This One's On Me: The Apologetic Bartender

Bartenders make mistakes. Some more than others, some fairly minor, some quite explainable. Life goes on, people get their drinks and an occasional bad review gets posted on the Internet somewhere.

Sometimes, however, a bartender makes a mistake so dire that it causes them to go against their bartender ethics. For these, we must repent.


One recent evening, as I was looking forward to wrapping up my shift, I noticed that a fellow was returning to the bar for his third pint of the evening. I have the luxury of being able to offer people a drink on the house at or around their forth drink. This is the buy back, and it’s no mythical creature, as some presume. It doesn’t exist at all bars in New York, as it is said to have in the past, and it is a discretionary gift from an attentive bartender where it does. I am unapologetic for those occasions when I miscalculate, when I misestimate the members of a group who are buying. In short, I do not feel bad if I forget to give you a buy back, it is a luxury extended to my by the owners of my bar, and it is my prerogative.

I did, however, make the ultimate blunder, for which I must now confess. The gentleman in question was a foreign chap. Possibly German, but possibly from an entirely different region of the earth, we only exchanged basic pleasantries and the name of his desired beer. His hair reached his shoulders and was a bit scraggly. By the time he came up for his third beer, it was clear that he either had been living in some part of the States for a while or had miraculously managed to read the section in the Rough Guide that covers gratuity. He had been leaving a perfectly appropriate dollar a beer and a genuine “thank you.” So I resolved that, should he return for a forth, I must remember to buy him his drink.

The bar became busier, and the number of long, scraggly hair wearers increased (the bar I tend is in a part of town where men take the occasion to wear their hair in this manner. There was probably a lot of confusion due to plaid, as well.) When our soon to be slighted friend returned, I was pleased that I remembered him and happily informed him that he need not pay for his drink. He, it seemed, was unfamiliar with the buy back process, was quite thankful, and asked me if I was sure twice. Again he left me a dollar tip, and very generous “thank yous.” So it only occurred to me after I had served a number of plaid wearing, long haired men that perhaps I had inadvertently bought someone’s first drink. Perhaps our foreign fellow was still sitting in the back, with his third beer. Perhaps I had bought back the wrong drink.

The thought of having bought some unassuming person’s first drink annoyed me a bit. There are only two reasons a female bartender would buy a strange male’s first drink. I do not find the scraggly/plaid look particularly attractive, and I am perfectly capable of paying my rent without using my boss’s alcohol reserves as an ATM machine. Nonetheless, mistakes do happen, so I carried on.

But it wore at me that perhaps this nice foreign fellow was going to go all night now with out a drink on the house. He’d have to drink eight or ten beers before he’d be up for another one, and by then my shift would be long over. I became consumed.

When he returned and ordered afresh, I put on my repentant face and as I handed him his next beer asked him if I’d bought him his last. He looked a bit confused, so I stuttered, mumbled, felt quite foolish I just, um, wanted to know if I got you you’re last beer, I’m, it’s busy… Suddenly I could see that something dawned on him. He said yes, and thanked me again. I picked up the ten-dollar bill he’d left on the bar, and by the time I turned around with his change he was gone.

I left the change under a coaster near where he ordered, and to my relief, he soon came back past the bar towards the bathroom, but when I tried to hand him his change he refused and looked down, embarrassed. My mission to show appreciation for a friendly, if not uninitiated, drinker was botched. I had inadvertently taken on the role of the greedy bartender and utterly failed at introducing someone to the simple kinship of the buy back.

Photograph from the Internet

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Ladyboy's Style Profiles: Barleywines

I'd like to congratulate our readers on surviving all winter holidays and New Years festivities, allowing themselves the opportunity to stare yet another hellish winter right in its cold black heart. By now seasonal effective disorder and cold-weather cardiovascular disease have undoubtedly clouded your thoughts and ravaged your already questionable health.

Friends, these are lousy times and the majority of you will surely continue to suffer. If, however, there are any among you who will dismiss all preconceptions of fermented malt beverages and invite astronomical original gravities and blasphemous levels of international bitterness units into your hearts, I can offer you a little sustenance in these dark times and some recourse against the cold.


The gift I share is no miracle of these modern times, like the vibrating USB bathrobe or the furby. This gift was contrived in antiquity, either by dwarves or gnomes, a drink that will lift the spirits of you and your brethren and revitalize you until you are supremely drunk. Know that I offer you no simple magic when I offer you Barleywine.

I will now reveal the nature of this beverage by way of a tea analogy for those of you not familiar with historical brewing processes.

Consider a blend of fine teas is steeped to perfection at the bidding of an individual rich and powerful beyond comprehension. The result is a beverage as fulfilling and as finely nuanced as the raw ingredients are capable of producing. After this tea has been whisked away for the masters consumption, the tea leaves are steeped once again and this weakened, inferior tea is served to the delight of ordinary hardscrabble people.

This heirarchal production system describes the medieval Parti-Gyle brewing style, where the brewer mashes and re-mashes the same grain, and the runnings from the two mashes are collected in separate vessels and fermented to form two very distinct beers. A strong beer or Barleywine is typically produced from the runnings of the first mash, while the second runnings produce a relatively easy drinking and unremarkable ordinary bitter or small beer.

It is not my intention to degrade the or persecute these ordinary beers. In a pinch it is better to drink weak but otherwise pleasant tea than scuzzy, brackish water tainted by sewage. All I am saying is that it is January and any drink could be your last. Consider this friends. Prepare for each day as you'd prepare for the birth of your first child or minutes before inpatient surgery. Drink the strongest and the most complex. Drink the finest and drink lots of it.
Whether you know it or not, you deserve the libation of the so-called better man.

When that first sip of Barleywine passes your lips you will know that if ever you were going to drink tea, instead of just expressing huffy opinions about how lame tea drinking is, this is exactly the kind of tea you would be drinking.

Hopefully by now your curiosity is sufficient to send you running from your desks to pursue beers malty and true. Because I have drunk Barelywine and it has given me wisdom, I also understand that a few of you probably have some questions that you want answered before you risk your life in the cold. Principally, how does Barleywine taste?

Barleywines will typically be described as adhering to one of two stylistic profiles, English and American. If you are familiar with the differences between other types of English and American ale styles, you will recongnize a familar set of distinctions between the two. For those of you who aren't quite sure how to make this distinguishment, a comparison of the two countries native Barelwines will emphasize their inherntly different takes on the principles of ale construction.

English Barleywines often feature a complex layering of balanced and intricate malt flavors. These ales are incredibly robust and sophisticated, with hop use generally more focused on acieving balance than dominance. The sweetness of the malt is very often complimented by toasty and nutty charachter, along with a distinct fruity prescence, which reflects the yeast strain and fermentation conditions. English versions tend to be darker in appearance than their American counteparts, ranging from amber to dark brown, although the color of both styles reflect the enourmous quantities of malt used.

American Barelywines move the balance away from the malt end of the spectrum. These ales are a showcase of native hop flavors and noticable citrus-like aromas. Amarillo and Cascade are among the extremely popular American hop varieties that lend their character to these beers. Malt plays a supporting role in these ales, providing deep and complex carmelly, bready malt flavors.

Both styles may give the impression of being intoxicatingly strong, though hot, solvently alchohol aramos or flavors are considered flaws. Both styles will way in at between 8-12% ABV.

By now you are surely entranced, willing to voyage to the ends of the earth if necessary, all for the oppurtunity to raise this truly benevolent nectar to your lips. Fortunately, recent diversification of our national beer palate has begun to affect greater distribution radiuses and wider availability of Barleywines and other strong and aged beers, such a voyage will be not be necessary.

Many of you will prefer to sift through this ale's layered sophistication garbed your favorite smoking jacket, in the company of your most excellent foxhound, the two of you reclining before of a crackling hearth under the watchful eye of a taxidermy cheetah. To you I recommend taking advantage of local retailers, who are likely have a few bottles of the good stuff carefully tucked away behind six packs of those ever-so-precious Pabst Brewing products this time of year. Barelywines may be particularly sought at well-stocked specialty beer stores, supermarkets that sell single 22 oz bottles of craft beers, and at bodegas recently restyled as gourmet-type shops.

Be sure to examine prospective bottles carefully, not all Barelywines will be overtly labeled. If you want to get the booty you've got to read the treasure map.

If you'd rather explore your snifter or wine glass (traditional Bareleywine serving vessels) while ruminating about good times with old pals, a fair percentage of beer bars and brewpubs offer Barleywines and strong ales, either on draft or bottled. As in the retail sphere, a little detective work may be required; suspect taps may be labeled as Old Ales, Old Strong Ales, Old Stock Ales, or Vintage Ales. Relative to most other available beers, Barleywines are OLD! Their names almost always indicate this, they're helping you find them.

I have to emphasize that for the rare and adventurous beer drinker, consultations with bartenders and establishment proprietor are extremely worthwhile.If you are willing to ask someone who knows more about their beer selection you will drink better beer, always.

If you've made it to the end of this article you are probably considerably weaker and prone to collapse than before you began. Get out there and drink that Barleywine, nothing else can help you now. Read more...

Alcohol is Permitted at Your Campsite Only

It wasn’t exactly camping, when Mr. June and I sat by our green log fire in the Virginia woods. In fact, although the cabin we’d rented was drafty and ten feet long on any side, we’d bought a space heater from the Target in town, and fashioned ourselves an almost cozy nook. Nevertheless, the January temperatures, and frustratingly low wattage electricity left us scrambling for bits of twig and paper to fortify the damp logs we’d bought in from the campground store. With a half pint of lighter fluid we’d crafted a suitable excuse for a campfire.

On our drive down to Virginia the day before, which happened to be a Sunday, I was hit with a mild Northerner panic – just short of Philly – that we would not be able to buy beer in our destination state on such an utterly holy day. Stella was procured in Pennsylvania, and we still had a bit left over, as it was nearing unbearable temperatures for cold beverages. I was wrong about the Sabbath, of course, and not only were we able to buy intoxicants, we found wine and beer under the very same roof and that the campground store that furnished us with firewood would happily supply us with Natty Ice, Bud Light or even Miller High Life. But this was a vacation, and a celebratory one at that, so we sought a decent place to eat, and perhaps a bottle of wine that surpassed the convenience store variety. Something delicious and warming to toast the new President.

The wine store, however, was discovered by accident. On vague recommendations we’d found dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant not far from a Friendly’s and a Hooters in a dreary strip mall. The parking lot was speckled with large, dusty Suburbans and the lights on the storefront between the restaurant and the wine store advertised a
C lifo nia Tan. But the windows were clean and large, the display cases offered something that looked palatable, and I had once and for all proclaimed that it was far too cold for me to be drinking beer either out doors or nearly out doors.

The anti-beer sentiment lasted only as long as it took us to walk to the back of the well-lit space and see fridge upon fridge upon shelf of unique and tempting brews. The selection rivaled both our favorite secret bodega and the high rent craft beer salons back home in Brooklyn. Mr. June wavered through the English Ales then ran his fingers over Old Engine Oil and Belhaven’s Wee Heavy before settling on an Orkney Skull Splitter, something he’d been wanting to try but never had run into in New York. I, for my part, went directly to the Stouts, and did not pause until my hand rested on the very first bottle it happened to bump. It was a Milk Stout from the Lancaster Brewery, and because we’d just driven though Pennsylvania, I took that as a good sign. And because I still dreaded the idea of drinking cold beer on a cold night, I padded off to the Spanish reds.

The wine selection was just as overwhelming as the beer, so in a generalized state of panic I scanned the racks for a familiar grey label, though it had been ages since it had appeared, to save me from making my uneducated wine mistakes. “My wine”, which had been highlighted on the wine list of a restaurant I once worked at and, over the years, had been nothing but a spectacular hit at parties, and a luscious, deep, fruity sensation for myself. But it had been a long time since I’d actually found it in New York, and the sight of it, for a decent mid-range price, nearly startled the Milk Stout out of me.

Back at the campsite, feeling content that the eve of the inauguration would not go improperly celebrated, I snapped open the staples on the brown paper bag, and unwrapped our bottles from the tissue paper. I poured the wine into blue plastic cups, took a sip, and with disappointment discovered that it was, in a word, bland. Mr. June agreed, and suggested that we leave it to air a bit, while sampling our beers. The Milk Stout seemed to have a wide variety of spicy flavors, or it might have, but my butt was sore from the pile of fire logs, and my fingertips kept going numb from holding the bottle, then, after an incident with the lighter fluid, we returned to our beers to find they had sat too long, and, of all things, were warm. The Skull Splitter tasted like tepid hop soup, and the Milk Stout had to be put out of its misery quickly.

The wine never opened, because there were no rooms that had been heated to the level of “room temperature” to be found, so it remained cold and one dimensional, and although we finished the bottle, it was in the style of great gulps, sometimes wishing there were a nice bottle of cola handy to cut the biting alcohol. How I longed for a pint of Jack Daniels, or even Ten High, something cheap an effective. Something Joe Six-Pack would keep around for a special occasion.

The remaining Stellas offered a bit of consolation, but by that point we agreed that, in the future, all imbibing around campfires would be as cheap and local as possible. It is, after all, camping. And drinking while camping is designed to make the cold less cold (even three ice cold cans will get you there), and the bugs less bitey, and the money last longer. There is nothing un-celebratory, or, for that matter, un-American, about a bottle of Budweiser. Unfortunately the campground store closed at 7pm.





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