You should all consider yourselves lucky. As I write this, it is currently Sunday evening. Relax time. Unwind time. My wife is busy doing wife stuff, kids are in bed and normally I would have taken advantage of this rare quiet time to indulge in a game or two of NHL 14.

Instead, I’m writing to you. God, I love that game. It’s just so much fun and realistic, it’s like you’re actually on the blah blah blah you’re lucky blah blah blah virtual hockey blah blah blah. It’s out of my system and I’m 100% devoted to you now.

I do have a lot to talk about and I wanted to make sure I gave this post enough attention to make it all it can be. Here we go!

Dun dun (that’s the sound effect used in Law and Order if you didn’t catch that. Sounded right in my head.)

FRIDAY NIGHT

Friday I blogged about how we were hitting the streets to share our beer with the owners and bartenders of our favorite watering hole and we did just that. We pulled up with a small cooler and a game plan. Here it is in numerical order.

1. Leave the cooler in the car until the opportunity to share our beer presents itself. Because bringing a cooler of beer into a bar is simply gauche.

2. Strike up a casual conversation with the owner when he steps outside about our adventures in brewing.

3. Explain how we just so happen to have a few of our beers on ice in the car.

4. Have the owner and experienced palates of the bartenders try our beer.

5. Complete domination of the bar and soon the world.

A lot of our plan came to fruition. Other parts not so much. I’ll cover those in the “LESSONS LEARNED” section of the post later. Here’s what happened. We missed our opportunity with our main target, but we were on a mission from the beer gods. We weren’t going to be denied. Throughout the night we had been talking beer with one of the bartenders who seemed to have a penchant for craft beer, she became our backup target. I quickly headed to the car to grab our trusty cooler which then became our fourth at the table.

This drew the curiosity of the craft beer bartender. She came over, we explained, she grabbed some sampling glasses and a couple of other workers. We poured, they sampled, we gave the back story of each beer and label design. Of our beers, we had our Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale, the Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter and our currently unnamed EPA. Craftender really enjoyed our Hot Blonde and the unnamed EPA. She explained that she does like porters just not smoked, can’t fault her there. Actually the Hot Blonde and the EPA were the most liked by all who tried the three beers.

The best part of the tasting was after the workers tasted a beer they liked, they passed the sampling glasses to a patron of the bar who would then try it and pass it on. We then had a small crowd around our table asking all kinds of questions. It was a classic example of word of mouth advertising. Most companies that rely on word of mouth don’t actually get to see it in action. This was a special treat. When all was said and done, Craftender took a bottle of our Hot Blonde home with her and we were all out of beer. A good night for the Regular Guys.

LESSONS LEARNED

Here’s a couple things we learned that night that we will carry with us as move forward. First of all, no matter how well you may think you know the people working at your favorite bar, no matter how often you patronize their establishment, realize that they have a job to do and many other obligations other than sampling your beer. Maybe going to their bar on a Wednesday at 3:00 would be a better time to get their attention rather than 9:00 on a Friday night during peak business hours. Setting up an appointment to do so may be a better way to go as well. Also, BRING MORE BEER! People are going to be curious and may end up liking your beer enough to want to take some home with them!

All in all it was a successful trip for the Regular Guys. We received more feedback than we could have ever imagined and had a blast in the process. It was a great learning experience.

Plus this:

Yes, that is wooden Fleetwood Mac art in the men’s room stall.

And this:

You guessed it, it’s a velvet Kenny Rogers on the wall.

Have a great week everybody!