I don’t normally find myself out in the sticks, since I’m more of a city boy when it comes to beer drinking. Yeah, I find myself at the local watering hole while I walk my dog through the neighborhood, and that isn’t all that urban. But that’s an exception.

When it comes to serious beer drinking out with the boys, I tend to find some place close to the office in downtown Tacoma or along the strip in Olympia, just for the sake of having streetlights to park my car, so I don’t get jumped and dragged into a dark alley. But maybe I’m just paranoid.

Anyway, I broke that general guideline when I found myself having beers with some friends from church. Yeah, go figure. A man can believe in God and still drink beer. So they happen to live right down the street from the Milton Tavern and wanted to take the missus and me out for pizza at the joint. I’m always up for pizza and beer, so we accepted the offer.

We dropped the short shot from our mansion in Steilacoom to Milton and found ourselves in this otherwise non-descript little pub along Pacific Highway right after the bend between Fife’s RV row and the downtown stretch of Milton.

The joint has a laid-back vibe, and we didn’t have any trouble finding a table by the window. It was a Sunday afternoon, after all. There was a gaggle of local boys with all of their own teeth playing UNO over a pitcher of beer. Yeah, Uno. Grown men playing UNO. That’s the sort of vibe it had, since it didn’t seem out of place at all. People were just kicking back over beers and sandwiches while they either watched the collection of televisions playing some sort of game where men in pads threw an egg-shaped ball down a grid-painted field or something. I wasn’t particularly paying attention. I’m not what folks call a sports guy.

We sat down and ordered our pizza, a pepperoni long dog or something like that. It reminded me of a student film I saw in Amsterdam one time, but that movie had nothing to do with pizza. There was a lot of sauce involved, but that is a story for another time.

Anyway, the pizza came out hot, and the beer was cold. Mirror Pond and pizza is really the only way to spend a Sunday afternoon if you have to be out and away from the History Channel.

I visited the bar and glanced over the two dozen or so taps the tavern had flowing. There were the usual suspects. Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Big Sky, Maritime, Skagit, Pyramid, Rogue and a few of the crap beers locals like to drink because they just don’t know any better. Its full bar also seemed impressive.

The pizza was above average, but not particularly remarkable. The sandwich my friend had on the side seemed the way to go. The meat was stacked high and thick and could easily be a two-meals-on-one-plate sort of thing.

The burgers were equally impressive. I have to say that this is a place I could see myself returning to if I find I need a beer while driving along old Highway 99.  Actually, I can’t think of any time when I’ve driven along that strip of the world and not needing some sort of libation to get me through the stresses of traffic and truck fumes.



[Milton Tavern, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday-Thursdays,11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, 7320 Pacific Hwy. E, Milton, 253.922.3340]