Its name says Valhalla, but its interior reads more like an empty Crate & Barrel showroom or minimalist model condo. There’s just entirely too much white drywall going on in the place. And the multiple flatscreens hanging there gives it that extra sense of a Best Buy gone wrong. I swear there’s a giant plastic Viking torso on the wall or something that made me wonder what kind of psychedelics the owners were doing when they purchased the thing from the Oriental Trading Company. The draw here is obviously not the atmosphere but the large variety of microbrews, both foreign and domestic. You have everything from your stouts to your rose petal-tasting IPAs to your lighter pilsners, and everything in between. I’m not particularly adventurous in my beer choices, I must say, so standing there sampling holds minimal interest for me beyond going back to the well a few times for a limited selection of brews I’ve had in the past. I was there with a couple guys who know and appreciate beer, which always makes things a little more interesting, but couldn’t, in this case, make up for the general lack of enthusiasm I felt for the place as a whole. There was just a ho-hum, lackluster feel about the joint as a whole, and standing with all of that light wood and white certainly didn’t inspire me to hang out and wait around for the fun to spring forth. [MF]
815 9th Ave.
212/757-2747
valhallabarnyc.com