A slice of campus culture surprisingly far from campus, Come Back In is much more a Wisconsin bar than a Madison bar, and once patrons set foot within its confines, this seemingly blurred distinction becomes clear.

Most of State Street's drinking establishments fall into one of two realms — the prototypical college dive with sticky floors and bottomed-out rails, or the upwardly struggling East Coast imitator with an urban flair that never quite makes the grade. Situated at the corner of North Shore Drive and Blair Street,Come Back In is a short drive from campus on one of the city's most traveled thoroughfares. Put simply, Come Back bridges Madison's downtown drinking dichotomy with class and sizable-portion servings of great beer.

This reviewer's beer of choice hovers between Spaten Lager and New Glarus' own Spotted Cow, but Come Back's selection is simply too large and diverse to run down. All drafts are available in boots from the adjoining Essen Haus upon request. Though the beer selection is beyond compare in Madison, the beer can be overshadowed by the bar's food. With traditional German dishes smothered in grease and kraut at rock-bottom prices, this is no place to bring your vegetarian date. Yet, despite its wholly underrated culinary achievement in the fine art of bar food, Come Back's crowning touch — a rarity in Madison bars — is its unending supply of shelled peanuts stashed behind the bar to be eaten home-style: shells falling on the floor. This is simply the only acceptable way to enjoy large amounts of beer and good friends.

The décor, replete with spent beer containers from around the nation and the world, lends itself to the type of masculine camaraderie so difficult to find in State Street's charged atmospheres. With an eclectic mix of the Capitol crowd and blue-collar clientele, Come Back is far enough from the university proper to transcend the campus scene, but is still within reasonable walking distance of east-campus dwellers. The walk past the Capitol is worth the escape.