• Photo by Drew Hyland
• The Local Beer Bar

Here in Humboldt, we rejoice in our animal selves. Not the nasty, brutish and short part, but the eating, drinking and cavorting part.

How else can you explain it, when a category open to every kind of commerce zeros in so markedly on food and drink?

Barbecue and bakeries, pho and food trucks, brewers and bars all zoomed past art galleries, clothing shops and the narrowly but no doubt deeply loved service industry (sorry, Jill Frizzell, psychotherapy, and Kamali Insurance Services).

And bubbling to the forefront of them all is The Local Beer Bar, with its little white tubs of chalk, its chalkboard tables, its scrawl-on-me brick wall and its amply tempting taps of Beer You Probably Couldn't Find in Humboldt Before.

If you taste something you like at The Local, tell whoever poured it and he's sure to suggest a bunch of others you might want to try, too. Find one you don't like, and he'll tell you what else to steer away from.

Just don't expect to find the same thing next month, because owner Darren Cartledge likes to keep new surprises coming to his 22 taps and stock of more than 100 different bottled brews.

The Breakdown: The Local 11.5%, Pho Hoang 5%, The Speakeasy 4.1%, Bang! Bang! 2.8%, Shamus T-Bones 2.1. Category popularity: 30th.