If you’ve been looking for a comfortable, casual place to hang out with a beer and some good food, Otherlands Beer might be the perfect spot.
Located in Bellingham’s Sunnyland neighborhood, the brewpub opened three years ago and offers fantastic European-style beer and street food.
The main dining room upstairs is bright and homey, with a wooden bar and big windows. A small amount of seating can be found downstairs as well, although most of the space is taken up by brewing equipment. The restaurant welcomes people of all ages, and the covered sidewalk seating area is dog-friendly.
Otherlands’ beer list is short, with an occasional guest tap. Most of their beers are made in lower-alcohol German styles, like the nicely mellow kellerbier I recently tried, but they often have a West Coast-style IPA for that one friend who has to have a mouthful of hops (sometimes I am that friend). They don’t do tasters, but you can get a cute little half-pour of anything, while a full pour might come in a satisfyingly big, heavy glass stein.
The entire menu at Otherlands is vegetarian, but you might not even notice because the food is so richly flavored and hearty. Many items on the menu are available vegan and/or gluten-free as well.
This is a great place to go for an early date for snacks and a beer, as all the food is highly shareable, with a nice assortment of nibbles in addition to larger plates.
You should always start with the fries: the “street frites” ($8) are hand-cut to be long and fat, some cooked to a shattering crispiness while others melt like butter in the mouth, served with an addictive creamy herb sauce. You have your choice of Belgian (simply salted), salt and vinegar, curry, or spicy with paprika and a bit of chili, like patatas bravas in a tapas bar (these were fabulous).
The roasted cauliflower appetizer ($9) has great flavors thanks to a heavy drizzle of zhug and yogurt with mint leaves, but when I tried it the pieces were overly large and it wasn’t as tender as I would have liked. Other appetizers include a big pretzel with beer cheese, a pickle plate, and fried Brussels sprouts, depending on your mood.
Their most popular dish might be the beet Reuben ($15.75). In every respect, this is a classic Reuben sandwich, made on marbled rye bread with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, but the meat has been replaced with thinly sliced smoked beets. Although it’s true beets do not at all taste like corned beef or pastrami, it’s amazingly delicious and satisfying.
My only complaint was that there were possibly too many beets on my sandwich, and they were slippery so they kept falling out, but I simply removed a few so I could clamp down on the filling more effectively. The Reuben comes with potato salad and a dill pickle, but you can substitute fries if you prefer.
Pierogis are a must-try here. These tender little dumplings come topped with mushrooms, caramelized onions, mustard seed, crème fraiche and herbs ($16.50). I personally prefer the potato and cheese filling, which is smooth and deeply comforting, but the mushroom and kraut filling is sharp and interesting (and I believe it’s vegan as well).
You can also get pierogis in shakshuka ($17), an interesting international mashup of a tomato and red pepper sauce with the potato dumplings (shakshuka is also available more traditionally with eggs). My favorite variation is the curry pierogis ($16.50), which are topped with a perky Ethiopian-style berbere curry sauce. You can add burrata for $3, although we completely forgot to do this and were sorry afterward. Next time!
Other great options include latkes ($11 for a half order, $14.50 for a full), which are made with a mix of potatoes and seasonally mysterious root vegetables, served with crème fraiche and compote. I also love the falafel wrap ($15.75), which is jam-packed with super-crispy falafel patties, then filled in with pickled cucumbers, onions, zhug and crème fraiche.
To offset your carb consumption, a nice Caesar salad ($12.50) is made with a mix of kale and lettuce, tossed with a cashew-based dressing and topped with crumbled egg yolk and finely sliced fennel. I would have preferred croutons to the two large, hefty slices of bread it came with, but it was very good bread.
On the weekend Otherlands offers “Second Breakfast” (bonus points for the “Lord of the Rings” reference) until 2 p.m., where you can get pancakes, French toast, and what sounds like a truly epic breakfast sandwich with a jalapeño latke, fried egg, and tomatillo salsa ($14.50). Have a free weekend morning? Bring kids and friends and settle in for a brunch that will set you up for the rest of the day. What could be better?
Otherlands Beer is open from noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 2121 Humboldt St., Bellingham. Info: otherlandsbeer.com.
