behind the bar, and 4 mid-size on banisters throughout, this bar is perfect for March Madness.

Hidden away in the back is a single pool table and Golden Tee machine. You don't realize that until you are looking for the restrooms.

The bar is sleak and long, allowing for 20-25 people to sit at the bar. There are tables and booths throughout to allow for the limited menu options.

Once you get their attention, the bartenders are friendly. That sometimes is a rarity in this town.
- Big Pappa

Walk into the new Ugly Mug on Barracks Row and you'll be struck by two things: rows of decorative tap handles at the bar, and rows of flat-screen televisions. Five large monitors hang on the wall behind the bar, and another four decorate support columns in the middle of the room, allowing everyone to have a view of the sporting action that plays relentlessly.

The Ugly Mug opened its doors just before New Year's Eve, and it's clearly a work in progress. Except for a few beer-ad mirrors, the white walls are mostly blank, like a freshly occupied apartment. Everything else seems pretty basic: rows of large, circular booths along one wall, a back room with a pool table, golf video game (PGA Tour, not Golden Tee) and another large television. It's certainly not much to look at.

Barracks Row has added several new bars in the past year or so, but the focus here is on sports, beer and upscale bar food. Twenty-four draft beers flow from the Mug's taps -- the largest selection on Capitol Hill -- and Chef Graig Glufling, formerly of Matchbox, prepares his delicious trademark miniburgers and specialty pizzas, including white pizzas topped with prosciutto and garlic, and the "Maryland" pizza with crabmeat and artichoke.
- The Washington Post

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