It's becoming a usual trip for me, visiting the bars as they are closing from Parade Day in Scranton, to pick up my husband from a late night bar tending shift and visit our bar owner friends. Somewhere between midnight and 2am there is a strange comradeship amongst the bartenders, servers and all the late night restaurant crowd. It seems to defy all daylight and exists in the same way as hanging out with your brother or sister, natural and unplanned, punch drunk and lamenting. Amongst the stagnant water and old cigarette smell of downtown Scranton, the few remnants of the day are swept aside, the streets are cleaned, the bars are mopped, and somewhere around 3 am the traces of disinfectant, dirt, and party trash co-mingle.
I can't tell if it's my disdain for Miller Lite pounder cans, or just the virtue of getting older, but this 29 yr old isn't too thrilled about going out early Parade Day to drink. It kind of kills me to pay a crazy cover and only be offered and array of yellow beer in plastic cups. Call me when we start planning the craft beer festival for 9am in Scranton, I will be there with bells on.
The more I thought about the parade the more I thought, 'What if the bars all had floats in the parade?' What would they look like? All this questioning brought me to seriously wonder about the state of our choices in Scranton when it comes to beer, because most bars may choose to advertise the cheapest beer they have available rather than the craft brews. Can you imagine every bar competing for the most obscure brew? Or dare I suggest their own crafted beers?
Next Parade Day I will be hosting my own tasting, a drinking for adults party, complete with early morning drinking, music and a real glass. In the mean time, I will be secretly hopeful that a real craft beer festival- one without all the distribution reps- would plant itself in downtown Scranton. So that the new budding regional brews would have a proper showcase with college student attendance. Perhaps in time by bar tender/ brewer friends and I will organize a festival , but so help me, if I see one more plastic cup........
I wish there was a like button because I like this alot. Parade Day in Scranton has gone the way of other mass holidays - its all about the money. And yes - a craft brew fest in Scranton would be awesome - I think 'Angel' you have your next assignment.
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