Beer for Me, Apple Juice for Her

A Story by liker

When Ashley Primis was preparing for her daughter’s first birthday party last year, she wanted it to be memorable. So Ms. Primis, 35, ordered a buffet of child-friendly foods; decorated the tables with toys, coloring books and bubbles; and bought a gigantic pink Geronimo balloon on Etsy.

She even baked an ombré-colored smash cake from scratch. Predictably, the 15 toddlers in attendance smashed the cake and created a huge mess. But neither Ms. Primis nor her friends seemed to mind.

When the chaos mounted, they just ordered another round of beers.

Instead of cramming guests into her 800-square-foot apartment, Ms. Primis invited everyone to Frankford Hall, a sprawling beer garden in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. “My daughter’s birthday was as much a celebration of us finishing our first year as parents as it was about her,” said Ms. Primis, an editor at Philadelphia magazine.

“No one was getting sloshed,” she said.

Across the country, German beer gardens are booming, and as they proliferate in both gentrifying neighborhoods and city parks, they’ve become a go-to destination for family outings, play dates and toddler birthdays. On weekend afternoons, many transform into Gymboree-like spaces with multiple brews on tap.

This delights parents of young children looking for ways to mesh their own leisure pursuits with the kiddies’. “I want us to do things as a family,” Ms. Primis said.

But the under-age presence has also perplexed and frustrated many beer garden patrons. Yelp reviews for beer halls in New York, Washington and Milwaukee complain about the proliferation of disruptive “rugrats” and “throngs of toddlers screaming.” They warn against selfish parents who, critics complain, treat these adult spaces like their own backyard playgrounds.

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Some patrons have even demanded curfews or the banning of tots altogether. But the prohibition of children is unlikely because catering to the cherubic set makes financial sense for bar owners. Children younger than 16 are permitted in bars if accompanied by an adult, according to the New York State Liquor Authority. Many other states make similar allowances for chaperoned youngsters.

At the Die Stammkneipe/Der Schwarze Kölner beer hall (DSK for short) in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, parents can rent the space for Saturday morning birthday parties as well as a few afternoons per week for caregivers thirsty for a “Babies & Bier” play group. The entrance fee is $10 and provides for soft pretzels, sparkling juice and lager.

“Moms are good business,” Chantal Martineau, 37, said as she sipped a schwarzbier while her 6½-month-old toppled about on DSK’s multicolored play mats one recent Thursday afternoon.

“Who else is here in the middle of the day?” she said.

Randi Lockemann, DSK’s owner, said she started the play groups to address a lack of large indoor play spaces. “There’s not really anywhere else to go when the weather’s bad,” said Ms. Lockemann, who has a 5-year-old daughter. “The only other play group near here is at a church.”

Historically, beer gardens in the United States were family-centric spaces. At the height of German immigration in the mid-19th century, there were as many as 3,000 beer gardens in New York. On Sunday afternoons, it was common to see families with young children in attendance. “It was part of the rise of working-class leisure activities,” said Christine Sismondo, a historian and the author of “America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops.”

“Some beer gardens would have had bowling alleys, sketch artists, classical music, opera, folk dancing and singing,” she said. In those days of lax drinking laws, it was not unusual to see children drinking beer alongside their parents.

Parents today are not quite so liberal. But those who take their children to beer halls and gardens tend to be more relaxed about alcohol in general. “Modeling responsible drinking is how our kids will learn what’s O.K.,” said Amber Storm, 34, a stay-at-home mother of four in Milwaukee. Ms. Storm recently chronicled her daughter’s beer garden birthday party on her blog, Milwaukee By Storm.

In 2012, Milwaukee County Parks introduced partnerships with breweries and bar owners as part of an effort to reinvigorate the city’s German heritage. A result is three beer gardens nestled alongside biking trails and near soccer fields and jungle gyms.

Ms. Storm likes the laid-back, communal feel of these hybrid spaces and says the parents she meets there are less overbearing and Type A in their parenting than those at the local playground.

“I have more in common with them,” she said. “We all need to take care of ourselves, and if that involves having a stein of beer with a friend �" and your kid is safe and in eyesight �" then it’s totally acceptable.”

But plenty of other patrons disagree. Greenwood Park Beer Garden in Brooklyn implemented a 4 p.m. curfew after customers complained about disruptive children. (Local parenting bloggers expressed outrage at the rule, and the curfew was changed to 7 p.m.)

Customers at Fullsteam Brewery, a beer hall in Durham, N.C., have complained to managers and bartenders about the abundance of children.

To try to address these frustrations, the owner Sean Wilson added a cheeky disclaimer to his website, about the so-called Fullsteam Kid Multiplier Effect, which “states that those biased against the presence of children when alcohol is being consumed will perceive the presence of 10 kids for every one actual kid.” (A corollary caveat reads, “A related maxim is the Fullsteam Hipster Multiplier Effect (FHME), in which the ratio is 20:1. That is, for every certified, genuine hipster at Fullsteam, the subject perceives 20 hipsters in his or her presence.”)

“We’re trying to help people relax and to explain what this place is,” Mr. Wilson said. He doesn’t think of his establishment as a traditional bar. He calls it a “hall” and a “tavern,” a place for “community and family-friendly celebration.”

Ms. Martineau, the mother who attends “Babies & Bier” play dates in Brooklyn, believes in moderation. Toddler birthday parties at beer halls, for instance, are a step too far in her estimation. Even though she was disappointed by the decision, she said she sympathized with Hot Bird, a popular bar in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, when it barred children.

“I remember being annoyed by kids in bars before I became a mom,” she said. “Now I try to be respectful instead of thinking that everyone should adapt to me.”