Its modest brick exterior mystifies first-timers: Is this even a bar? Inside, the only thing that keeps the seven-year-old Keep from looking like something out of the Dark Ages is its digital jukebox. The night I popped in, leathery men fresh off construction work sites and strong, silent types were scattered throughout the bar. "We have lots of regulars," says owner Al Kloda. "Whenever anyone new walks in, a pin drops, like, 'What are they doing here?' We're like the shady neighborhood bar."

A brief anthropological study of the Keep's male patrons would've told me to order a Guinness or Flying Fish, but I wasn't listening. As one of two women, my low profile went to hell the moment I asked the barmaid to make me a Jolly Rancher. First she asked me what it was, then asked her husband, and when he didn't know, pulled out the drink-mixing guide.

I tuned out the familial small talk of men who spend way too much time drinking together and watched hockey recaps on the bar television until a quartet of bald characters headed to the backroom for a game of darts. I nosily followed them and found out they were a reunited band willing to teach me cricket. I ignored my complicated drink and experienced the magic of simpler times, when the drunker someone got, the better they aimed.