Resurrection Ale House

Having toiled in the beer-soaked land of the jukebox for most of his career, it's perhaps only natural that Brendan Hartranft sees the budding gastropub empire he's built with his wife, Leigh Maida, in terms of Elvis Costello records.

"Accessible but with an edge," he says of his Costello-esque approach to crafting, in the short span of less than two years, a trio of taverns in up-and-coming neighborhoods around the city.

If Kensington's Memphis Taproom was their My Aim Is True debut, a straight-from-the-heart corner-bar hit that toed the delicate style line between beer-geek cool and easy local consumption, Hartranft calls their less-polished second endeavor, Local 44 in West Philly, his version of Costello's harder-edged This Year's Model.

It's a bit immodest to compare such a classic album to the Local, which has a raft of great beers and a cool enough vibe, but an unambitious and greasy menu of various fried foods (not all bad - the fried oyster mushroom po-boy is a winner). But second acts are always hard, and Hartranft says he deliberately made the Local "rougher . . . it was meant to be like the Khyber Pass, but with cleaner bathrooms."

With their third offering - the Resurrection Ale House on Grays Ferry Avenue in the Graduate Hospital area - Hartranft and Maida have elevated their ambition on many levels.

"It's our Almost Blue," he says, citing Costello's country-influenced disc. "It's our mature introspective album. And it's the best of me I could present."

It does feel as though a slightly older, mellower crowd has come to fill this airy, earth-toned bi-level space, across from Naval Square on a wide-angled corner formerly occupied by the forgettable Yell'O Bar. But there are some ingredients familiar to their other locales, too. For one, Resurrection anchors the farthest edge of a neighborhood in the pulsing throes of transformation. In an area that was once a dining desert, there are now a few nearby pioneers (Sidecar Bar, Grace Tavern, and newer Pub & Kitchen to the north) to slake the gentrifiers' craft-beer thirst.