If you're among the beer-snob elite who think American microbrews are an overhopped abomination (or, as my personal elitist beer snob puts it, "They taste like you've already thrown up"), cheers. Prost! (it means "cheers," specifically for beer, in German) is here to help—or rather, it's in Phinney Ridge to help, and from the looks of it, the neighborhood knows it's got a good thing going. The only place to sit on a Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. is atop the tabletop Pac-Man game; even the chairs for would-be game players have been requisitioned for use elsewhere by a roomful of very cheerful regulars.
Prost! is like a miniature German beer hall, with bench seating, a prodigious number of kegs lining the back hall, and a large painting of a Teutonic beer wench with a slightly demonic look in her blue eyes. (Upon perplexed perusal, the painting proves to be a mural on the rough wall with a frame nailed around it.) The brief German menu skews toward the absorptive. Landjager, which sounds like a shot to be done inside an SUV, is in fact a German sausage; gurken salat is, charmingly, a German cucumber salad.
A confounding number of German beers are on tap at the bar. The "Buy a Friend a Bier" chalkboard lets the clientele practice some neighborly enabling—you can leave someone credit for a future brew. And along with proper glassware for each beer and steins galore, there's the legendary Boot: a two-liter vessel for the committed or gigantic beer drinker.
My beer snob gets as wound up as an elitist can upon seeing a neon sign for Hacker Pschorr ("Munich's Bier Since 1417"), which is summarily pronounced the best beer in the world. Unfortunately, the neon is unilluminated, and per a conference with the bartender, the beer is unavailable (though she is in agreement about its preeminence). A Schwarzbier is settled upon as an acceptable alternative; shockingly, it is from a local company, Baron Brewing. (The big mug for this beer bears Baron's elaborate crest, which says "German Style Beers Since 2003.")
The near-black Schwarzbier is lavishly praised for its clarity and specificity of taste, which, my beer snob informs me, has to do with the precise toasting of the grain, which is what makes dark beer dark. Indeed, it tastes less muddy and thick than, say, a Guinness; it's got a dulcet coffee-like note, and it is good. Meanwhile I enjoy a tall, slender glass of pale Franziskaner Weissbier in an uninformed way.
A guy orders the Boot to general acclaim, but then it gets passed around a table of eight, which seems like cheating. Nonetheless, their increased jubilance is inspiring, and when one of them unexpectedly polishes off the last third of the enormous beverage, he is hailed as a hero of beer drinking. He wears the satisfied smile of a fresh buzz and a job well done. 
Buy yourself and/or a friend a bier at Prost! (7311 Greenwood Ave N, 706-5430).
