Today is the Day.
The High Life Bar Crawl.
To celebrate, we are unveiling our official logo (above).

If you are in Brooklyn definitely meet up.
Here is our Schedule:

5:00 Quarter Bar - 5th ave @20th St (SW corner) -
6:00: Buttermilk - 5th ave @ 16th St (SE Corner)
7:00: Royale - 5th ave @ 12th St (west side of street)
8:00: Commonwealth - 5th ave @ 12th St (SE corner)
9:00: Timboos - 5th ave @ 11th St (SE Corner)
10:00 Dram Shop - 9th st (east of 5th ave)
11:00: Jackie's 5th amendment - 5th ave @ 7th St (SW corner)
12:30am - High Dive - 5th ave @ Carroll (east side of 5th)
1:30am - Flatbush Farm - Flatbush @ St. Marks (south side of Flatbush)
2:30am - Barrette - Vanderbilt @ Bergen (NE Corner)

Here is the map.

The Bloody Larry

along the lines the of aforementioned manmosa, another drink you might want to sip with your omlette the morning after the june 13 brooklyn high life bar crawl: the bloody beer. the perfect brunch-time marriage of high life and your favorite bloody mary mix recipe. in honor of my gracious host, lfab, i call it the bloody larry.

i was first introduced to this drink while on a high life bar crawl with my friend jon along venice blvd in los angeles. wandering, mistakenly and ultimately without incident, into a crowded mexican bar one friday night, my friend and i looked around, noted the scratching off of the record and tried to figure out how to say high life en espanol. (its high life.) as jon bravely tried to find a restroom, i stayed at the bar and gulped down my beer as women in lingerie girated on laps, the owners of the laps glaring at me.

el amigo a mi izquierda pointed to my beverage. i repeated high life several times. he kept repeating, "[lost to posterity]" and pointed at his deep red pint of liquid. he picked up a bottle of tapatio hot sauce and pretended to pour it into my beer. after he did this several times (i had been bowling earlier, buckets of high life) in my stubborn mind arose a revelation. he motioned for me to try his beverage, and several strands of hepatitis be damned, i sipped the blood-red frothiness. interesting.

aside from the tecate base, i knew el jefe was on to something. i motioned for another high life, a glass and then pointed at jefe. the lovely bartender brought me a plastic jug of bloody mary mix and a bottle of tapatio. i drank the high life until the glass was 3/4s full, filled it close to the rim with mix (easy, it fizzes up pretty good) and added a few dashes of tapatio. pausing first to cheers el jefe, i took my first gulp... d-licious.

jefe bought me another high life, i insisted on buying him one, the bloody mix flowed, and... i drank the two of them down as fast as possible and got the hell out of there.

change and innovation can be scary at first, but so is getting searched and sent through a metal detector before you enter a bar. the important thing was what i had learned... not to let jon pick bars anymore, but most of all, the morning after beauty of what i call, the bloody larry...

High Life Hero #4: Frankie Miller

Frankie Miller is our kind of guy. Why? Because he's clever.

In 1973 Frankie had an idea that I can only assume was the result of drinking High Life. He thought, "Hey, my last name's Miller! That's the same name as the manufacturer of the greatest beer known to man! I need to take advantage of this on my next record..." And there you have it folks, Frankie Miller's High Life. The closest thing we've seen to an album dedicated to the Champagne of Beers.

He's so damn happy on the cover! He's probably thinking of all the other famous Millers who COULD have taken advantage of that blessing but didn't! HAHA! Suckers! It probably went something like this:
Steve Miller - screw you!
Dennis Miller* - you're not famous yet, so whatever!
Glenn Miller - damn dude, you died in a plane wreck and they never found you?? That sucks...

*Dennis Miller has also tried to take advantage of the last name with his crappy "Miller Time" segment on The O'Reilly Factor. It falls short buddy. Real short.

High Life bar crawl

It's official:

The first annual High Life bar crawl is happening. The crawl will start in south slope, moving up to Flatbush.

View HIgh Life bar crawl in a larger map

List of bars and more details to follow.

Save the date!

Manmosa

I can't believe I hadn't heard of this before, or thought of it myself, but someone (clearly a lover of the High Life) has created a variation of the Mimosa/Brass Monkey called the Manmosa, which consists of OJ, High Life & Ice. I haven't given it a shot yet, but since one of the ingredients is High Life, I don't see how you could go wrong.
In digging around I've also noticed there's a few morons out there who claim that a Manmosa contains another kind of beer, such as Blue Moon, PBR or Miller Lite. Nice one douchebag - way to miss the point:
A. What other beer could serve as a better replacement for Champagne in a cocktail than the Champagne of Beers?
B. Why would you WANT another kind of beer?
C. What is your problem?

I can't imagine a better time to enjoy one of these than the morning following the 2009 Miller High Life pub crawl. Details to follow shortly...

High Life Hero #3: Bobby Allison

Okay, so we'll admit we don't often sit around and watch NASCAR in our spare time, but that doesn't mean we don't respect the men who drive those tin cans at over 200 mph, trusting their lives not only to their own skill, but to the other drivers on the course, and a bunch of grease-monkeys whose only goal is to make them move faster.



And the guy we admire the most is Bobby Allison. #12 was the engine that ran on High Life, and, not surprisingly, was pretty successful at that. 3rd on the all-time wins list, Allison won the Daytona 500 - NASCAR's premier event - four times, and won the season championship in 1983.

While we don't condone drinking High Life ever when driving, we do condone it all times when driving is not necessary. So does Mr. Allison. Cheers to him.

Things you probably shouldn't say

While this wasn't specifically for High Life, I came across this old Miller ad, and thought it was worth the post. Seems they've consistently tried to appeal to the customer who takes their beer seriously, but themselves not so much.

My Future House...

Found this image in an this old NY Times article about one of Miller's previous ad campaigns. Can't say I remember this series of ads, but I can say what a pretty picture this is. Caption says this is at "a state fair" though does not specify which state. I bet it wasn't Missouri. Stupid Budweiser.

High Life Hero #2: Brook Stevens

While you may not know who Brook Stevens was, you definitely know his work. And if you love High Life even a fraction of the level that we do, then you have experienced his work intimately. Mr. Stevens was a designer responsible for many products, vehicles and graphic branding messages.

What is the cause our fawning over this dapper looking fellow? Let us count the ways. For starters Stevens is the mastermind behind the Miller Brewing Logo.



If that was not enough, in 1953 his High Life Cruiser hit the road. Brilliance.



Another piece of work you are surely familiar with is his design for Oscar Meyer's Wiener-mobile. And who doesn't love a hot dog with a High Life?



Though Brook Stevens left this world for High Life Heaven in 1995, the company he founded continues today, so who knows what could be next. Check out the company's web site here.

In Search of the Truth

Sad days are when we start feeling like maybe Miller doesn't completely even understand the High Life. Months ago Jim used an online form requesting promotional High Life material from Miller. They responded with giveaways for other Miller brands, but stated that there was not any of the sort for High Life.

Now I find this in my quest for all things High Life. Willing to consider that this might have been a recent development.

We love you Miller, please send us one. If you send us two, we'll give one away at an upcoming event.