We’ve been going to sports bars in New York for 20 years. Let’s play the word association game: we say “sports bar;” you think “fist fights, cheap plastic pitchers of bad beer and 25 cent wings.” They don’t bother to call them “chicken wings” because of the dearth of poultry meet on each bone. And yet these places often pack the crowds in five deep at the bar, because the typical patron can’t afford anywhere else.

We’re the midtown New York sports bar for grown-ups. As any sports bar must, we take our sports seriously – a quick glance at our 9, brand new, large screen HD TVs attests to that. Our full-season DirectTV packages for NCAA and NFL Football provide further evidence. And our often opening at 8:30 am on Saturday for English football seals the deal.

But we’re just as passionate about the beer we serve. As we wrote last week, our first-class list of 24 craft beers on draft and five craft bottle beers evolves regularly, particularly as the seasons change. As the glowing reviews on Open Table and Yelp convincingly show, sports fans share our taste in beer. They also love our beer specials. For nearly every game, we offer some sort of special on one or more of our craft beers. Whether it be a pint for $5 or a 48 ounce Steiner for $14, or a great deal on a combination with our out-of-this world chicken wings that have more meat on each one than on a dozen of the other guy’s, you can always divine our special at a glance, as everyone seated at the bar is partaking of it.

Our passion for sports and beer doesn’t come at the expense of the taste of our food – we are, first and foremost, a Gastropub. A read of our posts explaining the origin and preparation of our late summer kabobs and heirloom tomatoes or our flank steak and tomatillos will launch a strategic battle in your mind on how to enjoy a healthy tasting of our chicken wings and yet leave room for the delectable main course.

And that is not a problem you usually conjure up when you think “sports bar.”

While our place enjoys a steady, sizable crowd for most major sports event and NFL Sundays, you’ll almost always find a comfortable seat of your very own.

Welcome to the best sports bar in midtown Manhattan for grown-ups.

The word “gastropub” feels as familiar to many of us as “restaurant” or “cafe,” or even “pub,” the word from which it sprang. But the phenomenon is still quite young, and has a more complex past than you might expect from the simple, rustic fare it represents.

To put it simply: gastropubs are a result of Britain’s 1980s recession, when cash-strapped breweries were forced to turnover many of the pubs they’d held under lease agreements. Once such pub, according to The Washington Post, was the Eagle, a pub in the Clerkenwell neighborhood of London. When new ownership took over the pub in 1991, it decided to maintain a casual atmosphere, but to take the food up a few notches. The result was the first gastropub, and it sparked what has become a formidable culinary scene in Great Britain.

A porky incarnation hit New York in 2004, when outspoken British chef April Bloomfield, along with Ken Friedman, opened The Spotted Pig in the West Village. The place has been packed since day one, spawning new gastropubs around town, including Wilfie and Nell, The Clerkenwell and, more recently, Daniel Boulud’s DBGB and another Bloomfield-Friedman project, The Breslin at the Ace Hotel.

The gastropub’s reach now extends to an unlikely city: Beijing. The Beijinger describes Park Side Bar & Grill, which opened just in time for this summer’s World Cup, as the city’s very first gastropub. It features all the usual trappings, like dark wood, unpretentious food and plenty of craft beers, including Portland’s Rogue label.

At the Brickyard, you can expect a similarly laid back dining and drinking experience, but a serious devotion to craft beers. We’ve taken things a step further by pairing every dish on our lunch, dinner and brunch menus – from steamers down to our sweet potato burrito – with the perfect accompanying beer.  In the coming days and weeks, we’ll be blogging about these pairings, explaining how they’re established, and taking a closer look at some of the spectacular brews and equally impressive brewers behind each one.

We’re glad to have you along.