Best New Bar

Johnny Rad’s

2108 Eastern Ave., (443) 759-6464, johnnyrads.com

Sometime you walk into a bar and you can just tell immediately that you are in some other person’s dream bar, a guest in their vision. Like, a place sketched out on drink napkins over the years, with maybe even a few aborted attempts behind it, and all-in-all has that kind of palpable heart and soul such that you may as well be chilling in the owner’s den. That’s Johnny Rad’s. There are the well-scuffed skateboards adorning absolutely everything, the nice touches such as skate wheels on the bathroom doors, and the well-manicured beer selection based on what people might actually like to drink—a whole lot of quality canned beers, like Porkslap and Dales—and not a beer snob’s idea of what they should like to drink. And pizza, very good pizza. And creative bar food you can afford, like a basket of hush puppies (“huf puppies,” here) that do just fine as a stand-alone snack. There are a lot of places that open in Baltimore based on some calculation of trendiness—food-y, beer-y, sports-y, Miami—and not many based on personality. Johnny Rad’s will do well.

Best Bar, Station North

Club Charles

1724 N. Charles St., (410) 727-8815

You know Club Chuck. Save for the Tavern, it’s the one bar in Baltimore cool enough for art hipsters to patronize. It’s got Future Islands and Beach House on the jukebox. The food, still flowing from the Zodiac kitchen next door, is damn fine—who knew a vegan crab cake could be edible, let alone good. In recent months, the Club Charles has even gotten Pikesville Rye back for sale and a handful of new, fancy-pants beers such as Dogfish. You’ll still never find Natty Boh here, but the all-out Halloween decorations and an occasional John Waters appearance might make up for it. This is a bar stand-by that will survive Armageddon.

Best Bar, Charles Village

Charles Village Pub

3107 Saint Paul St., (410) 243-1611

The Charles Village Pub gets grief for being a college bar, sometimes fairly, but more often it’s a mislabeled neighborhood bar. The bartenders remember you, as do the hard-drinking regulars; the burger is decent and cheap; and the beer selection isn’t half bad for a bar just around the way. You can also drink outside until close, which is plenty rare, maybe strike up a conversation with an astrophysicist, or get good and lit and play that video game where you shoot the big game animals. A good time.

Best Bar, Fells Point

Cat’s Eye Pub

1730 Thames St. (410) 276-9866, catseyepub.com

Over the last decade or so, Fells Point has seen many old, familiar drinking spaces replaced with new, strange ones, making us all the more fond of the old standbys. Among those—and there are still several—the Cat’s Eye Pub stands out. The place had a sad shift change when longtime owner Tony Cushing died in 2008, but Cushing’s wife and son, Ana Marie and Tony Jr., have stuck with the 30-year-old formula: opening every single day, offering lots of free live music, and welcoming all with a free-wheelin’, hard-drinkin’ attitude. Fortunately, the Cat’s Eye hasn’t caught the fast-spreading Fells Point disease of messing with a good thing.

Best Bar, Federal Hill

Mum’s

1132 S. Hanover St., (410) 547-7415

It’s interesting how becoming a bar destination/booze theme park—Federal Hill, Canton, Power Plant Live—can help suck actual quality drinking establishments out of a neighborhood. Well, Mums is holding its ground in Federal Hill like a champ, a dusty pocket of a bar off the main booze drag sporting cheap-enough Boh and hard-drinking South Baltimore regulars—plus its one of only a few places in the city to get Viryta, that Lithuanian honey liquor, typically sold in one of several numbered combinations of drinks (like a “#1,” or a Boh and a shot). You could feel at home here real easy.

Best Bar, Downtown

Midway Bar

421 E. Baltimore St., (410) 727-5054, midwaybar.com

The only place to grab a drink on the Block without having to gawk at naked flesh offers a different kind of original character. Like many beloved local dive bars, the Midway feels like it hasn’t changed in years, maybe decades, and that attitude perfectly suits the place. A long bar runs down one side of the room with restrooms in the back (you have to get buzzed in if you need to use it), and the clientele runs from men and women you assume work shifts down in this stretch of the 400 block of East Baltimore Street to people who feel right at home in a dive bar surrounded by strip clubs. The prices are more than reasonable—and downright cheap compared to traditional Block establishments—and the ambiance 100 percent genuine and irony free. Cheers.

Best Bar, Canton

Looney’s

2900 O’Donnell St., (410) 675-9235, looneyspub.com

We hate to sound like a broken record, but let’s face it—Looney’s pretty much embodies the experience that is going out in Canton. There’s ample outdoor seating for people watching, or for holla-ing, if that’s your thing. The front bar has that narrow, cozy feel of a neighborhood spot, while the upstairs is huge and littered with TVs and sundry bar games. There’s even a dining room, which we’ve only glimpsed while shuffling upstairs to the bar. Drinks are reasonably cheap, bartenders are competent (if a bit surly), and the wings are good. It’s one-stop shopping, the Walmart of getting ripped on the square, if you will.

Best Bar, Highlandtown

The Laughing Pint