How To: Get Supremely Day Drunk in NYC

by Rachel

This is a good and very easy how to guys.

First, go to this restaurant, somewhere near Little Italy, I don’t even know. But I do know, they have the best Sangria I have ever tasted. Ask for it special because for some reason its not on the menu. A pitcher is best.

After this, walk on down to Bowery street and hit Paulaner Brewery. Interesting fact, its the only Paulaner brewery in the states and they have a genuine German Brew master who apprenticed at the Paulaner Brewery in Munich. He’ll make beer in front of your eyes, and he’s super friendly. Isn’t that special? Anyways, in NYC, you will soon learn they have amazing happy hour deals. Its almost worth moving there. Its actually 100% worth moving there. At Paulaner, its 2 for 1 drinks from noon to 6 on Fridays and Saturdays specifically. So, we opted for the litre stein. There were three of us, only two were drinking. We each wanted a different flavour, but our lovely, attractive, Australian with a man bun bartender misunderstood, or we miscommunicated, and he brought us three of one kind of beer, thinking we all wanted a second round of the other kind. What he must have thought of us, I do not know. Some people would be annoyed, but we couldn’t have been happier. Or drunker by the end.

Until we went to our third stop, Dahlia’s, where they make an absolutely delicious margarita. They also have super crispy complimentary tortilla chips and always have the right amount of salsa (its pretty much magic). Don’t stop at 1 margarita, they’re too good. This experience will probably bring you to peak drunkenness for the day. At least it did for us, and turned out to be everyone’s favourite day of the trip!

Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer

There’s our 3L of beer!

How To: Completely Suck At Blogging

by Shannon

Just stop doing it. It’s that easy!

You know what isn’t easy? Blogging. It’s such a pain in the ass sometimes.

When things are great, I’m sure as hell not interested in wasting time on the internet.

When things are shitty, I’m sure as hell not interested in reading my own whiny stuff, I’d rather just get kind of drunk and spend several hours on Buzzfeed.

Anyways. We’re back, baby. Maybe? Hopefully.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And also makes you forget you have a blog.

How To: Get In A Good Sunday Groove

by Shannon

No matter how hungover you may or may not be (but definitely are), just throw on this sweet, sweet jam and you’ll be just fine.

What’s Yo Beef #34

by Rachel

Rachel
This is happening right now… When people wear leggings with holes in the butt…

Shannon

My beef today is sad moods. Not even bad moods – I’ll save those for another day. But sad moods, like when you just get in a funk that you just can’t shake. Maybe you’ve done something stupid, maybe you just have a shitty feeling, who knows. The point is, they’re like a succubus, and just drain you of all things awesome. Geeze, what’s the point!?

I did something stupid today, and now I just have this sick, sick feeling that I can’t shake, and I know I’m a mess to be around. It’s pretty ridiculous. Self, you need a margarita and an Usher dance party. Get it in gear, woman!

How To: Build A Kick-Ass Robot Helmet

by Shannon

Rach and I are pretty obsessed with robots – and honestly, why not? Styx liked robots. And if Styx liked robots, well, they’re good enough for us.

On Wednesday night, we launched a new beer for Hop City Brewing – HopBot IPA. It’s pretty freaking awesome – 7.1% ABV, 70 IBUs. And it smells like everything awesome.

Anyway, the logo is a robot, and any excuse to make a robot helmet, well, I’m sure as hell going to take it.

(Disclaimer: It’s a damn good thing no one from work reads this blog, because I definitely didn’t get their permission to post these photos of them looking cooler than cool.)

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1. First things first – go out and buy some shoes so you have some boxes. Most important step
2. Just do some mad taping. Robots can look any way you want. I went with the basic square head, but imagination is where you have to come in, since robots lack this basic human function
3. The add-ons are the best part. I went with a slinky on top, and some soup-can eyes. It’s also a good idea to have a handy friend around. I was just going to tape the eyes on, but my friend Dave actually went crazy and screwed them in, securing them with bolts, which is pretty awesome
4. Spray paint, spray paint, spray paint! Though not inside, because you’ll definitely get it on the floor and walls of your condo. It was an accident, I swear!
5. Party on!

How To: Have A Great St. Patrick’s Day

by Shannon

With St. Patrick’s Day falling on a Monday this, I did my main celebrating Saturday with Liam and some friends, and man, we had a blast.

I’m a strong believer that St. Patrick’s Day can be totally fun, without having to pay a $15 cover and cram yourself into a room that seems to have more elbows than bartenders and vacant bathrooms, with the former constantly being shoved in your face. Last year, Liam and I did a sweet College Street pub crawl with a friend that worked out awesome – non-Irish bars get ignored during this holiday, so we had great service, and the bartenders were fun to chat with. This year, we went for the same idea.

Once everyone found the place, we all huddled into Duke’s Refresher, which is a relatively new bar on Gerrard at Yonge. It has a great beer selection, the food was killer (as was my beer milkshake. What!?), and the band kept playing Beatles songs once they realized we loved them. We sat around, played Truth or Dare, ordered multiple Moosehead‘s, and the band even dedicated a song to me.

From there, we booted over to Jack Astor’s for some Woodchuck Ciders, then over to Beer Academy to wrap up the evening. By the time my facepaint was wearing off and Liam and I had demolished the Chinese food we brought home to devour during House of Cards, I was tapped, but I’d had one awesome St. Patrick’s Day.

In honour of my awesome day, I’ve put together a small list of rules that should help you have a wonderful holiday without being stupid.

1. Always make friends with the band and bartenders. They’re so often really cool

2. Ain’t nothing wrong with painting your face. Just ask my mom, who still faithfully does it every year

3. If you have to pay cover at a normally coverless bar, it probably isn’t worth it

4. Eat, eat! You’re skin and bones

5. Green dye will make you feel gross

6. Friends are better than no friends

7. Sing along, clap your hands, laugh loudly. If people can’t hear how much fun you’re having, you’re not having enough fun!

8. At the end of the day, make sure you curl up with a glass of water, a good book that you’re fanatically reading because it expires from the library in two days and you apparently can’t renew e-books, and someone who loves you (even if that someone is just a poster of Keanu Reeves)

What’s Yo’ Beef #29

by Rachel

Rachel

No worries about missing beef day Shannon… Trust me, I forget stuff too, in fact it’s part of my beef today.
This week’s beef is the culmination of months of mistakes, and effects of said mistakes, therefore feeling like a giant idiot.
Example 1: My cell phone bill was double the fee this month, and I said ‘whaaaaat? I definitely paid that last month’…. Turns out I still had my old cell phone provider on my list of payees for online banking. I paid them by accident, which resulted in calling and explaining and making me feel like an #idiot.
Example 2: Although a simple mistake to make, I screwed up my income on my taxes for 5 whole months. How do you go 5 months not catching a mistake? #idiot.
Example 3: I have to send an invoice to my boss in order to get paid. Today was payday… But not for me! I had an email reminder from my boss, actually completed the invoice, but somehow, forgot to send it. #idiot.
All of these realizations came to me this week. COME ON!

Shannon

I did want to make my beef today about shitty technology, and how my computer hasn’t let me on WordPress for like, the entire week, but I’ve decided I’m bigger than that.

I’ve had a pretty good week actually, so relatively low beefs on this end, but there is one thing that’s totally been getting my griddle fired up, and that’s grown-up hangovers.

I have a pretty high alcohol tolerance, thanks in part to years of training with Queen’s Players, and the fact that I work for a beer company. It’s something I’m pretty proud of, and I can definitely hold my own against people who are a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier.

But man, do I ever pay for it these days. Last night Liam and I had dinner out, where I had one beer, then we moved to a friend’s house (where I played Grand Theft Auto for the first time – what have I been missing?!), where I had one cider, and half of a beer. And I feel slightly hungover! My skin has that not-fresh feeling, my head is just sliiightly throbbing, and all I want is tomato soup (though that’s also just a regular day for me). What the dude! Grown-up hangovers man, they suck.

How To: Make Delicious Beer Bread

by Shannon

There are lots of cool perks to my job in the world of beer marketing, and one of them is finding out kick-ass recipes. Beer recipes.

One of the beer brands I work for, Samuel Adams, is really into food and beer, and all the cool stuff you can do with it. How food can make your beer taste even better, and how beer can (no surprise here) make your food taste better, and they bring out new flavours in each other. It’s pretty cool.

Anyway, a food blogger used Sam Adams to make a recipe the other day, and since it contained my favourite ingredients in the world, I decided to try it last night for Valentine’s Day. What ingredients, you ask? Oh, flour, beer, bacon, and cheese. Just all the most delicious ingredients known to mankind, no biggie.

Anyway, her recipe can be found here, but this is all you need to know:

Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup shredded cheese
500mls of beer (I didn’t have Sam Adams, so I used Hop City’s Barking Squirrel)
4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped (I didn’t have bacon that was thawed, so I didn’t use any, and it was still all drool-worthy)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Gastrofork has nice pictures and directions, but if you’re in a hurry, this is the gist:

• Preheat your oven to 350
• Add all the dry ingredients, mix them around, then add your cheese, beer, and if you have it, bacon
• Mix it with a spoon
• Throw it in a pan or whatever
• Cook for 30 minutes, remove, add some butter across the top
• Cook for another 30 minutes
• Remove, cool, eat, eat more

Incredibly simple. Incredibly delicious. To beer!

The best things in life are free. Except beer, which usually costs around $0.0050 per mL.

How To: Throw An Axe

by Shannon

This has definitely got to be one of the more bad-ass posts we’ve had.

This past weekend, Liam and I hit up the Backyard Axe Throwing League. As you can see from their website, here’s the gist:

• They teach you how to throw axes
• It’s BYOB (they even have a fridge)
• They set up a competition for you
• You can bring your own food in or have it delivered

What more do you want?

We went for my friend Sommer’s birthday, and she had specified that everyone dress up as a Lumberjack, because of course that’s what you should do. Luckily, I have some experience making beards, so Liam and I took home co-first place.

Regarding, you know, the actual throwing of axes, it’s really not that difficult. You more or less just pick up the axe, and throw it, just like you’d think. I’m not saying the instructor’s weren’t great and didn’t teach us the tips and tricks (they were pretty awesome dudes), I’m saying that it’s just that easy.

I’m definitely planning to hit this place up again, and I will probably buy a couple hatchets just so I feel safe walking home alone at night.

How To: Throw A Dinner Party

by Shannon

You know what? It’s really not that hard.

As Rachel can attest to, I started throwing Dinner Parties in high school, and they were awesome. We’d limit the guests to about 8 or 10 people, everyone would dress up, bring hostess gifts, we’d serve sweet food, and it was awesome. It was fun to act like grown-ups and talk about stocks and bonds in fake British accents all night, which is definitely what we thought grown-ups did at parties.

Now that I’m in my mid (okay, late) twenties, I still totally throw Dinner Parties, and they’re still totally awesome.

Step One: Invite some people. I find it works best when you invite people who might know of each other, but aren’t super close friends. It means conversations don’t get stuck on inside jokes and the same thing you talk about every time you see them, and it means people can make new friends.

Step Two: Pick your food. Something that doesn’t take a lot of work to prepare is best, as well as something that you can fluctuate on the cooking time. The first Dinner Party I ever hosted, we had pasta with chicken, and it was bone cold. Not the greatest. This time, we had shiskabob’s from the St. Lawrence Market, and roasted sweet potatoes. Super delicious, easy to make, and we could do all the prep in advance, which is definitely key.

Step Three: Tell people what to bring. Don’t bother pretending they don’t have to bring something; it’s a waste of your time, and people typically like bringing something to a party – I know I do. This time we assigned our guests with booze and dessert, and it worked out great. Plus, our dessert guests brought Dufflet cakes, which were insanely delicious, and something Liam and I never would have thought of, so we got to try something new.

Step Four: Create a theme. This isn’t necessary by any means, but I like to have an activity, or a little something special to set each Dinner Party apart. One of them I had a Slip N’ Slide at and we played croquet, another one was black-tie themed. A little theme never hurt anyone, and adds a fun extra. I received a sweet-ass cocktail book for Christmas, so we had welcome drinks of White Russians and Whiskey Sours (with homemade sugar syrup!) for everyone. We also had a Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection tasting, and had some Prosecco as we toasted a friend’s grant approval. Safe to say, our theme was booze.

That’s pretty much all there is. You can add little details, like nametags, or thank-you gifts (which we forgot to give our guests, so… put those by the front door or something), and make sure there’s great music, but beyond food and booze, people don’t need much to have a good time.

Liam and I are planning on getting back into throwing more Dinner Parties, now that we’re really grown-up and mature. The only thing we’ll do different is perhaps drink less whiskey sours, ‘cus this girl is definitely hungover.