You don’t have to be an Ayn Rand fan to hang out at Fountainhead, a new bar on the border of North Center and Ravenswood that shares its name with Rand’s 1943 novel—but you do have to like beer. Phil Kuhl, the bar’s manager and beer director, won a local following as the headmaster…
You don’t have to be an Ayn Rand fan to hang out at Fountainhead, a new bar on the border of North Center and Ravenswood that shares its name with Rand’s 1943 novel—but you do have to like beer. Phil Kuhl, the bar’s manager and beer director, won a local following as the headmaster of Sheffield’s Beer School; here he joins a team helmed in part by the folks behind the Bar on Buena (one of our top 100 watering holes) and oversees a list of two casks and 24 taps (think Allagash Odyssey and the Bruery’s Saison de Lente), plus 150 more varieties by the bottle coming soon. And that’s just the beer. Whiskey fans can choose from some 150 offerings.
About the bar’s name, David Putman, a co-owner, says it’s “born of the connotations of us being a beer bar, with beer served on tap” and not a devotion to Rand’s philosophy of objectivism, although “There are some themes relating to craftsmanship, rather than catering to mass appeal, that we didn’t mind.” (There’s also an actual fountain planned for the rooftop deck, slated to open midsummer.)
But enough backstory; if you want a novel, read Rand. If you want to peruse our photos of the bar, snapped last Friday, click below.
Photography: Megan Dodge