Bar Tales

Back around the turn of the millennium, I went with a group of college kids on a two-week trip to Israel. One night one of the guys and I got bored with hanging around the hostel and decided to go out into the Old City on our own for a beer. We found a little place that had a sort of American dive-bar vibe and spent a couple of hours enjoying Maccabee beer and kosher hot dogs while watching "Walker, Texas Ranger" in Hebrew with English subtitles. The next day, our group was out walking around in the Old City at lunch time. There was a huge crowd of people at the bar, which had a lunch counter facing the street. All of a sudden, we heard someone yelling. It was the proprietor, up to his elbows in lunch orders, waving to greet us. I thought it was cool that he was able to spot us out of the hundreds of people on the street and that he would take the time to acknowledge us.

It ain't much, but it's all I got.

 

In 1970, my best friend and I bought steerage tickets from Rijecka to Dubrovnik in Tito's Yugoslavia. There was a throng of internationals on deck featuring a cool group of Roma women/girls with lots of slivovitz- plum wine and brandy. I was 19. We had brought aboard a number of large Austrian beers. It was dusk and we would sail for hours. Non stop music and song. It was the best bar I've ever been to.

 

It was 1962. East Berlin. My contact was supposed to leave the microfilm behind the dartboard in a bierhalle just 2 clicks east of Checkpoint Charlie but, as I later learned, the KGB had intercepted her before she made the rendezvous point. A mysterious dwarf with a bulletproof briefcase, three gold teeth, and a hideous scar that ran from his left ear to his right upper lip warned me just in time and I was able to get back across to safety. I’d love to tell the rest of the story but I’m afraid I’ve already said too much.

 

I met my wife at a bar, Khyber Pass Pub on a free band Tuesday. We have been together since, 27 years.

We were in Brussels for part of our honeymoon. We found this cool old bar down an alleyway. Looked like all locals with a good amount of marble around the bar. Really a nice old spot. My wife goes to the loo and I order our beers. My wife wanted a Westmalle on tap, only time I ever saw that. I asked for a gueze. I don’t know what actually happened but the bar maid went down to the cellar and brought me a plate of cheese. I must have had a look on my face and the three guys next to me at the bar asked what I wanted, the barmaid bid not speak English. I said gueze. They responded in French to the barmaid and they all burst out laughing. As this happened my wife was walking over. The cheese was given to the three guys and I got my gueze. This is now known as the cheese incident.

If anyone knows this bat I would love to know the name. As you walked in the bar was to the left and there were tables with older ladies hanging out with dogs.


Enjoy

 

I was only a spectator to this funny incident that happened in a local bar in my hometown when I was probably 17-18 years old. This bar had a row of wooden booths along the wall, and these booths had a vertical post at the open end that was part of the seat back/divider between booths that had a coat hook to each side facing each booth.

If you've watched submarine movies or tv shows you can picture how the sub's captain would call for "up periscope" and then drape his arms over the two handles that hinge down from the center post while swinging around for a 360 view of the water surface. Well there was a guy sitting in one booth with his buddies who all obviously had too much beer, and he stood up on the bench seat of the booth, called for "up periscope" and began using those coat hooks like the arms of the periscope. His booth had become so loud with his friends laughing at him so that everyone in the bar started watching and laughing.

As you can imagine it was an awkward standing position, and he soon tried to rotate that 'periscope' and lost his balance. He grabbed those coat hooks to try to regain his balance but he ended up on the floor because his 'periscope' broke and landed on the floor with him. It gave everyone in the bar a good laugh except for the owner.

 

Warren G:
It was a clear black night, a clear white moon
Warren G was on the streets tryin' to consume
Some skirts for the eve so I can get some funk
Rollin' in my ride, chillin' all alone

Nate Dogg:
Just hit the east side of the LBC
On a mission tryna find Mr. Warren G
Seen a car full of girls, ain't no need to tweak
All you skirts know what's up with 213

...oh, never mind, this was meant for the Regulators thread!

 

Da fuq?

 

Warren G. Harding was an infamous womanizer operating in disguise.

 

In college I was towards the back of a bar, when I heard a roar coming from the front. A guy rode his Harley through the bar, and stopped when he hit my leg. I got pissed, he got pissed, and I took his keys and handed them to the bartender. His friends removed his bike and him. A few days later when we were both sober, I ran into him at the same bar, we had a beer and laughed about it.

 

Around 20 yrs ago I was a general repair guy guy for about 7 yrs at a bar in St Paul, MN called the Turf Club. New ownership twice over now. I would do plumbing and or electrical work and had to be there early before the place opened their doors. The bar is located at the busiest intersection in the entire state of MN: Snelling Ave & University Ave. It is also near some colleges & universities. The basement bar, The Clown Lounge, is well known across the US to many barhoppers and late nighters. I used to get fucked up with Grant Hart there and we'd have some laffs. Anyways, I'm finishing up a job at about noon or so and Jerry was the bartender. This guy was a fossil from NYC and hated college kids. (many cartoon characters could be based off this guy) So I decided to have a pint before I put my tools back in my truck...and a college dude walks in, bellies up to the bar and shouts out some drink he wants...I dunno what it was but it wasn't right. This guy is puffed up and shit hot annnnnd here comes his drink. I watched Jerry make a little rum & coke, slide it to the kid, and the kid sez to him: "Hey that's not what I ordered!" Jerry takes the cash on the bar and sez to kiddo in his gruff old East coast voice: "Betta luck next time...big guy."
I miss Jerry. He was the best!

 

Working in Aberdeen, Scotland for a while, my coworkers from the US and I were looking for watering holes after work on our own, for the first few days people from the Aberdeen office would come with, but this time we just struck out by ourselves.

Setup:
This was 2010-2013 or so. I was traveling between Houston and Scotland during that period. I was particularly obsessed with trying all the cask beers I could. Though my coworkers had no idea what I was talking about ha. Anyway, walking into a generic pre fabricated pub, I saw a sign that said cask served here. Went up to inquire only to get a blank stare from the bartender, I guess it was just a decretive sign. Bad nitro beers it is for me then. I then look out the window, and see a building I thought I recognized while doing research on the CAMRA pub search page, and I saw the cask marque, which got me excited ha. We finished our pints, and I got everyone to walk to the other place across the street.

Good part:
Turns out it is a place called Aitchies Ale House. A tiny place that only had two cask engines, both from Orkney Brewing. After ordering the entire pub turned around to ask were we where from ha, which was about 10 people in total. After getting to know the bartenders, and regulars, they would not take no for an answer, we were coming to watch the USA/England World Cup game, that happened to be the next day. Walking into the pub the next day, they all had on USA jerseys and started singing the National Anthem. All to the chagrin from the one regular at the end of the bar that was from London. I was bear hugged by a guy that worked in the oil industry his entire life, and was missing about two fingers on each hand. After that, we were regulars.

Aitchies was right next to the train station, so I got a pass to Edinburgh, just doing some exploring on my own when I had a few days off. Stopping at Aitchies before I went. I told the manager about my plans, knowing my like for cask beer, he was also a CAMRA member, wrote down a bunch of places to go that I can walk to right off the train, and called a hotel to get me a discounted rate to stay. That was a beautiful Victorian type building. Which led me to a cab driver, that was friends of both the hotel and the manager from Aitcheis, and got even more recommendations and travel ha.

Lots more drinking stories from Aberdeen, but getting welcomed like that at Aitchies was the first and probably most memorable. The two other pubs I went to a lot were Prince of Whales and The Grill. I might get into stories from them later, if I can remember

 

Reminds me of the Burt Lancaster film Local Hero.

 

Funny you say that, that is one of my favorite movies. I also got to go and check out the hotel and town they stayed at in the movie, a tiny spot called Pennan.

 

After many decades of this stuff, I've got lot's of stories. This one is part of a much longer story, one that takes place over a 3 day weekend, and involves much alcohol, dynamite, racing go karts in the rain and sleet, and almost burning down a hotel (semi-accidentally).

We were in a bar in White Lake NY, not very far from the site of Woodstock. The bar was on the edge of the lake, and had a dock for boats to tie up to. We had been out at other establishments, and this was our last stop before crashing for the night. We were a bit hungry, and ordered some burgers. These were the prepackaged ones, in a plastic wrapper, that were common in the late 70s-early 80s, and were cooked in a microwave. The burgers were about as edible as they sound, and we decided that they better frisbees than food.

We're just flinging the things around, the locals didn't seem bothered (our hosts were locally known semi-whackos, who blew things up for a living), and then one of our group opened the door to the dock area, yelled I'm going long!, and a meat disc was sent his way. He made the catch, just as he went off the dock. In November.

 

Normally I tell the partying with armed Mexican pimps in early 70's San Blas, but so many other epic times, though none that compare to it in the realm of danger and strangeness.

Working at a Shawangunk Mountain hotel on top of Mount Mohonk, and only one snaky and steep road into town. A two day snowstorm ended up closing the road so we who lived at the hotel year around were stuck up the mountain. We all were hard core skiers and climbers so on the second day with about 26 inches of new snow we decided to hike to town. It's a long hike to the road from the hotel, and then a long hike to town along the road. We decided to take a hiking trail instead that led to the road another way, but also gave access to private property that would cut over a mile off the hike if we cut across. Long story short we ended up losing the trail in the deep snow and drifts, and badly misjudged our energy. We did our best, trudging and trudging through it, and finally made it to town somehow, the five of us, snow covered and almost frozen. We hit Diggers our favorite bar where we got stares from the surprisingly full house. Man, no beer ever tasted as good as that first one that night. I surprised my friends and pulled out a half ounce of Lebanese hash and a pipe and that pipe passed around that bar and we all in that bar got friendly warm and drunk straight into next day. Finally my friend Skip the bartender, pulled the blinds and locked the door and we smoked hash and drank beers till dawn. What a night.