I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Madison’s best bar burgers, and I’m not sure there’s a sum of “bar” plus “burger” greater than what the Blue Moon Bar & Grill produces. Just west of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, it’s a well-worn haunt for the neighborhood regulars, but taps all the big-draw beers that Madison’s craft scene embraces. Those burgers, meanwhile, are the hefty half-pound variety — ideally suited to absorb a big barrel-aged stout or sand the edges off a bracing IPA.

What if I told you that maybe the most essential drinking establishment in Madison is owned by the state government? You might think it best to run screaming, but no. This is the Memorial Union Terrace, part of the main student union, and attendance is mandatory — especially once The Chairs come out. The trademark sunburst chairs line the shore of Lake Mendota; if you’re not a Union member, it’s no problem to show your ID, get a day pass and a pitcher, and life will be good.

First things first, don’t get it twisted: Genna’s is about as much a cocktail lounge as my living room. It is a bar, and as a flatiron building resident, it’s probably the coolest corner bar you could fashion (certainly the pointiest). Looking out onto the Capitol Square, Genna’s is a hangout for the least pretentious downtown types — government staffers, journalists, and exhausted service industry folks. This is one of the preeminent spots in town if you’re looking for the Cheers treatment. It’s the kind of bar you want to make your bar.

The Robin Room resists pigeonholing itself into a purely tiki aesthetic, but it sure does produce some fine tiki-style drinks in addition to classic cocktails and inventive house recipes. The menus are bound like old library books, helpfully arranged by base spirit; make sure you read to the end for a surprise chapter on snacks that you won’t want to miss. If I lived closer, I’d have a Robin Room Hotel Nacional every day after work. This is truly one of the state’s best bars, a gem.

While it’s true that you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning, sometimes that 8 a.m. beverage needs to be of the brown and caffeinated variety. Johnson Public House has all the locally-roasted single-origin beans you could want; the Johnsons of Johnson Public House also own Kin-Kin Coffee. Stop in for an espresso, cold brew, or dirty chai, and stay for the tidy cafe menu that includes one of Madison’s best breakfast sandwiches.

Hastings Cameron has run a number of high-profile bars in Madison (Underground Kitchen, Forequarter, Gib’s) but Imaginary Factory is his magnum opus. It’s a sliver of a bar, a touch off the beaten eastside path, and spray-painted almost unrelentingly white. But the drinks are in full technicolor, highlighted by intense flavor extraction, carbonation to order, and just a little modernist cuisine flair. Look for recipes that turn multiple ways on a single theme, like the dual weed references of the spectacular Pineapple Sage.

To call State Line a “distillery tasting room” is to fundamentally misunderstand how fully-fledged the cocktail program is here. This would be a great bar all on its own, but it just so happens to share a roof with the facility that produces its gin, whiskey, vodka, aperitivo, and utterly brilliant coffee liqueur. Though the menu may shift slightly with the seasons, some drinks are destined to stick; the tea-laced Smoke Show is a city favorite, and deservingly so.

Sure, you’ll find some seltzers and ciders and even a fancy mead there every now and then, but BarleyPop is a beer bar, bar none. There are other bars nearby, and beloved ones at that, but when it opened in 2017, BarleyPop quickly established a clean-edged, modern aesthetic, and rolled out a tap program that has grown to nearly 60 lines that turn over regularly (including a growing number of NA options). It’s a great spot for ringing in the weekend of the Great Taste of the Midwest, Madison’s world-class late summer beer festival, for which BarleyPop always brings in something exciting.

Yes, the syntax of the name is a little odd. It’s a play on the muskellunge (or musky), which is Wisconsin’s state fish and a prized catch in the state’s rivers and lakes. The capital ”M” Musky is a casually fishing-themed townie bar with more than a few value-adds for the visiting socializer — very good beers, a cocktail list that shares genes with the Robin Room across town, and Hank’s, a co-owned burgers-and-fish takeout counter next door. Plus, pull tabs and an honest-to-god shuffleboard table.