De Tijger van Bengalen Has Returned from Exile!

I have returned from the shortest exile in the history of recorded civilization. I will hunt down the traitors who hijacked my good (name?) and they will be severely punished. You shall not call me by my old name or I will be forced to laugh hysterically at my new one. I will slowly begin to return this blog back to it's rightful place among the bottom feeders of the blogging world. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN!

Batten down the hatches, the kids are back in town and getting ready to hit the Northside for tex-mex night. Watch us cause a commotion by ordering beers we were drinking on a daily basis.

Deck's Open, Dan's Almost Back

Well, ok folks it's time i fessed up.

Dan Bengel is not and has not been in Belgium for, like, two weeks. Yes he'll be back around tomorrow at some point. Sure he'll get on here and make some post:

"Hey everybody, hope you enjoyed Pimp My Blog. Belgium was great, i did this and that and boy did we drink some beer." You'll believe it, you'll think this post you're reading right now was all some kind of weird joke or something. He'll go on and on and on and post up all these pictures from Belgium in some Ortino's related and linked to blogspace, but i am telling you it's all untrue. Dan's not even 50, he's 51.

See the whole twisted thing got started around this time last year. Festival season was slowly creeping in, Ortino's was planning some majorly cool events, there was a lot of excitement and a lot of Quality Control sessions and Dan actually missed his 50th birthday. Just slipped everybody's minds, ya know?

Little did Big Dan know this would be the most fortunate lapse of reason and memory that he'd ever have. After being charmed time and time again by his posts and announcements, a few companies in the brewing industry really started taking a good hard look at Dan. One of which happened to be the Miller Brewing Company. They scouted Dan for the latter months of 2007 and sometime around February approached him with an offer he couldn't refuse.

I shouldn't even be telling you this, but it's something you should all know. Things are going to be a lot different when Dan starts poking his head around the bar again this weekend.

Dan, having already been 50 when the scouts started looking at him last year, fell just under the umbrella of Miller's Elderly Outreach - Beers For Peers program. He's a suit and tie guy now who will be travelling the country trying to get Miller tap handles in retirement communities from West Palm Beach to Walla Walla. If you look even close to retirement age, he's gonna pitch you the latest in Miller's "Community Reserve" line. With his keen eye on the finer beers of life, which are sure to appeal to the elderly who are seemingly immune to Miller's normal ad campaigns (they did a study), Big Dan is the ultimate sales threat for his new employer. He relates to the product and to the audience. He gets the big picture.

He's even been taking part in brand strategy meetings with Miller online and via telephone for months. He's rumored to have had a hand in several of their exclusive brands, including:

Cuvee De Puree
Alzheimer's Ale
Slow Driver Stout
Hearing Aid Hefe
Biere De Farte

He is also apparently going to have his own line of Old Ales coming out once he's established himself in the marketplace. His face will be on each can and bottle so that the people in the old folks homes remember him when he visits.

So how do you make twenty some people disappear, think they've been in Belgium, and come back with plenty of stories to tell? One word: Drugs.

This is a disturbing development, i know, just keep an eye on the guy when he starts showing up in your favorite bars.

Dr. Joel, over & out.

Saturday Night's Alright For...

Well I was going to post something fun and witty but since I am neither, I will post some exciting news about Saturday. In all reality Sarah was not working today so all your secrets are safe.

Here is what is planned for Saturday:

Liquid Fringe will rock open the deck There will be a BBQ menu that will have everything you can think of for one low price. And then there is the beer. Beer reps and such will be pouring Malheur Brut, Allagash White, Abita Purple Haze, and a few Magic Hat beers. There will also be beers from the above mention breweries on-tap as well. Oh, I almost forgot there will be a firkin of Weyerbacher Muse being poured via gravity.

Also Check out the updated beer list. You will see there is a beer on the Nitro and hand pumps.

"TTFN"
CaskAleKev

TALL UNGAINLY AMERICAN TOURIST TRIPS OVER PIERRE CELIS IN BELGIUM

BRUGES-An unidentified American tourist, reportedly seen all over Brussels in recent days consuming beers at a prodigious rate, last night stumbled over Belgian icon Pierre Celis in a cafe and fell to the floor. While Celis was unhurt and shrugged off the incident other patrons were outraged and seized the hapless man and his female companion, who had seemed unusually irate all evening, and turned them over to authorities. Several bystanders claimed that the American had actually been trying to jump over Celis as part of a bet with his boisterous tablemates, leading him to screan "Dat enkel gekke bespreking!" as he was hauled away.

The affair quickly escalated into an international incident and an emergency session of the United Nations has been called in New York for tomorrow. Belgian officials, which now consider the pair "persons of interest," assigned them code names (De Tijger van Bengalen and Pookie de Hand) and released them to the U.S. Embassy, which acknowledged that "we take this matter very seriously and apologize to our good allies. Belgium has never declared war on another country to our knowledge, and we'd like to keep it that way because, to be honest, their available fighting forces would probably outnumber ours at this point."

Back in the U.S., the White House, which spent most of the day explaining that President Bush misspoke when he originally asked "What's a Belgium?" after being told of the incident, later said that the president had wandered off somewhere but left behind a one-sentence official comment: "Heck of a job, Danny."

Presidential candidates of both parties quickly weighed in as well. Sen. John McCain told a crowd that "Americans are big and awkward and create havoc wherever we go and we will do so for 100 years if necessary. That wouldn't bother me." Sen. Hillary Clinton said that Belgium "sounds like an ideal place for Bill to campaign for the rest of the year," then added "I wouldn't mind having a shot and a beer there myself." Sen. Barack Obama offered to send pastor Jeremiah Wright to accompany the former president overseas but explained that "if he's ever said anything about Belgium in any of his sermons, I never heard a word of it. No, really." And, in a show of bipartisanship, Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich released a joint White Paper entitled "Small Is Beautiful: Don't Tread on Us."

In other news, the Patio Opening Party at Northside is still on for Sunday, May 10. In an interview with local cable access personality Linda Ortino, a bartender who asked to be identified only as Sarah said that "I'm looking forward to it and hope it gets a little bit crazy. It's been awfully dull around here since our annoying Thursday night regulars apparently ran away somewhere together...not that there's anything wrong with that."

Speaking truth to power, Uncle Jack signing out.