Silver Branch Lagerhaus & Biergarten — Restaurant in Maryland

Great pub in downtown Silver Spring. Really easy to find location, right next to the metro.

Rating purely as a brewery, a solid 5 stars, no question.

I removed 1 start for the following reasons: • Food options are limited • Food quality was mediocre (except those 🥨s 🤤!) • Didn't really feel the whole Gemütlichkeit 🫤, maybe because it was pretty dead when we arrived or maybe it was on off day but still 🤷🏽‍♂️

Now that said, the staff were certainly cool, accommodating, & service was great but idk. I guess I was thinking more of a UK/European-style setting. Where you can chat with everyone, even the staff but my only interactions with the staff at Silver Branch was when they were serving or I sought someone out with a question.

Ok, let's talk about the food in more detail:

Overall, the food was ok. Not bad but nothing special. Just fine to snack on while enjoying drinks.

Tried everything they were serving at the time, except the hummus platter. Here are my thoughts:

Chips & salsa - don't recommend unless you truly just want a very small handful of chips with some salsa

Tacos (got the chorizo potato) - not great but certainly not bad. This would be 2nd only to the pretzels.

Loaded Nachos - just like the other tortilla chip option, (they really are conservative with their chips lol) this one is simply not a great value. Also the serving method / presentation is not great. Came out on a small paper plate. Very difficult to dig in, especially if trying to share. On a positive note, they were tasty (got the barbacoa version)

Quesadillas (chicken & cheese) - think your standard quesadilla. Hard to mess up really but difficult to make awesome. These aren't awesome. Not as good as Chipotle or even Taco Bell honestly but again, not bad.

Pretzels (with mustard & beer cheese) - Honestly, the pretzels were the best tasting food there! Easily. Add the beer cheese & it's a slam dunk. No contest with the rest of the menu.

Ok, moving onto what we're all here for. The Bier. I tried every beer they had on tap minus IPAs because well....I hate IPAs lol:

Silver Branch Beers, March 2022:

• Infinite Time Construct - Dry Irish Stout on NITRO, 4.5%, very smooth, chocolate & malt flavor

• Beyond the Gnome World - Saison, 4.9% - very smooth, fruity notes, light & refreshing

• Glass Castle - Pilsner, 5% - wasn't on tap although the website said it was 🫤

• Golden Goat - Blond Bock, 6.6% - wasn't on tap although the website said it was🫤

• Vanilla Latte Chronicle - Coffee Stout, 7.2% - very smooth, strong & delicious vanilla notes, slight coffee flavor

• Nitro Chronicle - Nitro Foreign Extra Stout, 7.2% - smooth, malty, with a hint of hoppy bitterness

• Train to Midnight - Baltic Porter, 8.1% - fairly smooth, somewhat hoppy, good Baltic porter

• Full Tweed Jacket - Wee Heavy Scottish Style Beer, 8.2% - smooth, complex flavors, Carmel?, Malt, idk? Delicious! One of the best Scottish Style beers I've ever had!

• Silver Century - Abbey Quadruppel, 11.2% - extremely smooth & easy drinking abbey quadruppel. Only a slight hoppy forenote, extremely smooth for an 11+% beer. One of the best quadruppels I've ever tasted!

• Obsidian Castle - Tmave Pivo Dark Lager, 6% - malty, Carmel notes, slightly hoppy but not overpowering, overall very smooth & delicious

• Cloud 9 - Hefeweizen, 5% - smooth, light, & refreshing white wheat beer. All day drinking here!

• Landbier - Amber Lager, 5.5% - very similar to Cloud 9 but just a hair more hoppy & heavier, slightly

Hope this helps someone decide on a meal or...

I had an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience at this establishment. I'm a healthcare worker at a nearby office building and stopped in for my lunch break. I sat at the bar, and the bartender's behavior was quite strange to me. I ordered a drink to begin with and kind of expected a moment to quietly review the menu and take a breather from my hectic work day. The waitress continued to hover right in front of me, immediately asking if I planned to order food. I asked her to give me a minute. I had just sat down and hadn't quite gotten comfortable yet. When I did order, she strangely stood in front of me again and immediately asked if I wanted to open a tab or close it out. I told her I'd close it, and she again stood right in my face, saying I could tap the back of the handheld she was holding as she assumed I was going to use Apple Pay or my phone, which I was holding in my hand. However, as I reached into my purse to get my card, she literally extended her hand towards me with the handheld. I'm thinking to myself, d*mn what is up with this chick? I don't understand why she couldn't even allow me a minute to just get myself together and properly gather my payment method. She was so pushy and off-putting, rushing me and not allowing me to get situated. I'm not sure if she thought I was going to dine/dash and run out on the bill or what. The vibe was very weird, and she made me quite uncomfortable. When I was leaving, I asked if I could get a to-go cup to pour my Jarritos into since she had opened it, it was a glass bottle, and I needed to walk back to work. She went to the other end of the bar, and had a verbal exchange with a short stocky brunette waitress with blonde highlights. The other waitress began to walk away from the bar area and just stared at me. Next, the bartender walks back down towards my end of the bar, and initially, she's not saying anything, so I'm looking like do you have a cup? She just shook her head no. Where in 2024, does a full-service restaurant not have a to-go cup? I just grabbed my drink and got out of there as quickly as I could. It was such a strange experience. I will say that I am a black woman, and I was also the only black customer in the establishment. I left feeling as if it was back in the olden days, and I had stumbled upon a place where my kind wasn't welcome. I will never step foot in this restaurant again with all the weird energy I encountered from the staff. The only person who seemed kind was the man with tattoos on his arm who brought me my food. (2 stars for him alone.) There are way too many options in Downtown Silver Spring. I'll spend my money somewhere I...

Disappointed to be publicly humiliated and micro aggressed over Weds Night Trivia.

Only our server gets a great review because she genuinely gave us great service.

However, this month, we chose Silver Branch as our Montly Book Club meet up site. 8 of us in our party showed up to discuss our book. After Bookclub finished, we were having a great time, and because it was Trivia Night, we decided to stay.

Currently, the Gold Club is happening, and we are soccer people, so we pulled up the game on a laptop because the bar was not playing the game. As we were playing trivia, the hosts says out loud that someone had made him aware that we had a laptop out - publicly embarrassed us. He said it was the “rules” to not have technology out - phones, laptops. But everyone around us had their phones out. Everyone around us was also on their tech. So then, shouldn’t the whole bar be disqualified or be publicly shamed too?

But that’s beside the point.

Rather than to come up to us and ask us about the laptop, he publicly embarrassed us. And when I called him out about others on the phones he said, “oh, I guess you have to order on your phones.” This places makes you order on phones, but the trivia guy needed to embarrass the only Latinos in a white beer hall?

With his comment he made sure to continue to make his white patrons feel welcomed, while continuing to alienate our party. At that point I realized it wasn’t about technology at all.

The manager tried to remedy the situation by putting the game on one of the TVs, but the damage was done. They publicly humiliated us. And we immediately stopped playing, gathered our belongings and stepped outside the establishment.

Thank you to the patron who witnessed it, came out and jokingly said, “how dare you watch the soccer game on your laptop? I was watching the game with you.”

Management didn’t try to address the situation or apologize either. Rather, when two in our party asked to speak to the manager, the manager acknowledged similar complaints have been made about this trivia night. Why do you continue to work with this org?

So, they know it’s happening. It continues to happen, and they continue to promote it. Their actions demonstrates that this is solely an environment that makes a specific population welcomed (white), and they will cater to them while they alienate you. And they will do everything they can to make them feel comfortable but not you, person of color.

Think twice about coming here. The beer and beer prices are not worth the public...