Best bar

"We are here to drink beer ... and to live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us," wrote the infamous literary lush Charles Bukowski, for whom the Phoenix readers' best-bar pick is named. Words to live by, really, or at least mull over as you raise a pint at the original Bukowski Tavern, in Boston, or its younger Inman Square twin. Because at Bukowski, beer's the thing -- that whole 99-bottles rigmarole is more than a tedious song. A multi-page beer menu offers a sweeping selection of brews: lambics and lagers, ales and bitters, fruit beer, steam beer, dunkelweizens, pilsners, and Pabst, all served good and quick and cold. The Cambridge location is home to the "Dead Authors Club," a society whose members include those individuals willing and able to sample every beer within about eight months' time. Succeed, and you get a stein engraved with the name of your favorite dead literary god, a posthumous honor that would surely please old Charles.

Over in not-quite Central Square, the deities shift from literature to waterways, and River Gods ranks as one of our readers' picks for Boston's best. Off pedestrian-heavy Mass Ave, River Gods sits humble and unassuming -- a perfect place for a bowl of soup on a Sunday afternoon. Ah, but the modest mélange of furniture and art that fills the small, dark space and lines the walls belies an often seething scene. A curiously placed window in the upper-right corner of the bar, seemingly an architectural burp, turns out to be a DJ roost. For over a year now, River Gods has run "Weekly Wax" on Monday nights, a DJ-battle spin-fest nearing mythic proportions. On Tuesday nights, you can get ahead at the "Eaves Drop" listening party, which gives patrons a preview of soon-to-be-released albums. And don't forget the food. Or the drink. Aurally, edibly, and imbibably, our readers think River Gods is heaven.

Bukowski Tavern, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 437-9999; River Gods, 125 River Street, Cambridge, (617) 576-1881.