Blarney Stone Tavern

The bartenders here are more tolerant of bad behavior than I would be, but it’s a hell of a time.
I hit this place up a few nights back while barhopping in Portage. I’m back in town on account of some personal issues and I felt like drinking until I couldn’t feel anything. This was the last bar of the night, and I almost made that happen.
We ended up calling it a night around 1am because one of my co-​drinkers started getting pretty rowdy. He threw a barstool back in the smoking room, knocked a couple of ashtrays over, and threw a beer bottle outside against a neighboring building. We decided that was our cue to move on, but the bartender was actually pretty understanding about the whole thing and didn’t make a big deal out of it.
Another cool thing: as the night was starting to wind down I had mentioned that I’d spent as much as I could afford and she comped me a beer. That’ll make me come back and spend more money next time I’m in town.
Also, drink prices are cheap!

My friends and I went skiing at Cascade and decided to check out what bars downtown Portage had to offer. One of the Cascade employees recommended it to us, saying it was where the locals hang out. We were sold on the idea when we learned that we could call a cab to take us there from the hotel (the cabs in Portage were very quick by the way).
So our group of 8 Chicagoans descended upon the local joint. Blarney Stone was just what we were looking for, cheap drinks, a pool table, and a jukebox. We stayed almost until closing, it never got too busy, we made up half of the bars patrons.
We found most people included the female bartender to be quite friendly. There was a bald gentleman who stepped behind the bar and started to bartend a couple times (he had been sitting at the bar drinking). He did not like the fact that we were out of towners and was very rude to us. He charged us twice as much for our drinks, and he was a complete jerk about making our drinks — if he made them at all. The issue was resolved when I spoke to the female bartender and she agreed to have him leave us alone.
Although that one guy was rude to us, we still had a great night.

Friendly local pub. Guinness on tap.