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Feeling Nostalgic? The archives
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Bars!
I usually only go to Brew Pubs any more, because I typically go to eat because I like the food choices(nothing better than a good bar burger), and then may stay to have a couple beers, and if I like the beer I will take home a growler of it to drink at home. But we don't usually go out to a bar to just drink, typically too crowded and usually too young a crowd for me. We will either have people to our house, or go to someone else's house.
I've always found the Water Street Brewery in your neck of the woods to be good. I was just to the one in Delafield last weekend, and you could sit at the bar and hear yourself talk.
I've always found the Water Street Brewery in your neck of the woods to be good. I was just to the one in Delafield last weekend, and you could sit at the bar and hear yourself talk.
I love dive bars. Cheap beer, toothless drunks, whisky, loose women, a pool table in the back, a bar brawl in the front, and Hank Williams on the jukebox.Too bad I don't frequent dive bars anymore. Sigh...
I loved being a bartender, but as for going to them as a customer, nah, it's not much fun when you don't drink and you have anxiety issues. (It also wasn't much fun when I did drink b/c I always ended up making an ass of myself, sleeping with someone I didn't know, falling, puking, or all of the above.)
Dive bars are fun for people-watching, though.
Actually, bar culture/community is quite fascinating (sociologically).
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It has been years since I've gone into one, and I'm not sure how I'd behave now, but I don't think I'll try just to see.
Once upon I loved a good dive bar, though.
A small company I used to work for sponsored a company trip to England (before I worked there, unfortunately). There were two factions in the group of 30 people or so. Some were interested in touring old churches, while the rest wanted to go to the pubs. As luck would have it, there is usually a pub located in close proximity to every church.At the start of each tour day, the behavior of the various individuals was fairly sedate. By the end of the day, the two groups were acting quite differently, to say the least.
Since the firm was a behaviorally focused business consulting firm, the behavioral aspect of all of this was quite evident to many in the group.
By the way, this was the same group that, at a wild party held at a famous football star's home, managed to park a perfectly good Corvette in the deep end of the pool.
Personally, I have never spent much time in bars. I actually went to bars more as a teenager (drinking age was 18 in that way-back-there period) than I have as an adult. This is fitting, in that a lot of the behavior observed there could be characterized as immature in nature.
Oh, I realized I never responded to Jim's comment on Water Street Brewery...yes, that's a great place...I like Milwaukee Ale House as well...I used to love crappy ass dive bars, but I don't have stamina anymore, I'm afraid to admit...
Lots of similarities between bars and churches, Larry, especially in the "bar community" aspect. I thought about that a lot when I bartended.
If Mindy bartended now she'd be just like Ted Danson on Cheers...the bartender who can't drink...
I was the bartender who couldn't drink then, too! I didn't stop bartending until I had been sober probably... four years?
Did you date any waitresses like Shelly Long?
Ewww, Shelly Long!Nah, I mostly dated men when I was bartending. There was this one chick who was a bartender at another bar, but she kept stringing me along and nothing ever happened with that. (My lesbian "game" really sucks.)
My lesbian game sucks too.
I think everybody needs a bar that's his/her second home. This is mine. Happy hour, usually 2 nights a week unless I'm bored. I love the place so much I wrote it into my next novel.
I'm not a lesbian, but I admire their work...
(Just joined your group because I'm procrastinating at work and I saw some of my friends on here...)I like the two polar opposites -- good divey dives and brewpubs. My favorite local beer used to only be available at its own brewpub downtown, and I could never go because just one made me unfit to drive. Now they've allowed two places in my neighborhood to put it on tap. I'm still a cheap date - one is enough - but it makes me very happy to go to two different locally owned bars with good food AND my favorite beer.
The dives around here have lost a lot of ambience since smoking was banned. I'm not a smoker, and as a musician I have to privately celebrate that I'm not being killed a little bit by my audience at every show. Still, some places are better viewed through a haze. My favorite dive (best jukebox in the city, occasional live music, cheap beer, strange home-made liquor that they only pour as free shots for regulars and bands) just doesn't feel the same without the smoke.
Sarah 3.14 is becoming more rounded as she goes.
I meant that in only the best possible way. But if it helps you out some, I'll drink some of it up tonight so that there is less for you then. Probably a couple nights worth for you by the sounds of it. Oh the sacrifices I make ;-).
The title of this thread reminds me of an old summer camp skit that started like this:Dar's a bar!
Whar?
Over dar!
repeat
Jim - in my defense, the beer in question is 7% alcohol, lest ye think we're talking about some watery swill. I'm still a lightweight, and ok with it. Quality, not quantity, at this point in my life.Jackie -- Remember the Davey Crockett song? The line is "killed him a bar when he was only three" but I always thought it was "killed in a bar when he was only three" . I couldn't figure out what he was doing in a bar at that age, or how he had gotten around to defending the Alamo.
Well I was presuming it had a little higher alcohol content, and to be honest with ya, I can't drink near as much as I used to, nor do I want to. Quality over quantity in my book also, that is why I go to the brew pubs and get the beer I like. Just got a growler over the lunch hour, and that is what I planned on having tonight.
You know, I still like beer, I just drink the NA varieties. Buckler (the Heineken NA) is yummy!
I need to buy some cooking wine on the way home (why couldn't I live in a state where I could buy the wine and the groceries in the same store?). Not sure what else will end up in the cart. More wine, maybe.
I was totally shocked when I moved to Alabama and found out they sold wine in grocery (and convenience) stores. That's a big no-no in Mississippi.
You can get wine and beer at the grocery store, but for anything harder you have to go to a Washington State Liquor Store. Boy, are those cheerless generic places. Party on!
Mindy try Kaliber by Guiness and Haake Beck as well. I tended bar for seven years after i stopped drinking. A little lime in the soda water who knew whether I was drinking along or not.I worked in a club bar, private membership, but it was kind of like Cheers in that its a regular and somewhat predictable crowd.
Pennsylvania has lame laws -- you can buy wine or liquor only at a state store, but can get a six pack of beer in a bar to go. Otherwise, you have to go to a beer distributor and buy beer by the case.
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Larry wrote: "Pennsylvania has lame laws -- you can buy wine or liquor only at a state store, but can get a six pack of beer in a bar to go. Otherwise, you have to go to a beer distributor and buy beer by the c..."Not content with being the "lame liquor law leader" in the country, Utah has thought of a couple more.
First, the legislature refuses to authorize any new liquor licenses. Since all the bar permits have been awarded, this means no new establishments can open until someone else closes down.
Next, the same legislature re-instituted the "Zion Curtain" for booze-serving restaurants opened after January of 2010. They must prepare drinks entirely out of sight of any patrons in the dining room.
One year later, the legislature banned happy hour pricing for alcohol. You can still discount the appetizers, but you'd better not offer a deal on the booze.
Finally, they have now banned the mini-keg throughout the state. As of October 1, 2011, it will be against the law to sell or purchase a mini-keg anywhere in the state. Regular sized kegs were banned way back in 1990.
Stupid, stupid prohibitionist motherfuckers.
I remember being pleased that I lived within a few blocks of the only state store in Washington Co., Utah.Shortly after moved to St. George, Mrs. Larry made the mistake of ordering a margarita at Chilis. It tasted like lime Kool-Aid.
I gave up on bars in the early 90's after a good 20-year stretch and thousands of clammy club gigs, a time when I'd go see just about any garage or punk-rock avengers willing to drag their amps around to play “Land of 1000 Dances” to a bunch of drunks. After a while, standing around with a death grip on an overpriced bottle of stale beer and my eyes glazing over just wasn't fun anymore, or at least not as fun as watching a car rust.But if the stars align just so and there's a jukebox packed to bursting with "Nuggets"-style garage rock or old-school Brit punk, I might be persuaded to re-enter the fray.
I haven't stepped into a bar in many years. Going to the bar was never my favorite pasttime. There were a couple of bars that I remember fondly. The Cecil Hotel in Calgary was a scungy run down place, but we'd go, hang out with some of the oldtimers there, play shuffleboard, eat pickled eggs, and just have fun. Another bar that I remember having a lot of fun at was in Banff and it was more of the same - shuffleboard, darts, and just feeling good.
I've only ever gone to our local pub, Molly's. It's walking distance so no dd necessary and we run into people we know. I just can't bring myself to spend money in a bar when we have a fairly well-stocked one at home and the house is never empty so it's not like I'm drinking alone in the dark (and one of my roommates is a part-time bartender). We go to the pub once a year as a Halloween tradition, and that's about it.
Larry wrote: "A small company I used to work for sponsored a company trip to England (before I worked there, unfortunately). There were two factions in the group of 30 people or so. Some were interested in tou..."Larry, there is no drunk like a white male 20-something British drunk. Very shitfaced, and prone to violence. That was the worst part about London public transport with two teen girls on hand.
Sally wrote: "I have a prof. who loves to advise us to drink soda water with lime if we ever go to a social function with colleagues. The subtext is clear: don't drink when mingling with people you work with."She is so right, Sally.
Mindy wrote: "I was totally shocked when I moved to Alabama and found out they sold wine in grocery (and convenience) stores. That's a big no-no in Mississippi."Nothing quite like the "Package Store" in Mississippi. Bullet-proof glass, surly clerk with no knowledge of wine aside from being able to tell if it was red or white. How do you select a nice Savignon Blanc through bullet-proof glass and a wide countertop?
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Sally wrote: "Wow, the thread where Pi first joined!"I had just noticed that too!
Hee! I got pretty cozy pretty quick. Phil, those new laws are ridiculous. We actually have a similar liquor license law here, but there are enough places coming and going that buying one isn't usually an issue.
The no-drinks-prepared-in-front-of-people law is just stupid. It lets shady bars bilk their customers, and I don't see much other purpose.
So I love the venue we're playing tonight, but I can never figure out what to drink there. It has about fifty kinds of rum, but the lousiest selection of whiskeys ever. Also, out of six beers on tap, three are generally IPAs and one is a mediocre stout. The fifth is usually Krusovice which is okay but not usually what I want. The sixth is sometimes a good Belgian ale, so I'm hoping that's the case.
Here's hoping for a good Belgian Ale Sarah. They really can be tasty.
For a small country, Belgium produces an amazing number of good beers, and in so many different varieties.
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So...do you like bars? What are your favorite types of bars? What makes them your favorite types of bars?
I'm not a huge bar person, but every now and then I like the sociability and laid-back nature of a good, clean, quiet bar.