Idle Hour

When pickle-​juice-​accompanied whiskey shots and vile green shots of liquor made by deranged Carthusian Monks since 1605 are the competing house drinks, you know you’ve stumbled across a bar that wholeheartedly embraces the concept of nonconformity.
Idle Hour is housed in a quintessential corner-​entrance-​style building that is the hallmark of many of Balmer City’s best dive bars. But pass through the sticker covered door, give your eyes a moment to adjust to the ultra dim, Christmas light & candle provided mood lighting, and you’ll start to appreciate the finer points of this bar.
5 beers on tap, relatively inexpensive drinks, an occasional DJ that spins a wildly eclectic mix of music, and no t. v… (Yes A Bar With No T.V.). At Idle Hour it’s all about the conversation.
The crowd at Idle hour can best be described as «random». It’s not unusual to see a scruffy old guy sipping a MGD at one end of the bar and someone in a suit sipping a martini at the other end, with a college student somewhere in between. But somehow it works and everyone gets along.
If you’re wondering about food… Nadda… Zip… Zero… going on within Idle Hour’s kitchen’less existence. But they will let you bring in a pizza or sub from nearby Mikie’s, where the food and the service leave a lot to be desired. But if you just need something to soak up the excess alcohol, it’ll do in a pinch.

This is the best dive bar ever. 1– their signature shot is an herbal, peppery liquor called Chartreuse and I highly recommend it. 2– the bartender is a girl with sleeves who is kind of rude but in this way that makes you like her? Anyway, she’s a great bartender. 3 — if you go on Saturday there will almost certainly be a couple there with their hypoallergenic dog whose name is… wait for it… Neil Patrick Hairless. Go. Experience it for yourself.

This is one of my favorite bars in Baltimore; I have many fond memories of nights out in this place on business trips of the past. If you’re looking for an off the beaten path bar in Baltimore, look no further.
It’s very intimate and small it would be great for for a date or for a casual night of drinking. They always seem to have some local artists are on the wall on display for your appreciation.
They have an impressive display of empty Chartreuse bottles above the bar. It seems to be their signature drink. In fact I was first introduced to Chartreuse at Idle hour… And come to think of it’s the only place I have ever drank it (though I do have a pretty much 100% chance of ordering it when I visit this bar). Brace yourself, it is very strong.
Five stars, for a great bar with a great feel in a great section of Baltimore.

Great dive bar to relax in. Dark lighting. No TVs with sports. Record player always spinning eclectic music (blues, jazz, punk, etc). Bartenders are very attentive and nice. Local art on the walls is cool to check out and changes every few weeks. My favorite watering hole in Fed Hill.

Great cocktail joint in Fed Hill.
Its a very intimate and small place, so good for dates or small groups.
The bartender there is very friendly, and during my night there I was served by the manager/​owner. He is very knowledgeable about mixology, and he made me a great Manhattan with Jack Daniel, and my very first Moscow Mule :)
Nice atmosphere, and good jazz music was being played, but I wish it was Live, oh well! Lol

My favorite bar in Bmore. It is dark, low key and drama free. There are definitely a lot of hipsters in there, so if you are allergic you might want to take a Benadryl before going. They play really great and somewhat eclectic music. I am constantly shazamming songs when I am in there. Chartreuse is the signature shot, but so is the pickle-​back, which is my favorite. A pickle back is a shot of Pikesville rye whisky and a shot of kosher pickle juice. You do the whisky followed by the pickle juice – delicious and refreshing! If you are in S. Bmore, go get a pickle back and spend an idle hour (or two) at Idle Hour.

I have a good time every time I go here. Don’t get the wrong impression when people say «dive bar». It doesn’t have a bunch of drunks slumped over barstools. They have decent bartenders, cool «lighting» and vintage vinyl. Fort Ave. has a lot of bars, all with their own personality. This one is good.

Not much to say, went for a few drinks. The drinks were good and the bartender was nice and tentative.

Drinks here were good and not overly expensive.
Nice off the beaten path place with an off the beaten path crowd.

Great spot for an intimate night of drinking! Great beers on tap and the bartender was spot on with his mixed drinks and vinyl choices!

Don’t get their wine! It was horrible and the bartender still charged me for that after just one sip! She insisted it was a new bottle while it tasted vinegary.
The place was cozy with dimmed lighting and decent music. Other than that nothing special…
Just horrible wine selection! Ewwwww…

Idle Hour is by far, my favorite bar in Baltimore. It doesn’t seem like much at first glance, but as soon as you walk in, you realize it’s not your typical «dive bar.» There is a large vinyl collection, so there is always something fun and different to listen to. The bar is lined with red twinkle lights, giving it a very chill, cool vibe. I highly recommend this place, for a fun and different place to grab a drink, relax, hang out with friends, and listen to great music.

Cool bar Baltimore! I went here last Friday night to meet and hang out with two of my college friends. One of them lives right around the corner so this is his local place. I have to say having just gone to a dive bar in Baltimore the night before that I did not care for, this Idle Hour bar was a relief for me. Definitely a cool local scene bar. My friend said it’s way cooler than the neighborhood though, and less yuppy. I liked it as soon as I walked in. The crazy lights, the hard music, and the atmosphere. I got a hard cider (Crispin) for $ 4 and saw with my friends. One friend just had water (I had about 3 glasses of water too) and the other had Miller Light. I could definitely see myself going to this bar if I lived near by. The only catch is that it’s in the cool area, so if you are a tourist and are downtown you should take a taxi. I took one going back to the hotel near the inner harbor and it was cheap — like $ 6 or something. One thing though, the music was a little too loud. Now I like loud harder music (rock, punk, etc.) but it was a little too loud and made it hard to hear my friends. We did talk for about 90 mins but I struggled to listen to them. So turn down the music just a little bit please, but please keep the lights on! Awesome.
Also parking is a real pain in that area so give yourself plenty of time to find a spot.

I visited Idle Hour a few weeks back while in Baltimore on a road trip. My friend and I had spent the whole day in the car, checked into our hotel, and decided that, despite being a bit road weary, we’d go check this bar out. We were very pleased that we did. First of all, I use a walker and there were a couple steps into the bar, which I can’t usually navigate on my own. Sean, who I thought was the door man, but turned out to be a very helpful bar patron, helped me out by grabbing a stool for me. Once inside, Jay, the bartender (with heavy Russell Brand vibe-​IMHO, a good thing), was friendly and made me several delicious Shirley Temples. I believe my friend had Manhattans, which he also enjoyed.
The atmosphere of the bar was borderline seedy, but in a really great way! Dark, lit only by candles and pink twinkle lights. There wasn’t a DJ that night, but Jay seemed to be manning the turntables/​CD player. The Stranglers were on when we walked in. There was art on the wall. I understand that the art is generally that of a local artist and changes regularly. This particular work was rather dark and brooding and looked great in this setting.
When it was time to leave, Sean helped me get down the steps (this is when I realized he wasn’t the door guy, but just really nice) and we talked about the American Visionary Art Museum. Jay also came out for a smoke break and recommended a good place to get beef on wheck, as our travels would eventually take us through New York state.
I would absolutely go back to Idle Hour. the service was fantastic and it was a lovely way to spend a hour or two on our first night in Baltimore.

Bold selection
Outstanding music
Vibrant energy
Man. I LOVED Idle Hour.
Recommended to my group by a local, it was a hit from the start. An intriguing beer selection that was neither too broad nor exceptionally quirky — but was good. Plenty of brown spirits on offer, some locally-​sourced. A (seemingly token) Chartreuse theme along the top of the bar, but not something we partook of.
But lining up along that bar, and opposite it along the wall, my guys and I had a fine time whiling away a Friday evening with drinks in hand, jokes to spare, and good times all around. The soulful blues played on from within as we occasionally spilled out into the sidewalk to take in the early spring evening air, watch the sun go down, and spend a minute by the old blue bathtub out front, meeting some locals and enjoying the spot.
Only dutifully answering the call to see more Baltimore tore us away, but we’ll be back. A gem in the neighborhood; highly recommended.

I love how this bar is laid back, the neighbors are always friendly, there is (usually) great art on the walls, and the music is always enjoyable. What I love even more is how this bar is «off the beaten path” — I can avoid all of the local Federal Hill bar-​goers and stick to my local bar.
I definitely recommend stopping in, getting a good taste of South Baltimore, and engage in conversation with some locals (while enjoying a great brew and good music).

This place is a little too hipster for my taste, and not overly friendly, but maybe that is because I am not a hipster. Beers seem a little pricey too, although they do have Natty Boh on tap, and that alone secures them at least a three star rating. The place itself is a dive, which I guess goes along with the hipster feel. At least they are something different in the neighborhood.

Although tiny and dark, I really wouldn’t call this a dive bar. It reminds me of the downstairs of an old yacht. Dark wood paneling keeps a dim intimate vibe, with some red Christmas lights dangling over the wonnnnderfully stocked bar to add a little ethereal glow (on a dime). The sparse art in here, done by a local artist, is funny and weird… mostly naked fat people partaking in varying strange activities.
There are three things that absolutely must be mentioned about this place.
1. The liquor selection/​bartender savvy. Bartender really knows his craft. And call me bourgeois, but when a bar has St. Germaine and/​or Pimm’s, I light up a little (OK, a lot). This place has both, and Chartreuse, and a bartender who knows how to serve all of them, and more.
2. THE BATHROOMS. I have seen cooler bathrooms, but none that smelled better. Huge, live day lilies unleash their beauteous fragrance upon those who enter, without a nasty industrial air-​freshener odor that plagues so many baños.
3. Great music. I was lucky enough to sit through a full three cocktails and a cigarette break to a soundtrack of Bill Withers. A++
Can’t wait to go back here.

Atmosphere: 5.0
Service: 4.0
Food: N/​A
Beer Selection: 2.5
Overall: 3.8
Remember when bars were bars? When they weren’t filled with screaming kids, a dozen televisions blasting sports you don’t care about, and shitty Top 40 music that makes you want to ice-​pick your ear drums? Fortunately, Idle Hour remembers and they’re holding on for dear life.
Idle Hour is a hidden gem in Federal Hill that makes no bones about being a bar. If it weren’t for its relative obscurity it could easily be overrun by hipster dufases who would bask in its beauty, ironically, of course. It’s aglow in perfectly inadequate lighting (purple string lights, yeah, that’s right), they don’t serve food, they don’t have a theme attached to their name and the conversation is actually louder than the background music (which, it just so happens, is overseen by the bartender). This is a place you can come to if you just want to hang out in relative obscurity and knock back a few.
They don’t have a huge draft selection (6 taps, I think) but they there are no beer bar claims here. The last time I was there I do remember them offering both Victory Prima Pils (one of the best American-​made Pilsener style beers around today), Brewer’s Art Resurrection, and Dogfish Head 60 min; a brief albeit educated treatise on three excellent styles.
So what does Idle Hour have? They’ve got local art on the walls, a bathtub outside filled with dead flowers, a quite adult bar filled with an eclectic mix of people and conversation, and enough intrigue to keep you coming back and wanting to let your friends find out for themselves why you never told them about it in the first place. The only thing missing is the cigarette smoke haze, now that’s a bar.

This place just ROCKS plain and simple. It you were to go in there when it was light outside you would see basically a really badly decorated hole in the wall bar from the 60s with fake wood paneling, beaten up chairs and an odd maroon colored ceiling. When it is dark it is a whole different story.
Lit with the draped purple icicle lights you would expect to find in a high school girls room, candles and recessed lights pointed at the really neat local artwork hanging on the walls the ambiance is set. It is accented by a record (Yes, I mean real vinyl) player that the Bartender/​DJ/​bar back/​bouncer (there is only one person who works the entire bar at a time) keeps spinning with old stones albums and other fantastic rock.
The booze are even better. Equipped with a full bar they have numerous bottled beers as well as 5 delicious beers on draft that are all pretty unique from one another (Drunkel, reserection, Dog head 60 minute IPA etc.). They also have a number of wines that many were drinking (though I haven’t had there) and their signature Chartreuse liquor.
The crowd is diverse from old timer locals to mid 20s.
This place reminds me why it is sometimes worth it to pay a bit more drink at a bar as opposed to a house party.