I love to drink beer at bars! Beer at a bar is usually better than beer at home or at a house party. This is for many reasons:
- When you drink at a bar, you are surrounded by like-minded individuals who enjoy alcohol of some sort or another.
- Most bars have a great atmosphere, with interesting pictures and knick-knacks on the walls.
- You get the small pleasure of being served (by the beertender) and feeling like a king.
- The selection of beer is greater than you'd have available at home.
- The beer is colder.
- You get to drink your frosty beverage out of fancy glassware (or metalware, as is the case with The Man Mug and The Moscow Mule Mug!
Drinking Buddies
Drinking alone in your living room just to get smashed (hammered, wasted, hammed-up, annihilated, blasted, blitzed, bombed, buttered, canned, fried, crunk, or whatever you want to call it!) isn't much fun. Don't get me wrong, it can be fun, but not compared with the delight of drinking with others.
One of the great things about drinking is getting to make friends with people who have a shared interest. If you try to start up a conversation with a stranger in a department store, on the street, in a movie ticket line or wherever you meet friends, it can be hard to talk about something you would both have an interest in. You might get lucky and see that the person in line ahead of you has a bag of dog food in their cart. Maybe you have a dog and you could talk about your dogs. Or maybe the person in front of you in the movie ticket line is going to see a movie you are about to see and that could be a conversation starter.
More likely, though, is that you won't see anything to give you hints, which leaves you guessing about something interesting to start off with. You might guess right and make a new friend, but usually you'll just sound like a weirdo and scare them off.
When you are drinking at a bar, you can talk to someone about what they're drinking or their favorite drinks and the conversation can grow from there. Also, when someone is drinking at a bar, they are not in a hurry to be somewhere, they are relaxing and trying to have a cheerful time. So, if you talk to them, they have time to converse and let the friendship build.
Atmosphere and Ambiance
Your living room probably has a few posters or framed pictures. You've got a television. You've got lights. You've got a chair, a table, and a beer. You've got everything a bar has, right? You're right to a point, but you're desensitized to your stuff. You see it every day. It's just the same old stuff that was there yesterday and the day before.
Most bars have a theme. They decorate the place with photos and memorabilia related to that theme. There is plenty to look at. It would take a long time to get bored with it.
I have been to lots of bars with lots of themes, but a few of the more notable themes were:
- Elvis
- Hunting and Fishing
- Baseball
- Football
- City and Road Signs
- Beer Company Logos
- Engines, Cars, and Mechanics
If you ever started getting bored with a particular decor, you could just start frequenting a different tavern.
Most bars pay to have the most premium satellite television channel package so that if there is a program on, they'll get it. They might have fancy light fixtures. Supreme seating, whether it be well cushioned bar stools or booths. The bar can be in creative shapes and designs, and sometimes have interested things epoxied to them, like baseball card, coins, or magazine pictures.
If you are a fan of bar games, then it's a must that you go to the bar. They have Foosball, Darts, Billiards (Pool), Penny Slot Machines, and arcade games.
There's all this great stuff attracting you to the bar, even before you get to the beer!
Beer Me, Barkeep
When drinking at home, you have to first go buy the beer at the store and bring it home and it's heavy. You must get up and go all the way to the fridge to grab a beer. You have to open the beer, and if it's a bottle you have to find a bottle opener. WOW, that's too much work! Not really, but wouldn't it be nice if someone would do all that stuff for you!One of the things you get at a bar is a friendly server who will take care of all that so all you have to do is drink and have a good time. Plus, if the bar's not too busy, the bartender can be an interesting person to talk to!
Beer Selection
Unless you have a ton of money and the biggest refrigerator, you are limited to one or two kinds of beer at home. You probably go to the store and grab one or two packs of beer, whether that's six-packs or 30-pack cases, and drink those until they are gone. When those are finished, you go buy a couple more and the cycle repeats. So on any single night, your selection is very slim, not much variety.A bar has LOTS of variety. You can have a different kind of beer every time. It's a good way to quickly find out which brew is your favorite. If you choose a beer you don't like, then you don't have to work through five or 29 more, you just finish your one and don't get it again. You also have the choice of bottles, cans, or taps, depending on which you prefer. I'm a tap man myself.
Ice Cold or Colder
This one may or may not be more true in bars. A bar's business is serving a good drink, or you won't return. They want to give it to you like you want to receive it. Beer is best served super cold, so they have invested in very good refrigeration cases and keep the temperature turned down really low. You could have your fridge at home set as cold as theirs, but you probably don't because it might not be the best temperature for other things you have in there.If you are just buying your beer from the store before you drink it, then you have to wait until you get home to crack open your first cold one. The whole drive from the store to your home that beer is getting warm. It may take a while in the fridge before it gets back down to the desired temperature, so your first few beers could be warm. At the bar, your beer has no chance to warm up before it gets to you.
Specialty Glassware
At home you will likely drink straight from the bottle or can, because it's easier and who wants to do extra dishes. At the bar, any drink can be put in a fancy mug, pint, snifter, or other nifty container, and it will be washed for you when you leave. It makes you feel cool, and it's neat to see the color of the beer you're consuming.
Honestly, my favorite part of a bar is the glassware. I enjoy it so much more than bottle or can because of the fact that you can see and smell your beer.
Reality
Again, unless you are rich, it's tough to afford to go to the bars every night. I can afford to go out sometimes, but sometimes I need to drink at home. That is what I plan to help you do with this site. I am going to suggest tips and tricks on how to make drinking at home as fun as drinking at the bars.
I'll find and suggest great glassware, decor, movies and shows to watch while you drink, beers to try, and maybe even some drinking games! If this site becomes a success, it'll continue to grow to be a huge resource on all things beer related!
Thanks so much for reading this post, and please comment below!
No comments:
Post a Comment