Beer and Blog Las Vegas

Greenland icecap different from gin & tonic by Adrian Midgley

Join @LibationBlog on Tuesday, December 14th (that’s next week, kids!) downtown at Vanguard Lounge (map). They’ll be showcasing Bols Genever and Damrak Gin, and there’s four — yes, FOUR — featured drinks. Taste one of each: Deconstructed Aviation, Free Booter, Little Head Butt, and a new drink to be announced that night. The festivities start at 8 p.m. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP either on Twtvite or on Facebook.

The Libation Blog event scheduled for tonight, Thursday 10/20, has been cancelled. However, Sean has arranged another event! The new date will be November 4th at Red Rock Casino on the patio of T-Bones. In addition to the free appetizers, everyone who signs up for this event either on Twtvite or Facebook will get a free full sized version of the demo drink. Sorry, signing up on both doesn’t get you twice the drinks! Please spread the word.

Hey, Vegas Beer & Bloggers. Mark your calendars! It’s been a while, but Libation Blog will be taping at Hachi in Red Rock on October 21st at 7 p.m. Join Sean as he mixes two drinks and the bartenders mix another three drinks. There will be free drinks and free appetizers. Come thirsty and prepared to possibly be on camera as the drink recipes will be filmed. Hope to see you there!

Rally wrote a great piece on the state of B&B Vegas, so I won’t rehash it. Simply put, Thursdays are busy days and quite often overlap with other tweetups and LVIMA (like this Thursday). We want to see the group grow and thrive again, and need your help to keep it going. Please take this survey to help get Beer & Blog Vegas back on track. And if you’re interested in volunteering to help out the elder drunks with planning and venue coordination, please make sure you leave your email in question #8. Thanks, and hope to see you at our next meeting.

Also, there’s a Stone Beer Dinner happening at Whole Foods on Las Vegas Blvd on Thursday, June 10th.  Cost is $30 per person, and the apparently have some tasty brews and bites. More information can be found here or you can RSVP with Sara in Marketing at sara.taylor@wholefoods.com.

Time to address something that’s occurred the past two weeks:

Please take responsibility for what you order.

Sometimes the server brings us a single check for the entire group because they have to. Like at the Hofbräuhaus. Like at the Gordon Biersch Maibock tapping. The servers at places like this sometimes cannot split our checks (hey, it happens). And besides, servers generally groan when they hear separate checks (you should really check out Waiting In Vegas and her FAQ). It’s not cool to stick the last few people ponying up the extra cash for your beer and food imbibing. We all know it will never work out perfectly: Under $5 is generally not a big deal, but when it gets to be $40-$50 two weeks in a row, we have a problem.

Please take responsibility for what you order.

If you need to leave early, speak with the server and see if you can close out your section of the bill. If not, please leave enough cash to cover you tab AND a tip. We are a large group and often 18% gratuity is automatically added to the bill. Besides, the server generally works hard to keep beers filled and food coming out at the proper temperatures.

We want to keep going to nice places with great brews, but without respecting your fellow Beer & Bloggers the group will slowly disappear. None of us are independently wealthy, and many people work hard for their pay (especially the freelancers and entrepreneurs). Please help us because we don’t want Beer & Blog Las Vegas to have the reputation as stiffing the server.

To sum up:

1. Be respectful of fellow beer & bloggers and bartender/server.
2. Be responsible for your order.
3. Pay your bill in full.
4. Tip the server generously.
5. Read Waiting In Vegas for a server’s insights.

Your elder drunks thank you for your cooperation on fixing this problem.

Happy Birthday Amanda! by Cayusa

Yep. It’s true! Beer & Blog Las Vegas is a year old this week.  We’ve come a long way in a year, from planning in 4 days to a number of different venues.  To celebrate, we’ll be making the pilgrimage to our first home, Freakin’ Frog on Maryland Parkway, across from UNLV.  Official  day is Thursday 1/14 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., but there are always people there starting around 5.  Feel free to enjoy one of the many beers and the wifi. And we’ll also need to raise a pint for the 2 year anniversary of the Beer & Blog organization.

Here’s to the start of another great year!

We're special!

No, there won’t be  large yellow bus that has ‘Special’ written on it, but next week’s edition of Beer & Blog will be held at Dick’s Last Resort in Excalibur.  With any luck, the weather will be cooler and we’ll be rockin’ the patio.

This change is only for September 24th.  We will be sure to let you know if we do a permanent change of venues via Twitter and FaceBook and the likes.  Besides, we need to find a place that can tell the difference between Stella and Stout.  Anyone have any suggestions that have a decent beer selection and strong WiFi?

Whuffaoke kicks off in San Francisco

For everyone who wasn’t at Beer & Blog tonight, Whuffaoke’s stop #3 is Vegas, baby! The main event is Friday at Town Square from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.  The Winnebago will be parked somewhere around the Yardhouse.  Bring your requests and a sense of humor.  Stop by and say hello to the Whuffaoke team: Tara, Tony, Alex, Emma, Karen, and Ridley the Tweeting pug. Special thanks to Liza for running ground support for Whuffaoke!  Also, if you’re looking for some new threads, why not sport them Whuffaoke style? Get them through SpreadShirt.

And send good thoughts to the team… the Winnie had a rough go of desert traveling from San Francisco to LA today.  They made it, but will need lots of “I think I can!” thoughts to get over the mountains and into Vegas.

(Photo by Rod Begbie and used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

On July 17th & 18th, Tara @missrogue Hunt is bringing her Winnebago to Vegas for some karaoke fun.  Think Cash Cab except in an RV with singing… bound to be a ton of fun!  You can check out the Whuffaoke web page for more details, follow them on Twitter @whuffaoke, or check out the Facebook page for more information and events.    The official hashtag for the event is #WhuffaokeLAS.  I’ll post updates as the events unfold!

It’s June and another month week WordCamp beer festival has passed.  For those of you who didn’t go to Lee’s Beer experience, we’ll be gathering at Bar Louie to raise a pint and hear about the awesome (and horrible) beers from the lucky attendees.  And if we’re lucky we’ll also hear all about WordCamp San Francisco from @VegasGeek and @ToddHuish. Summer is here, and many people will be taking vacation.  If you’re traveling, take a look at the links to some of the other Beer & Blog chapters and pay them a visit.  Even though summer numbers tend to dwindle, we still had 4-5 new people stop in to say hello last week. 

Also coming up this week is the Monster Vegas Tweetup organized by @unmarketing.  It takes place on Saturday from 7-9 at Diablo’s in the Monte Carlo.  Make sure to follow @unmarketing to find out the events of the night.

See ya Thursday!