The outdoor drinking season is underway

[old crow]

I got like 15 more degrees till outdoor season starts. Black label has been the beer of late.

3 bonus cans!

[Messenger]

It took a while to arrive in anything other than sporadic and brief moments, but for a good week now, and hopefully for the next few months, the outdoor drinking has been going full swing.

Usually not in bars, as most outdoor places around here (and there's precious few) tend to be filled with douchebags with no sense of proper bar etiquitte. Mostly myself, and my usual crowd, tend to sit in the Square, in the middle of downtown. Since drinking in public is theoretically illegal, I'll refrain from mentioning which square, but will say it's the one with the statue of Robert Burns. The police seem to have accepted that as long as there's no trouble and no mess, they're willing to leave us alone.

Generally, the first beer is purchased around the time people start getting done with work, about 5PM, and is generally Schlitz from the Yellow Store in Chinatown. 12-packs (usually called "lumps", which I think is a term exclusive to bike messengers) of Schlitz cost about $8, and whoever picks it up sells them for $1 apiece, leading to (if it's me) a $2 profit and two free beers per lump. If people haven't moved to the bar by 8PM, when the Yellow Store closes, we'll often switch to 15-packs of Black Label from some liquor store in the other direction.

Other than the beer, there's always weed floating around for those interested, and usually a circle of people playing hackey sack. It's a good game, as it leaves your hands free for beer. The parking garage across the street has a bathroom that's available, and there's the free entertainment of the random bums and freaks passing through, as well as the cars that get confused by several one way streets intersecting, and one small stretch of two-way street that the city never bothered to put a yellow line down the middle of. There's an ancient Chinese woman that comes through periodically to collect all the cans for their redemption value.

So that's what I've got to look forward to all summer long. Well, that and anywhere else I might choose to drink. If you don't hear much from me, well, that's probably because I go straight from work to the Square to the bar fairly often, and I'm not one of those people with internet access at work (for some strange reason).

Oh, wow. This was a while ago. $8 12-packs? Damn, I wish that was still the case. And for whatever reason, Schlitz has been supplanted by PBR in the hearts of local distributors. The police still leave us alone. The ancient Chinese woman that collects the empties actually looked much better the one time she stopped by this summer, but there's other people taking care of that business these days. Oh, and they have smartphones now, so I do have internet access at work.

But, yeah, not much else has changed.

[TheBigCasino]

welcome back!

[coqui_chris]

This is still one of my favorite threads of all-time

[Aloysius_of_Tahiti]

I live in balmy Florida, so it's a scant two months before I can turn off the fans and open the windows and sleep the sleep of a cool drunkard.

[Jiggers McCoy]

Florida man myself. The hell of it is, in the summer, it's too damn hot to drink outside, unless you're at the beach. So our patio drinking season is probably Sept - April.

[Wingman]

welcome to savannah: wear less, and drink more!

[coqui_chris]

In regards to all that Rolling Stone Magazine controversy, lets bump this thread!

Good times, good people, and life goes on in Boston! God Bless and stay safe everyone everywhere!

[Mr. Viking]

In northern Ireland the laws about drinking in the street are odd, there's something about having to be a sign, but you don't have to actually see it. it is fine to drink outside town boundaries, which due to the unique way our country runs, are sometimes still in the towns. i usually just have a few beers or nips from a flask out and about, unless I can get a lift and go and get drunk in a field which is always a good idea

[Surreal]

Summer Drinking. Beer Tents. Random summer festivals with tremendous drunkard food. Gibby's fries anyone? The Big Gulp 50/50 providing proper camo from the disapproving sort as you window shop downtown. The first ice cold beer after mowing your lawn - there is something about the smell of fresh cut grass and a cold beer. Inner tube/kayak/canoe float down the local river with a cooler of cold ones. Watching the sun come up while the moisture rolls down the side of your can of beer. Seats along the first base line of your local baseball farm team with a brat in one hand and a budweiser in the other. Lawn seats at your local outdoor music venue and some group you loved from the 80's or 90's is coming through at $15 a ticket - blanket, cooler and camping chairs. Bonfires and acoustic guitars. Sitting on the dock or bank of a pond, drowning a worm under a bobber while you sip a cold one. Taking a walk under one of the bridges downtown and sharing a 6-pack with some of the folks that call that section of downtown home.

Summer drinking indeed.

[Just Given'R]

A huge part of summer up here in Canada is outdoor boozing......fishing trips, on the deck, boating, driving with the sunroof open is considered outdoors I think......any type of sporting event (as a spectator or participant)....the list goes on. We pound em pretty hard up here cuz the last snow is gone in late May and first frost is usually September. Fuck em!

[ltwhiskas]

A huge part of summer up here in Canada is outdoor boozing......fishing trips, on the deck, boating, driving with the sunroof open is considered outdoors I think......any type of sporting event (as a spectator or participant)....the list goes on. We pound em pretty hard up here cuz the last snow is gone in late May and first frost is usually September. Fuck em!

Yeah and the damn mosquitos occupy the time in between. Beautiful country though, just bring the deet and nets at evening time.

[Resident Asshole]

Finally got my in-ground pool going and my backyard somewhat reasonably landscaped. In addition, got a firepit put together and much firewood. So, there has been a lot of outdoor drinking even just at my house this season. Sadly that it coming to a close soon and I will be covering the pool for the season.

[hereforthebeer]

well I really like reading this thread, lots of good scenes set.

I like the idea of drinking out and about, but tend to do it on the move (a couple of desparado's on way to the bar). Once I had a bottle of wine on train before bar, but that got a bit messy.

Only time I've ever drank in company outside, was with a guy that Is recovering alcoholic but always drinking (I use the term only because it's a term he's used himself before) - I don't really believe in the AA terminology , he's a local round here and is often out in the streets drinking. I was coming home from a night out, and had managed to enjoy my night and come home without going waaaay over board... but... I brought a bottle of scotch to take home with me, I got off bus 12 minutes from my house and who is there...

this guy, in a shop doorway its about 10pm, he's had a Cpl - and is like heeeey man, anyway one bad idea later and we're drinking from the bottle of scotch I had for my house... a few plastic cups from the chicken shop and it's going swimmingly.... friend of this guy turns up who is dry at the moment... he ends up drinking some... rest is a blur...

but about 5 minutes from my house I fell flat on my face smashed my nose, and did tendons in my knee up, couldn't walk for 4 days...

I don't by bottles of scotch on the way home from a drinking session anymore....

[Mr. Viking]

you should. Drunken injuries are all part of the fun, and bottles of scotch are always better than no bottles of scotch