The Owl Bar

The Baltimore Sun's Sam Sessa ("Midnight Sun") has a post on the wonderful place all of us beer geeks keep passing up in order to go across the street to the Brewers' Art:

The Owl Bar. In the former Hotel Belvedere at Chase and Charles Streets.

Yes, the bar, as well as the lobby you pass through to get there, is a freakin' time capsule, although the beer selection now reflects modern drinking sensibilities, with a good selection of micros. If you haven't been there, you must go. Now. Before someone manages to turn it into a modern nightclub or a sushi bar. Dress properly; I feel out of place in sneakers there. Bonus points for a fedora and trenchcoat. And check out what may be one of the last phone booths in Baltimore while you're there, before the phone companies render the last of Superman's changing rooms to the history bins.

(For any phone historians keeping track, I believe Baltimore's last actual free-standing phone booth--a three-sided box with a door or one in a past life, not a phone stand or kiosk--sits on the south side of Wilkens Avenue just west of Hilton Avenue, outside St. Agnes Hospital. I'd welcome reports of any others in the region; the last one in the metropolitan DC region, in Clarendon, Va., was removed earlier this year.)