If Tom Waits were writing a song in Seattle, he’d do it at the Stumbling Monk on Capitol Hill (1635 E. Olive Way). Hanging back, surveying the scene, offering the occasional insight, and keeping glasses filled with amber liquid is barkeep Christopher Strode. Leaning against the bar, arms across his chest, it takes a while to draw him into the First Call game.

After nodding ambivalently in response to our request that he pour us his favorite drink, Strode slowly saunters over to the long list of foreign and domestic bottles in the refrigerator behind him, and says, “I would drink any one of those 70 beers.”

After being informed he has to pick one, he finally selects the St. Louis Lambic Gueuze Fond Tradition, by a Belgian brewer with the unpronounceable name Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck.

“It’s really delicious,” Strode explains, slowly becoming more talkative. “And it’s sour, which is good, [because] I have the sniffles.”

Strode also claims his favorite beer is full of vitamins. That may or may not be true, but this is the perfect beer for the next time you’re under the weather. It’s got a bubbly tartness like champagne, but still retains the comfort of a good brew—ideal for a sick day, whether the illness is of the body or the soul.

Some guys down the bar are watching the whole First Call process unfold. As the beer is finally poured, one pipes up. “Don’t give this place too much press,” he says. “We don’t want to ruin it.”

First Call is a weekly feature on our food blog, Voracious (seattleweekly.com/voracious), in which we ask a bartender to make us his or her favorite drink.