St. Arnold’s Scavenger Hunt: November 14, 2008

 

The Gig: St. Arnold’s Brewery Scavenger Hunt

 

The Rules: Locate all five landmark items at bars around town as seen in the video, take your picture with each item, and send them back to the brewery.  Here is the link to the official rules:

 

http://www.saintarnold.com/blog/index.html

 

The Prize: All successful entries win an invitation to a celebration at the brewery and an entry into a drawing for a kegerator (that’s right, folks, because we here at PIIYF need more evidence that we’re really seventeen years old).

 

The Players:

 

Robert: Editor in Chief

Garrett: Chief Face Officer

Adam: Minister of Science

 

Getting Started

 

All hail Garrett for the novel idea of incorporating this scavenger hunt into our weekly self-defilement and forwarding the email to a few of the Gang.  The genius of this idea (and also the hilarity of the grand prize) registered immediately and at once, the three of us were on the job.

 

Between us, four of the five clues were identified almost immediately.  This is due to a variety of factors including: (1) each of us has a keen mind and a shrewd eye for detail; (2) two of the three of us are Houston natives with longterm ties to our surrounding beer-mmunity; and (3) we’re all drunks.

 

We decided to tackle the elusive fifth bar first, since our suspected super sleuth-itude would be somewhat stunted once sauced…(ah thank you!).  With a tip from the Minister’s big brother, we guessed our first location might be the Black Lab in Montrose.  At the very least, we figured, we could each get our fill of some glorious authentic British food.  And let’s be honest, something drowned in mashed potatoes was just the kind of base we needed to lay down before we started…so with that, we hopped into Robert’s car and away we went!

 

[Author’s Note: Yes, Robert’s car is a convertible.  Yes, we had the top down.  Yes, it’s totally lame being the third dude in a convertible.]

 

Clue No. One:  Statue

 

Our item for this clue was a small white statue of two children standing under an umbrella.  From the video, we presumed the Black Lab was a likely suspect, as the ivy behind the statue matched that of the restaurant.  We arrived, we canvassed the area…and no statue.  (collective sigh).

 

We proceeded immediately to console ourselves by lining our soon-to-be-mashed-potato-crammed holes with a few ales (Boddington’s for Garrett, Smithwick’s for Adam, and who really gives a damn for Robert).  True to form, we then crammed said holes.  Cheese and ale soup for Robert and Garrett, Potato soup for Adam (with bacon and chives).  Garrett then scored fish and chips, Robert had the Beef Wellington (which honest to god looked like a giant pie), and Adam rounded out the meal with pork chops with apples and science, along with a big potato pancake.  In your humble author’s opinion, Garrett and Robert got grotesquely out-whataburgered.

 

But enough of that, this is about drinking beer in specified and mysterious establishments, right!?  The search continued…

 

Desperately certain that the bar was in the area around St. Thomas (largely due to the ivy), we brainstormed and even asked our waiter.  Our waiter suggested Avant Garden (formerly Helios).  Robert suggested La Colombe D’or (despite his old Jewish man griping about Garrett suggesting places that weren’t “bars”).  The only other bar we could think of in the area was Griff’s.

 

Somewhere around this time, Robert also kept suggesting it must be the Harp.  He was shouted down virtually every time by me.  I repeatedly commented that we had logged probably 1,000 hours at the Harp, that it was one of my favorite bars in town, and that I never remembered seeing ivy, let alone a porcelain-esque statue.  I shamed him into male pattern shut-the-crap-up-ness.

 

After driving around aimlessly for a while, literally sweeping the streets for a bar that had ivy (so productive), we decided to check out Grif’s (note, this is not a misspelling, the bar itself spells its name in three different ways on site…in the words of Joe: objection, ridiculous).

 

Griff’s is a legendary Montrose area icehouse style watering hole.  It is not the type of place one would expect to find ivy or a statue (see also, dental floss).  However, the following exchange was good for a hearty laugh:

 

Robert:  “I will have a Guinness!” (slapping hand on bar)

Bartendress: “Lone Stars are a dollar.”

Robert:  “I will have a Lone Star!” (slapping hand on bar)

 

We downed a longneck each and continued.

 

At this point, I was fresh out of shame, and the Gang agreed to check out the Harp.  After all, we had four more bars to hit, and if we could just figure out this first one, we were home free!  We arrived at the Harp in standard two-by-two cover formation.  We spread out for recon and…

 

 

Great success!!  Robert was right, Adam was dumbfounded, Garrett was…well, Garrett I think was just happy to get more beer…A St. Arnold’s Elissa for each on the patio and onward.

 

Clue No. 2:  Mask

 

Garrett and Adam immediately suspected this mask, reportedly near the “jungle patio,” to be located at the Volcano.  Robert confirmed this with conviction, and lo and behold, he was right about something twice in one night for the first time since the Carter Administration (that makes no sense).

 

Partially on a time crunch and partially not that interested in sticking around, we headed out after picture time…this was also in part due to the fact that there was a particular brand of ‘bag who commented that the three of us must be tourists and it would have been hard for Adam to finish the pub crawl if he was being detained on charges of 1st degree face-kicking.

 

      

 

Clue No. 3:  Gondola

 

For cryin’ out loud, how many bars have a freakin’ gondola?  Hans Bierhouse, that’s how many.  Scoop of chocolate, scoop of vanilla, don’t waste my time…

 

One point of significance here: Garrett unsuspectingly cornered Robert’s and my tastebuds behind the shower room at this bar and had his way with them in the most gruesome, violent, and reprehensible ways possible.  Our collective tastebuds spent the bulk of our time at Hans’s curled up in the corner, their clothes beside them burning in a garbage can.

 

I’m speaking, of course, of the Breckinridge Vanilla Porters that Garrett picked out for us.  AND it was Robert’s round, what the chesticles was Garrett doing picking anyway??  Anyway, this beer is awful.  Run from it.

 

Clue No. 4:  New Orleans Sign

 

Really?  A sign made of St. Arnold’s bottle caps that reads “Save New Orleans”?  This was getting too “easy.”

 

For the uninitiated, The Big Easy is a bar with no windows.  No, not that kind of “no windows.”  The Big Easy boasts a couple of pool tables, an inexplicably lingering post-smoking ban smokiness, and of course, a dude in his fifties who is at all times on roller skates.  This bar has been around for at least 250 years.  It’s basically the kind of place you’d expect to serve Thunderbird on tap.

 

For our purposes, The Big Easy distinguished itself in two ways: (1) it was the only bar of the evening which charged a cover (which was totally awesome) and (2) it was the only place where we had mediocre service.

 

By this time, the better halves of your Editor and Chief Face Officer had joined in the cause, immediately and dramatically improving both the aesthetics and the class of the group.  As best as I can remember, the order itself was not overly complicated.  I believe it was “four St. Arnold’s Ambers and a Broken Halo IPA, please.”  (note: five people, five beers)

 

[Author’s Note:  the Halo IPA was Whitney’s choice.  To the best of my understanding, she made this choice voluntarily, as hard as that is to believe.  It mostly tasted like shoe polish, and not in a good way.  However, gluttons for punishment all, we each had a little bit.  We each recommend that you do no such thing.]

 

Anyway, the bartender appeared with six beers and in an assortment more varied than our order, to boot.  Upon inquiring as to “wha happened,” he got all huffy and poured several of the beers out, saying something to the effect of “well then, I guess I’ll just be buying you a beer then, won’t I?”  He then poured an additional pint of something, but who knows what (pretty sure it was not St. Arnold’s).  We collected our bounty and retired to a couch in the corner where we proceeded to drink as quickly as possible.  I should add that this drinking quickly in the corner was the only point at which we blended in with any of The Big Easy’s regular clientele.

 

     

 

Mercifully, we bolted for greener pastures.  But of course, on our walk to the next stop, this happened:

 

 

Need I say more?

 

Clue No. 5: Sean Connery Picture

 

Another gimme from the guys at St. Arnold’s.  I mean, other than Garrett’s closet, how many places in this town can you drink under a veritable shrine to the original Bond himself?

 

The Kelvin Arms is a consistently solid bar and has long been a staple of ours.  Thus, we were delighted to save it (which we stubbornly still call the “Bank Draft”) for our last stop of the evening.  There’s a little something for everyone here: pub games, an actual bank vault to sit in, and a nice little patio.  The drink selection also gets points, with a fine selection of draught beers, whiskeys, and scotches.

 

We rounded out our night here (at least Garrett, Meg, and I did) basking in the glow of some outstanding jukebox work by Garrett at a jukebox which was formerly my musical undoing (more on that in a future post).  Finally, our mission accomplished, we called it a night.

 

    

 

Stay tuned for a report on the celebration, the brewery, and hopefully the presentation of a new member of the family: the new PIIYF Kegerator!!

 

– Adam