Determined to claim the title of Ann Arbor’s most ambitious craft beer bar, HopCat opened with 100 beers on tap, virtually all of them artisanal, small-batch brews, with seventy of those taps rotating. Exactly one tap is not artisanal–the “lawn mower tap,” which is to say, something mass-produced but suitable for quenching thirst on a hot, summer day. Here it happens to be PBR, says Chris Knape, marketing director for Barfly Ventures, HopCat’s parent company. He calls PBR and Black Label “heritage brands,” adding that Barfly doesn’t carry Miller, Bud, or Coors products.

The craft beer theme sits atop a sports bar foundation (black walls, multiple TVs), with top notes of ambitious, artisanal-ish food made in-house, chosen to complement beer, and even some interesting and challenging art in the form of Erwin Erkfitz’s wall-length mural that looks like a cross between Diego Rivera and Egyptian hieroglyphics with maybe a touch of Santeria thrown in.

Unlike Bar Louie, its nearest competitor in high-tech alley, HopCat’s owners decided against live music, though some of the other HopCats around the state have it. (“Hey! It’s week three!” protests manager Nick Filimon–live music may or may not be coming.) Filimon notes that Mark Sellers, president of Barfly Ventures, is a pianist and music lover who chose the name HopCat as a jazzy little bebopping allusion to “hep cats” of a bygone era when music was plentiful and live and the beer was indifferent. Here the background is the bass-y, rhythmic drone of sports bar rock.

Barfly Ventures is rolling out themed bars like it was the early 1980s. Craft beer and craft cocktails have given new life to the industry. There are HopCats in Grand Rapids, Detroit, and East Lansing; in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis; and one in Madison. And Grand Rapids-based Barfly has other bars and restaurants in its portfolio too: Stella’s Lounge, McFadden’s, Pyramid Scheme, and soon, says Filimon, the Shrunken Head, “a tiki-themed barbecue and bar.”

HopCat, 311 Maynard, 436-2875. Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-2 a.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-2 a.m. hopcat.com/ann-arbor