St. Patrick's Day (beer) rituals?

Seeing Dropkick Murphys for the fourth year in a row to kick off the season. If I were in IL I'd have a few Schalfly Irish-Style Extra Stouts, but since I'm not, maybe Boulevard Irish Ale or something. The GF found a chocolate cake recipe, made with Guinness and topped with some sort of cream cheese frosting made with Bailey's, so we'll probably try that out. Had real good success making a chocolate cake with Lakewood's The Temptress on VDay, so maybe we'll find a beer cake for every holiday. Probably throw a few Pogues and Flogging Molly songs on throughout the day.

Guinness Foreign Extra or O'Hara's may also make an appearance. Basically anything other than Harp. Anyone know any good Irish reds available in TX?

 

just another day. too many people seek too many reasons to go out and get trashed for no good reason.

 

I've had the Brooklyn Irish stout a couple of times and came away disappointed. Over the weekend I had it, then a Guinness right after and thought Guinness was much better.

 

Drink beer and wait for Dark Lord Day tickets to go on sale.

 

I avoid the bars at all costs... I also seem to attempt to make a black and tan every year for no reason and always fail

 

I wish I could get some of the craft stuff I had during my 4 month stay in Cork, alas Trouble Brewing and the Franciscan Well don't distribute outside of a few counties, much less to the states. All this is to say, Irish craft brewing is getting a foot in the door and some great beers are to be had in place of guinness. If you want a "good" stout in Ireland, try Trouble Brewing's oatmeal stout. For the more Northern brethren, mattyedgeworth, I know you can definitely get ahold of Muckish Red and probably the Galway Bay offerings. As a celebration of beer, there's really a lot to choose from.

 

Well, after reflecting on this thread, I will avoid car bombs and move to black and tans...
Oh come out ye black and tans, come and fight me like a man, show your wife how you won medals down in africa...
(That's a refrence to the english army bragging about beating the zulu as they brought spears to a gun fight)

 

homemade corned beef. drink at home and laugh at all the amateurs from the suburbs that come down to the city. then i walk my neighborhood in the evening and observe the carnage.

 

I could not agree more. I run a group of Irish Pubs owned by two brothers from Artane, we refuse to use that name in anywhere in our pubs.

 

It absolutely tastes better on the Emerald Isle...

 

I treat it as I would any other day . Using to St patrick's Day get shitfaced and eat corned beef and cabbage just isn't me, and so contrived.

 

Drink the obligatory (fresh as possible) Guinness - out of the cool Guinness pint glass I got a few years back while in Belfast at a great pub while there on business

Maybe also have some delish Irish soda bread and Colcannon - mashed potatoes....yum!

 

My man

 

Sounds like yous have a bit of sense!

 

A good buddy of mine @saemick hosts what we now call RSSIP, Replacement South Side Irish Parade. Here in Chi town a group of us would go to the south side Irish parade, get hammered and have a good time. Since the city put a stop to that a few years ago, we now gather rain/sleet/hail/snow & once in a while sunshine to drink in his driveway. The usual suspects show up as well as some new faces from time to time. We have the standards, Carbombs, Guinness, Smithwicks, and bottles of Jame-O. Last few years we have introduced mixing beers. We have tried to mix stouts with other beers in search of something different, i.e. Black and Tan. Always a great time and lots of great folks. That's our St. Patricks day ritual. Sláinte!

 

Some confused history here.The English Army fighting Zulus? Never happened.
The quotation is "Oh come out ye black and tans, come and fight me like a man, show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders" , a reference to WW1. But the Black and Tans were Police not Army.

 

Well the Black and tans where obviously reinforcements for the RIC, but a lot of them were WW1 veterans.

 

I've been here long enough to know you are in a very small minority here, probably similar to the number who think Labatt Blue is much better than Pilsner Urquell, but enjoy your next Guinness.

 

It's a reference to the anglo-Zulu war in 1879. I suppose I could have opted for the Derry reference, but maybe that didn't happen either...

 

Wow, we got all the way to the bottom of page three of a St. Patty's day thread before someone trots out the oldest and most persistent beer myth of all time. Was starting to think we might make it through without seeing it.