I needed to parse a tiny subset of SQL. I did it with ANTLR very quickly. It would take much more time doing it by hand, and I know quite a bit about parsing. For complex language it might be the other way, of course. Actually I never saw a single real programming language without hand-crafted parser. But if you need a tiny DSL, ANTLR is fine.
Good to hear that this has been a similar experience to people who have actually gone and actually used ANTLR.