Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Can a good, dark beer be the light at the end...
What does it really mean, the luck of the Irish? As yourself that question after you’ve spent days in Las Vegas, searching for the ever-creamy, meal of an Irish dark beer. What it means is long after you’ve abandoned the strip for the one Irish bar you can find, you may just find yourself a winner.
Now, I’m not knocking making eyes at a keyboard player over a bottle of Beck’s Dark. I’m not knocking the faux-flirting with a guy who probably has a long-standing relationship with the too-choreographed guitar player and his decidedly gay vibe. And after a few, I even convinced myself that our waitress’ breasts were real. Thankfully, no amount of alcohol, short of absynth, could make me believe the woman practicing her pole twirling shimmy in the Bellagio showroom, had been a natural recipient of the uneven orbs on her chest.
I’m not even discounting Newcastle Brown Ale’s syrupy ability to pass hours as you wait for a traffic-ridden dinner date at a casino bar. Newcastle Brown Ale helped me choke down a horrendous bean burrito and some awkward conversations with a fifty-something bartender rotating between fatherly caretaker and lecherous propositioner. Dark beer, unlike any other mixture of barley and hops, can make an unbearable exchange just a little better.
Whether the a biting hop-y flavor distracting your mind and tastebuds away from yet another swing dancer in the hotel lounge’s advances or a complex, nutty flavor making you remember great summers of the past and helping you get through the inane conversation of your present. Dark beer gives the East Coast-Midwestern transplant an opportunity to stand out, on the peripheral.
But with each failed attempt to find Guinness, I grew less and less optimistic. What does Las Vegas have against the creamiest of darks? Save your meals for the buffets, they say! Too many vitamins in there, you won’t find Centrum in this city either! Ha! With each empty dark, my outlook grew darker. Dark enough, you might ask, to be considered Guinness? Perhaps.
Finally, after swearing off the strip, I climbed over a sea of over- and under-weight gamblers with sad eyes and bad toupees to find the promised land—an Irish pub! Surely, they would have some Guinness here! Relax, they did. Guinness that flowed free, provided you gambled as you drank. I put in my five dollar bill and plunked away at my video poker screen. As I prepared to say goodbye to my last seventy-five cents, I hit the big time! Royal Flush! Wooohooo! Big money, no whammies! Only when I finally had that smooth, euphoric Guinness in hand could I turn $5 into $188. The moral of the story is that the reason the house always wins is because they keep the luck of the Irish out of your hands.
Now, I’m not knocking making eyes at a keyboard player over a bottle of Beck’s Dark. I’m not knocking the faux-flirting with a guy who probably has a long-standing relationship with the too-choreographed guitar player and his decidedly gay vibe. And after a few, I even convinced myself that our waitress’ breasts were real. Thankfully, no amount of alcohol, short of absynth, could make me believe the woman practicing her pole twirling shimmy in the Bellagio showroom, had been a natural recipient of the uneven orbs on her chest.
I’m not even discounting Newcastle Brown Ale’s syrupy ability to pass hours as you wait for a traffic-ridden dinner date at a casino bar. Newcastle Brown Ale helped me choke down a horrendous bean burrito and some awkward conversations with a fifty-something bartender rotating between fatherly caretaker and lecherous propositioner. Dark beer, unlike any other mixture of barley and hops, can make an unbearable exchange just a little better.
Whether the a biting hop-y flavor distracting your mind and tastebuds away from yet another swing dancer in the hotel lounge’s advances or a complex, nutty flavor making you remember great summers of the past and helping you get through the inane conversation of your present. Dark beer gives the East Coast-Midwestern transplant an opportunity to stand out, on the peripheral.
But with each failed attempt to find Guinness, I grew less and less optimistic. What does Las Vegas have against the creamiest of darks? Save your meals for the buffets, they say! Too many vitamins in there, you won’t find Centrum in this city either! Ha! With each empty dark, my outlook grew darker. Dark enough, you might ask, to be considered Guinness? Perhaps.
Finally, after swearing off the strip, I climbed over a sea of over- and under-weight gamblers with sad eyes and bad toupees to find the promised land—an Irish pub! Surely, they would have some Guinness here! Relax, they did. Guinness that flowed free, provided you gambled as you drank. I put in my five dollar bill and plunked away at my video poker screen. As I prepared to say goodbye to my last seventy-five cents, I hit the big time! Royal Flush! Wooohooo! Big money, no whammies! Only when I finally had that smooth, euphoric Guinness in hand could I turn $5 into $188. The moral of the story is that the reason the house always wins is because they keep the luck of the Irish out of your hands.
