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Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 5:01 pm
by Liv
m_coul_s_euro_bar.jpg

I suppose when someone states it's the best bar in town, they should preface that their bar experiences of the last few years has been minuscule as their life revolves around happy meals, and the Cartoon network. It's been awhile. I remember clubbing in Greensboro back in the day, but this is the first time I've been to a bar in Greensboro in a longtime.... The last few times have been in Britain. So when the kids took off with the Grands for a week in Norris Dam, me and Shan took the opportunity to get over to M'Coul's Pub.

There's an obvious reason we chose M'Coul's Public House, as it's the only "Euro-themed" Irish bar that I'm aware of. Not knowing what to expect, or whether we'd leave the bar at 2am drunk in the arms of a 6'5" Irish man with a shaved head and tattoos.... like the last Irish drinking situation we went to during London's St. Paddy's Celebration... we decided to proceed cautiously.

So we drove down and parked, then tried to figure out exactly where the entrance is. We discovered going in through back was the answer, and was greeted by a wait-staff.... A wait-staff? Sure.... why not... So we went inside and discovered the interior looked typical of practically every Hollywood version of a European pub I've seen... -of course I've yet to see one in Europe that looks European (though they must exist).... We went up a flight of stairs and into a upstairs dining room where two very skinny waitresses whom I doubted had ever ate a single thing they served waited on us.... We sat down and immediately demanded two pints of Guinness. When it came, she had decorated it with a four-leaf-clover etched into the foam. Very hip. This is when I made my first discovery, -that a pint in American isn't the same pint in Europe. I later figured out when she offered us a 20oz what the difference is... Apparently saying "pint" in Britain defaults you to a 20 ounce.... despite the math.... either that, or every bartender we hit over there was just trying to get the American girls drunk. (maybe someone can explain this.)** (So yes they offer it, but they don't call it a pint)

mccouls_pub_irish_greensboro.jpg


So it's about this moment in time I realized they offer Guinness beer battered fish and chips. The moment could have only been improved by Greensboro's black gospel choir singing me a "praise the lord". This is when our drinking became a major nosh-up as Shan quickly smacked the waitress on the bum and said "Get thee to thy kitchen, wench.... and fry me some fish"... (no, not really)

While we waited; and absorbed our 16 oz pint of Guinness, we took in the upstairs artwork, the wood floors and outside balcony. M'coul's really is a neat place. It's exactly what you would expect of a "themed" restaurant or bar... for a moment, I could pretend I was in Shannon, Ireland (with Shannon?!?) drinking my beer... but before I could finish our food arrived.

OMG!!! It was beautiful, huge Haddock beer batter fish, seasoned chippies, with sides of tartar and ketchup. Our kind waitress brought us over some malt-vinegar, which happened to be Heinz, not Sarson's.... (Shan's only caveat.) As far as Fish and Chips... this is tops. The presentation was right on, service was amazing, and the ambiance.... well nothing short of airline tickets and a 7.5 hour flight come close.

mcouls_pub_greensboro.jpg


This is where the whole thing gets fuzzy.... because, it's a really awesome pub/bar... but it's also an amazing place for dinner. What's more is there was groups of women, couples, and families with kids, this isn't the dirty corner bar.... and that's completely great news for me and Shannon since we will be going back, but unfortunately next time it might be with the kids.....

    M'Coul's Public House
    110 W McGee St
    Greensboro, NC‎
    (336) 378-0204‎

**
You are wrong on 16 oz as a pint, 20 oz is the actual pint size. In America bars are ripping off Americans calling 16 oz a pint, it is has always 20 oz. The are laws in the United States that call 20 oz as a pint, it is just the bars that make it 16 oz to profit more, so you can buy two and tip another 12% tip.

Allover Western/Eastern Europe 20 oz is the standard glass, same with Canada, China, Brazil, Australia, Russia and etc. via

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 10:10 pm
by Serendipitous
You should check the schedule and go listen to Molly McGinn...

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 10:13 pm
by Liv
Definitely.... Maybe.... we need to have a Greensboring night? Let's get BHL drunk!!!

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 11:16 pm
by A Person
American customary units, although often called 'English' frequently have little in common other than the name. In most cases the American unit is smaller than the equivalent British Imperial unit. The fl-oz is one exception as the US fl-oz is 5% bigger than the Imperial fl-oz

So talking of a 16 oz pint vs a 20 oz pint is a bit meaningless since the oz aren't even the same size

1 Imp Gallon = 4.45 l = 1.2 US gallons (approx)

A pint is 1/8 gallon in both systems so the British Pint is also 20% more than a US pint.
British pint = 568 ml
US Pint = 473 ml

1 Imperial fl-oz is defined as 1/16 of an Imperial Pint
1 US fl-oz is defined as 1/20 US Pint
therefore:
1 Imperial fl-oz = 0.96 US fl-oz = 28.4 ml
1 US fl-oz = 29.57 ml
So a 20 US fl-oz 'pint' would end up being bigger than an Imperial pint.

Confused yet?

That's one reason I like metric units. They are a real standard. I'm happy with a half litre 'pint' Almost all European and British beer is sold in 500 ml cans/bottles

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 11:29 pm
by A Person
Brad, the guy on the Joe Audette site is wrong on the Guinness thing.

Cans of Guinness are 500ml cans, in common with most beer cans in Britain and Europe, but they contain a nitro widget, which takes up about 60ml of space so you get 440ml of Guinness in a can.

A 'pint' is more of a state of mind :)

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 28th, 2009, 11:32 pm
by Liv
I think next time... I'll just say "The big one!"

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 29th, 2009, 6:53 am
by Sanjuro
McCouls is ok... not my favorite. Most of the staff were jerks (At least as of last year). The guy in your photo was pretty nice though and got a fat tip from me last time I was there.

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 29th, 2009, 10:21 am
by Liv
The photos are from Google stock.... I left the camera at home.... we had a couple of nice young twiggies.....
They seemed really cool to us.... then again, perhaps they treat the men different? ...as it seems as though there were mostly women upstairs.

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: June 29th, 2009, 12:50 pm
by Sanjuro
Liv wrote:The photos are from Google stock.... I left the camera at home.... we had a couple of nice young twiggies.....
They seemed really cool to us.... then again, perhaps they treat the men different? ...as it seems as though there were mostly women upstairs.



Very possible. The couple Im thinking about acted as if they were doing us a favor by waiting on us. We had a nickname for one in particular due to her attitude.

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: May 20th, 2010, 2:49 pm
by Liv
Just got back and had a lovely pint with some fish and chips.... God I love this place!

guinness_at_mccouls.jpg

Re: Best Bar in Greensboro? M'Coul's Pub....

PostPosted: May 20th, 2010, 3:14 pm
by A Person
I just re-read my earlier post and realized I made a mistake.

A Person wrote:1 Imperial fl-oz is defined as 1/16 of an Imperial Pint
1 US fl-oz is defined as 1/20 US Pint
therefore:
1 Imperial fl-oz = 0.96 US fl-oz = 28.4 ml
1 US fl-oz = 29.57 ml
So a 20 US fl-oz 'pint' would end up being bigger than an Imperial pint.


I got them the wrong way round - should be:

1 imperial fl-oz is 1⁄20 imperial pint
1 US fl-oz is 1⁄16 US pint

But this bit was correct:

1 Imperial fl-oz = 0.96 US fl-oz = 28.4 ml
1 US fl-oz = 29.57 ml
So a 20 US fl-oz 'pint' would end up being bigger than an Imperial pint.


Why 20? Because an Imperial gallon was defined as the volume taken up by 10lb of water, therefore a pint is 1 1/4 lb or 20 oz. (It's now defined as 4.54609 litres). An imperial fl-oz of water weighs an oz.

See why I think the metric system is the only sensible one to use.