Bar Tales

We just got running water last week.

 

A beautiful redhead at a local pub kept giving me samples of the various craft beers they had on tap. She knew her beers!

Being old, happily married, and my wife drove home, the story doesn’t get more interesting than that!

 

I made a post in 2013 called “Your Worst beer Experience.” And this is my story from that:

I was in Bruges, Belgium in 2007. I was 23 and just really getting into craft, and simply good beers.

So there I was, in the bar of my hostel and throwing back beer after beer from different breweries and of different styles that I truly didn't understand yet, but I knew that I liked them over the swill that I had been drinking since I was a wee lad. While drinking, the bartender even informed me after ordering a certain beer that he didn't have the 'proper glassware' to put it in because they were all dirty. I've never heard of such wonders before! At one point in my life, a Pyramid tumbler would have been fine, but not anymore after I finally came up!

So after drinking copious amounts of great beer and tipping the bartender handsomely (and also rocking out to The Stooges), he then uttered those fateful words to me: "I have this beer that I can only sell two of a day. If you want, I'll save one for you tomorrow morning." Hell yeah, it's on! I thought.

And then I woke up with the worst hangover ever. I stumbled out of my room and to the bar, "Water, please..." "Hey man, here's that beer for you," the bartender proclaimed. I could barely mutter a "No... No thank you." And then I slouched over in the corner for a while before finally leaving and taking a train back to Paris.

To this day, I will never forget the way that the bartender looked at me after I turned down my one and only chance I have ever had at drinking a Westvleteren XII.

 

I know this is water long under the bridge by now, but I just have to ask—both you and the bartender understood that a bottle of beer can be stashed in a bag to be enjoyed later, right? I mean, after all, that’s one of their most useful features.

 

Read "His Father's House" by DJ Meador. Except for the scar it's his story. He's a close relative that taught for years at Washington and Lee.

 

Having moved to Nice, France after retiring I have frequented several pubs in the old town (Vieux Nice). My favorite is O'Neill's Irish Pub on Rue Droite, for the great ambience and the full selection of Grimbergen Abbey beers, plus Guiness and Magner's. Good place to relax with friends and have a pint or two with friends. The manager and staff are excellent and know their regular's "Comme d'Hab." I avoid the multitude of tourist bars like the plague.

For local craft brews there is Brasserie d'Aqui (BDA) on Rue Cassini and Allez Hops on Rue Défly. BDA has mostly hop forward brews such as their signature pale ale "La Bellanda." Allez Hops has a regularly rotating selection of their own brews and other regional craft brews.

 

At a spring break type bar in Fort Lauderdale, long before I was into craft and when my brain wasn't really firing on all cylinders. I'm polluted from drinking all day with my buddy. Now we're at this packed bar with a band on stage. Servers are coming around with free shots of Jack Daniels, which we're not refusing. Maybe they weren't free. I don't know. In any event, I was in rough shape. I needed to puke. Throwing up because of drinking is unheard of for me. No matter how much I used to drink back then, I wouldn't get sick. Tonight was different. I went to the bathroom of this place with the full intention of puking. I walk into the stall only to find some other poor bastard not only just puked, but puked all over the fucking place. I was disgusted. I harshly judged this man who couldn't hold his booze and all who couldn't hold their booze. Realizing I could have easily become that which I hate (the guy who pukes everywhere), I dig deep and rally. No puke after all. I return to the bar. The band on stage finishes a song and I scream, "Let me play drums!" I'm a drummer, though not a particularly good one. The singer says, "Who said that?" I answer. He tells me to come up on stage and play on the next song. It was "Where the Streets Have No Name" a song I dislike by a band I dislike. I get up there, settle myself behind the kit, and nail it front to back. Place goes ape shit. I come off stage, return to the bar, and keep drinking. During their set break, some of the band members approach me and inform me that things haven't been working out with their current drummer and ask if I want to join the band. Not sure how I answered, but that's the extent of what I remember about Fort Lauderdale.

 

I had a Red Harvest moment in Hong Kong. Maybe it was bad karma from drinking the heart attack victim's vodka.

 

When I posted that I had wanted to write an obnoxiously long, detailed spy story with all kinds of twists and turns and mysterious characters, all playing on the Cold War cloak and dagger motif—would have been much funnier (in my mind at least)—but I was in the midst of cooking dinner so decided to just post a brief hint of what I had in mind.

 

Seriously, try to find His Father's House. It does focus on a lot of my family's German heritage. It is a Cold War page turner....

 

Damn Raul. We all love your stories but missing out on Westy 12 is a tragedy

 

When I first turned 21 before I knew my limits my friends took me to Buffalo Wild Wings. Got shitfaced and threw up in the bathroom stall. Nothing crazy nor did I act like an idiot but the mixture of food and like 7 tall boys got my light weight ass lmfao.

 

I think the ol' up-chuck is a right of passage, and the 'memorable' part of it is dependent on the embarrassment of where it happens. Fortunately mine was in a vacant lot while I was taking a shortcut back to the dorm.

 

Luckily I was finally able to try it in 2021. Cheers, my bro.

 

Just as well I left early in the next morning. And didn't have to explain all the blood.

 

Don't have any particular stories I'm proud to share but I will say, I'm welcome at about as many bars in this area as those that I am not welcome. I've been run out of certain establishments in my younger years for being.... over enthusiastic to say the least. Nowadays I prefer to indulge at home or in the company of good friends at a brewery or taproom. Cheers.

 

I remember as if it is yesterday.
36 years ago, I graduated from sendary and registered in July 1987 at college/university. I stepped out of the building and entered a bar at the corner and ordered myself a Westmalle Tripel. The lady aske me just to confirm, because it was 12 o'clock noon. I confirmed and enjoyed my Westmalle Tripel enormously, just one, and left.
Since then, I am tasting and enjoying craft beer.
Now in 2023, I still remember vividly that historical moment.

 

Hopefully you were one who got to enjoy the full range of excellence. I do now regret any negative characterization of the recriminative aftermath by some that I may have made in my post.