Review of the Venues Visited on St. Patrick’s Day

We made it into 6 of the 12 or so locations that were listed on the invitations. For what I’m hoping will be the first “modern” Bridge St. Pub Crawl, I think we did a pretty good job. We stayed at a couple of the locations for over 45 minutes. I don’t think that’s good pub crawl etiquette, but it does say something about the quality of the seating and selection at those locations.

1. Our first stop was the Pickering Creek Inn. I’ve never been in there before and I have been interested for months. The bar has a horseshoe shape to it, which I thought was interesting. The side of the bar we were on did not have stools. We were seated on actual chairs because the floor is higher on that side. It was easy to read the extensive craft beer list they had. There were around 20 craft beers on tap. It was nice to see such a large selection at the very first stop. I was very impressed. Several of our group got food here also. The food received positive reviews and the only complaint was that the poutine didn’t have large enough cheese curds. Not too shabby. Since we ate, we were here for about 45 minutes. Since food was involved I can’t complain. I will definitely be coming back here, especially on food/drink special days.

2. Ahh, the Hacienda La Michoacana. Last year we stopped in here to grab some nachos and to see what it was like inside. Its a very large space that seems to have just a few too many tables. The food is good here. They have a blend of traditional Mexican with a hint of Tex-Mex. However, they do not have a good beer selection unless you enjoy macro-Mexican beer. They have the 7 different American style pilsners each with a different Latin sounding name and they all taste the same.  It was uncrowded and we were all able to walk right up to the bar and everyone got a different Mexican beer. I have a feeling that this spot will become an ironic stop on the pub crawl in future years. I have no problem with this, so long as no more than one drink is had.


3. Iron Hill Brewery. This is one of my favorite spots in town, so I knew it was going to be hard to not stay for a long time. The holiday weekend had a way of fixing this for us. Iron Hill is a popular night spot so there's almost always a wait, and it did this night. We were given the choice of either going to sit at the bar or wait an hour for a table. I swear a leprechaun came in and helped us because 6 seats opened up at the bar as soon as we walked in. Perfect. The beer selection here is always great. They have around 15 of their beers on hand at all times. They also have something special . . . the reserve list. If you have a couple extra dollars to spend and someone to share it with, make sure you ask for the list. Each wine sized (750 mL) bottle is between 20 and 40 dollars, and can easily be split amongst 4 people easily. If you like barrel aged beer you will be in heaven. The other half of the party got food and we only had a drink or 2 each before we moved on. I already like Iron Hill, but the reserve list will have me coming back even more.

4. Fenix. I feel that when I tell people about this tiny, but great spot I feel like I should say it like the Sizzler commercials would say Sizzler. It's nestled right next to Molly MacGuires and seems to be very fancy from the outside. When you walk in you see overstuffed leather couches and stools for seating. Again the pub gods smiled on us as a group of people vacated the best seats in the house for us. So we settled in next to the fireplace for over an hour. Fenix has a great drink selection which specializes in craft beer and unusual martinis. You would think that we all ate here if you just looked at the time, but no, it was just that nice inside. This was a stop on last year’s crawl, and I haven’t been back since. I will not make this mistake again.

5. The Bistro on Bridge, a tale of 2 bars. On one hand this is a craft beer bar with an incredible selection of beer and good food. On the other hand it was an overly crowded "college bar" with too loud music and Pabst on tap for cheap drinking. The Bistro is a long narrow open room with wicker chairs and couches in front. We were fortunate that there was a lot of room here. The rear is where the bar is, and it was shoulder to shoulder and I had to yell to order anything. We didn’t spend much time here. It wasn’t as comfy as Fenix, and just too loud to talk. I would like to come back on a less busy day to see what this place is like then.

6. The Sand Castle Wineries “Taste” store. It was fairly late at this point, so we were the only customers for the first 15 minutes. So we settled in down at the bar to sample several of their wines. The attendant was very knowledgeable and helpful in suggesting wines we would probably favor. I did like 4 out of the 5 samples that he suggested. They also sell higher end snack foods, but we knew we were heading back to the house, so none of us tried those this trip. It's not terribly pubbish, but I enjoyed an unusual way to end the outside portion of our evening. I know I will be coming back to share this relatively new store with friends

Only 6 stops made on the "Phoenixville Mile" this trip, but it went very well. 5 out of the 6 stops were winners in my opinion. Bistro on Bridge being the only speed bump. Next year I say 8 stops and I want to add at least 3 more people. See you then, Saturday March 15^th 2014!

2nd St. Patricks Day Pub Crawl and More, Review

Welcome back from the 1^st planned Phoeniville Pub Crawl. I wanted to go over what worked and what didn’t and finally if this is worth doing again next year.

First I’ll give you a quick rundown of how this idea came into being. 7 years ago my friend Sean suggested to some of us to try out the food special called “Kegs ‘n’ Eggs” at Chap's Taproom. It’s a tiny breakfast buffet and they also have “Irish” beer specials. This is the 7^th year that Chap’s has done this and Sean and I have been to most of them. Last year instead of just the two of us going to the bar, we added a few other friends and my wife. At some point during the morning meal the idea was brought up to walk around on Bridge St. (the main road) in our town. We left the bar around noon and we hit a cigar bar for some reason and then split up for a few hours. After dinner we met up at my house and walked down to Bridge St. to crawl. We all seemed to have a pretty good time and I knew I wanted to repeat it. 

Back to this year. I knew that if I write the plan down then I could invite more people to join us. This is what I came up with. This was very difficult since I just wrote down what we did last year and then added board games. 

  

The 5 parts to the Phoenixville Pub Crawl.

1.       Tell people this event is happening.

2.       Kegs ‘N Eggs at Chap’s Taproom.

3.       Gather back at a house for games, movies or rest.

4.       Get to Bridge St. and start walking.

5.       Head back to home base and close the night out.

In hindsight the first part of this process is the one that needs the most work. I was about 6 months behind in adopting Facebook for event planning. I have been using an invite email service for the last 4-5 years, first E-viteand then Anyvite recently. I saw the upswing in the use of the Facebook events, but I didn’t want to make the switch because I know a few people who do not use Facebook. This was a mistake. A few days before the event I sent out a few texts to some of the core group and found out that they hadn’t even seen the invite. I sent out the original Anyvite around a month ago, and noticed that 10 of the 40ish invitees looked at it. I was prompted by my wife and a few others to create a Facebook event. Within a few hours I had several new notices with people telling me whether they were coming along or not. This reaction has prompted me to try a hybrid method of invitations for all of my events this year.

Part 2 is the original portion of the event. The selection of food may be small, but the potatoes and sausage are great, and unlimited portions are a great way to start this type of day. Last year we hit Chap’s around 10-10:30 and that was a huge mistake. This year we decided to get to Chap’s right as they opened. Even so, the place was packed. Apparently, they will reserve tables for larger groups and because of this there were very few free tables. Next year I will be looking into what’s involved for reservations. Thankfully, our friend James beat everyone in our group to Chap’s and managed to snag us a great table just a few feet from the buffet. There are two minor issues with our going to Chap’s. 1, it is a absolutely packed right from the opening bell, and 2, the food and beer selection is a bit limited. However, the prices for the “Irish” drinks and the buffet itself are still fairly low. The central location means that everyone can find it easily and its never too far for anyone to get to. The only way I can see us making any changes to this portion is if we find a new place that offers more of everything.

The third section of the day is what I’ll call the rest period. Last year we split up for a few hours. I understood why we separated, but I figured that if we want this to be a regular event then we need to keep a core group together at all times to provide continuity. This year we played a couple games, watched some TV and chatted it up. We knew we were going to be at my house for an extended amount of time and this allowed our group to swell. We had a few people stop by for the games portion and a couple stop by to join us for the crawl.

Part 4, the crawl itself. In this entry I’m just going to hit on the pros and cons. I’ll have a follow up entry where I review the individual places that we went to. We left my house at just before 6. Since the weather was so unpleasant we took a couple of cars down to Bridge St. and then hopped out at the first stop. We hit 6 places over the next 5 hours. 1.Pickering Creek Inn, 2.Hacienda La Michoacana, 3.Iron Hill Brewery, 4.Fenix, 5.Bistro on Bridge and 6.Sand Castle Winery. I think everyone had a good time and I know I'll be visiting a few of these places again. I was very impressed with the craft beer selection in 4 of the places we went. The food that we got was really good too. When the winery we went to was closing we decided to end the walking portion of our night. We were all satisfied.

The finale. After 5 hours and many places visited, we headed back to the house to socialize in a money free environment before we all went our separate ways. One last meal was purchased and one last pair of guests arrived.  For the final hours of the night we talked a bit and then quietly went to bed. 

I particularly like the way this event is set-up because it lets people float in and out as the different parts come up in the schedule. Some people like games, some people like beer, It's a gathering for everyone.

Overall, I think Saturday’s event went very well, and I am writing up next year’s invitation already.

Post Polar Palooza Musings

A few days removed from the 9 hours of fun and I think I can objectively review my part in this event.

The set-up

                Quinton took my little corner that is normally associated with the car bar and transformed it into a full bar. The only thing that was missing was a working sink. I had 1 shelf on my right split between  fruity liqueur mixers (peach schnapps) and sweet liqueurs (Crème de Cacao). A shelf behind me with the infused vodkas I had brought and the rest of my mixing liqueurs. One shelf behind me and to the left had all of the juices. Finally, I had the “hard liquor “shelf on my right at waist level. Underneath the bar was my ice bucket with both cracked and cubed ice for the drinks. On the floor on my left was my washing station. It was like a well laid out airplane cockpit, everything was close and at hand.

The Event

I got there a couple hours before the start to integrate my liquor collection with Quinton’s bottles. I purchased a large number of bottle pourers from Amazon to speed up my drink creation. It took around 45 minutes to install all of these into the bottles. (they were a huge help in the long run) By 6:45 I was ready to make my first drink. I opened one of the Marzen beers left over from the Quinton’s last event and settled in to wait. It was about 8pm before I was constantly making drinks one after another. I had a nice orderly line 2 or 3 people across the front. There was no pushing and everyone was very polite. I had to tell a few noobs that I am not a pro, and that you have to order from the menu. They seemed to take the info in stride. I noticed a few people in line looking over the menus I made. I was very glad that the work I put into them wasn’t wasted. The laminated recipe cards I made were perfect. I found drinks very quickly and even though the bar was moist at times, the cards stayed in perfect shape. The only thing I was really missing was a salty snack on the bar for the waiting masses to eat. Next time!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post the menu I created this year had 40 new drinks on it. There were roughly 50 people at Polar Palooza 13 (PP13) and I think 30ish came up and got a mixed drink. Of those 30 plus people I’d guess most of them got between 2 & 5 drinks. I thought it was interesting that the most popular category was the Sexy category. I made almost 10 Slimy C’s. People had no issue saying all the dirty names, which I thought was funny. Second in popularity were the Dessert set. I feel like  I made at least 5 German Chocolate Cakes and a few Tiramisus. The Classic section was not utilized all that much, but I wanted to offer a selection of non-sweet drinks for any purists out there. I only made a single martini this time, and a vodka one at that. Last year I made around 8 of the gin version. I guess the martini ladies from last time either changed their drink of choice or weren’t there.  

The “Dueling Shots” game I created had several fans. It may have been the same 12 people playing throughout the night, but those 12 people kept coming back for more fun. I think that’s pretty good for the first time out. Most of the time the shots were of the pleasant variety, but 3 times during the night the unpleasant ones were picked. I had a ball every time I shot mayonnaise into those glasses (the tape worm shot).

I was very busy up until the crowd started to disperse around midnight. From midnight till about 2am I wasn’t very busy. That was fine because around 2am I started the clean up. At 3 Shaun and I had all of the bottles in the car and ready to head home for the night.Overall, I think my small part of the event went pretty well. People drank, I was busy and I participated in the party in a way I wanted.

Any Improvements?

                As much as I enjoyed myself I can still think of a few places for improvement. The first thing I know I need to improve is the washing speed of my cocktail shakers. I think if I had a two stage cleaning set-up I would lose less time between drinks. I need to bring an additional tub for rinsing. Faster cleaning, faster drinking, simple as that.

The "Dueling Shots" game went well. The only thing I could change is go up to 21 different shots. I’d find 2 twenty sided dice and replace the 12 sided dice in the bubbles. 21 different shots would of course allow for a much greater variety, and the number 21 does have a minor significance to drinking in general. 

The menu I came up with this year I thought was pretty nice. 60 drinks which includes the13 shots, and then split into 6 categories. There are 2 ways I can think to go with it for next year. 1, rotate out 10-20 drinks for new ones. Replacing the drinks no one tried with new ones that are similar to the big hits. This idea would be nice and simple. No one would complain and I would get to add a few more drinks to my repertoire. 2, I go all out, fancy style. I can take the rest of this year and upgrade my skills. Create a whole new “gourmet” drink menu using muddled ingredients and homemade syrups to go with my infused liquors. The menu would be drastically reduced in size if I went this direction, maybe 20 drinks with 6-8 classic drinks and 12-14 of the gourmet variety drinks. Honestly, at this point I could probably pull this new menu off, but I don’t think my speed would be anywhere near what it would need to be. I’ll discuss with Quinton and see which direction to go. 

Next Up St. Patrick's Day!

Final Polar Palooza Update!

One final update to what I will be bringing or doing for my small part in the Polar Palooza ’13.

The first and what I’m hoping will be the most interesting finishing touch is a new drinking game I created.  I call it “Dueling Shots”. The game starts with having a list of 13 shots each numbered sequentially. About half of them are very tasty, and the other half are a bit rough. I have two twelve sided dice in a “pop-o-matic” bubble dice roller. Now the rules.

1. Each player rolls one die

      2. We compare the numbers and the higher roller gets to make a choice.

·          3. The roller looks at the list of shots and picks between the 2 numbers on the dice.

      3a. If both players roll the same number then both will drink the 13^th shot.  

·         4. The players then both drink the shot that the winning player chose.

·         5. Repeat, with a new roll or let someone else play.

Example: Jim and Carol decide to D-d-d-d-d-duel! Jim rolls a 6 and Carol rolls an 11. Carol gets to pick between the #6 (G-Spot) or the #11 (Water of Life) shot. Since Carol is a fan of the movie Dune she chooses to have them both drink The Water of Life. Then they drink.

It’s nice and simple. It can have endless iterations and even expanded to a 21 drink menuwith the use of twenty sided dice. I have taken the rolling out of this event because I do not want to lose the dice because someone has lost the ability to aim. The “pop-o-matic” bubbles will be mounted to a board and still lets the choices be random. They have the added benefit of having that nice “pop/tink” sound too. The sound, I’m hoping, will attract attention too.   

The last bit of improvement I decided to make was a last minute purchase of 20 new glass glasses. I made a very successful stop at our local Goodwill store. Since drinking glasses break so often in any household I have always found it silly to spend a lot of money on anything that is made of glass. They had a few martini glasses, several old fashioned glasses and 7 pilsner glasses. (btw the glasses averaged 75 cents each) These new finds combined with the martini and cordial glasses I already own I think I can add a higher quality feel to the “bar experience” that I’ll offer. The only downside of buying 20 more glasses is the storage of them. Since I will not be burdening Quinton with them after the party, I came up with an idea. I’ll create a “Party Box” to store in my basement. I’ll put these extraneous non-everyday glasses, any extra plastic shot glasses, the leftover paper plates and plastic silverware from TH2 inside. I figure when my next gathering comes around I’ll grab the box and not have to buy any (or as many) plastic cups.

In case you can't tell I am really looking forward to next weekend. All of the pre-planning and preparations I have made will make it a smooth flowing night. 

::Bonus:: 

Here is a sneak preview of my shot menu for the Polar Palooza.

1.Angel’s Tip

2.Aunt Verne

3.Bacon Martini

4.Chocolate Covered Bacon

5.Cough Sizzurp

6.G-Spot

7.Lucky Stud

8.Master Polar Bear

9.Monkey Brain

10.Tape Worm

11. Water of Life

12. Wookie

13. Lance 13