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This venue is closed.

Loreley, that LES beer-hall standard, has expanded to Williamsburg, though you might not know it given the bar’s poverty of signage and hiding place under the BQE. A narrow gateway transports visitors into a graveled cloister shaded by huge deck umbrellas and potted shrubs; facing the yard is the bar proper, which stocks a dozen drafts from Germany, from Bitburger to Jever to that pride of Cologne, Gaffel Koelsch (German wines are also modestly represented). Williamsburg’s older, tamed crowds and black-clad waiters wander from the yard to the building’s interior, where, in a nice design touch for a house of intoxicating liquids, the cement is on the floor and the hardwood is on the ceiling. The mid-range drink prices crossed with the bar’s inconvenient coordinates make the city’s other beer halls look like more attractive prospects, though for those with rumbling tummies, the menu might be draw enough. Platters of sausage, cold cuts, cheese, pickles, something called a “grosser” salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs—to dine here is to understand how the Germans had the energy to conquer half of Europe. In contrast, a dainty “wreath” of 11 tiny draft beers arrives on a tray fit for English tea-time. — John Metcalfe