Lexington is embracing the beautiful game this summer with several bars showing all the matches throughout the tournament, and many others hosting watch parties for the US team games. Lexington’s local soccer club will be hosting a watch party on Friday at West Sixth, with giveaways and promotions. The Burl Brew and Tin Roof are showing all the tournament action, along with drinks specials and other perks. Mirror Twin has a USA watch party this Friday, and again on June 25th.
It’s at The Wandering Bock though, a little pretzel and beer joint in the boiler room of The Greyline Station that you’ll get to rub shoulders with proper footie fans.
“Well, I've always loved soccer. I grew up playing soccer in Indiana, it's really the only sport that I've ever really loved watching on TV. So when we started this pub-like atmosphere, it made a lot of sense to show soccer here.”
That’s co-owner and founder Jeremy Markle. He started the business six years ago in a booth in Julietta Market. Customers came for the legit, homemade German Style pretzels but stayed for the soccer.
“Even when we had a concession booth up in the Julieta Market, we still had a small TV showing soccer, and we were up there for the last World Cup. So we were in the building for the last World Cup. And we had a group of, like, you know, seven people that started coming to watch soccer, and tiny little booth that we had.
Now that we're down here, some of those people are still with us. We've had, we've been growing, like I said, a lot of the English Premier League fan base. A lot of them have found a home here to come watch games.
But even with the World Cup, now we've seen a lot of new people. The word of mouth is out, I think. We do get a few expats from different places. One of my biggest loyal regulars is from Kazakhstan, and he's a huge Barcelona fan. So, you really never know who's gonna show up.”
The passion for and knowledge of the game here is real, and infectious. But equally authentic are the pretzels, ““A traditional German pretzel has to be dipped in lye, and that really gives it the pretzel flavor. And the other great thing about our pretzels is they're 100% sourdough baked. So we don't use any commercial yeast here. I've been propagating the same sourdough starter for about 6 years.”
On the menu to complement the pretzels you’ll also find bratwurst, beer cheese and sauerkraut. As well as a vast selection of, well, bocks.
“We have over 45 different beers and ciders. We focus, as a pretzel bakery, on German style lagers for the most part. We have probably by far the widest selection of Bock style beer anywhere around, because we're called the Wandering Bock.
But definitely the German style beers for sure. The hefeweizen is our best seller. But right behind that is a pint of Guinness, 'cause you've gotta have Guinness on tap if you're gonna have a soccer pub!”
A Bock is also a German mountain goat, Markle shares, “so we have a sort of a subtle goat theme that goes throughout the whole concept, and our tagline is searching for the greatest of all times. We pay homage to those goats like Messi and Ronaldo, and there's a lot of discussion about who the greatest soccer player is of all time, but that's something that, you know, keeps the lively discussion going here.”
Markle likes Spain, Argentina and France for the win, maybe England, and “I put a little bit of money on Portugal as a sleeper team. I'm a Wolverhampton supporter in the English Premier League, so I have, I like a lot of Portuguese players as well.”
That’s what his head tells him, but his heart says, “who I want, do I want the United States to win? You know, I've always been a big US soccer supporter. Do I think they can win the World Cup? I mean, I doubt it. I'm just hoping for the U.S. to get through into the knockout stage. And, you know, anything can happen. They looked really good the other night. So I wouldn't rule it out the realm of possibility, but if I could have any team win, it would be the U.S.”
USA plays Australia Friday at 3pm , and then again next Thursday at 10pm against Turkey.
