No More High Life

[DrumsGoBang]

I just heard from a relable source that the Tombs has stopped serving the Miller High Life or as it is sometimes called the Champaign of Beers. Like the scene straight out of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing". You can't take away a man's beer. Its not right people. Now, I only know of a few bars in DC with the High Life. Soon I will have to start drinking some foofoo beer from some country I never heard of like Germany or Canada.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Or Busch Light, which is generally readily available at any Burleith keg party. The passing of the high life, like the passing of GU hoop hopes, is a low down dirty shame.

[Gold Hoya]

My sources also tell me this is true.

Young Hoyas, I too mourn the passing of the High Life, as I undoubtedly drank more of it at the Tombs in my senior year than I drank water throughout campus. I too will miss the unique clumpiness of the High Life "foam" on top of the pitchers, and I am upset that current Hoyas won't get to see how that foam looks when the Tombs dyes its beer green for St. Patrick's Day.

However, High Life is a relatively new phenomenon at the Tombs - I'm pretty sure it made its first appearance in 1999. (I remember receiving an email about it while I was in Australia for Study Abroad).

Prior to this change, the Cheap Beer of Choice (TM) at the Tombs was Busch Heavy. So really, this latest change is just the inevitable completion of the circle, with the Tombs returning to its roots in a new, Atkins-crazy world.

(Or maybe they just got a better deal from Anheiser-Busch, allowing them to keep beer prices down! One can never dispute the value of lower beer prices.)

[DFW HOYA]

Busch? It used to be Stroh's.

[thebin]

there was also a period of Keystone Light in the mid 90s.

[showcase]

I always followed a friends lead as asked for "two pitchers of your cheapest." Needless to say, by '95, that "cheapest" was cheap in quality only.

[Gold Hoya]

I guess this proves how hard they're working to keep the (now) $7 pitchers at $7?

I get so jealous of friends who talk about dollar pitchers or quarter pints -- until I remember that they had to deal with 4 years at a state school to experience that ;D

[thebin]

appreciate what you have. FOr the many of you who will move to NYC after graduation, you will quickly learn to dream about the 6.95 pitcher and it will quickly strike you as a helll of a deal for a bar as nice as the Tombs.

[Gold Hoya]

thebin said:

appreciate what you have. FOr the many of you who will move to NYC after graduation, you will quickly learn to dream about the 6.95 pitcher and it will quickly strike you as a helll of a deal for a bar as nice as the Tombs.

Good point bin. I love visiting my friends in NYC, but I soon get sick of $6.95 bottles of Amstel Light. On top of the insane cost, I don't think the beer tastes good, either. Lately I've told them, can we go to dives, please?

This is one of the good points about living in Arlington.

[thebin]

Even dives will run you 4 bucks a bud if not 5. And I agree, Amstel is just awful- as is Heineken IMO. I think Bud is infinelty better than both, despite its lack of Dutch pedigree.

[DrumsGoBang]

I'm still trying to find a bar that will serve me a plum floating in purfume in a mens hat for a resonable price.

[Jack]

The Tombs is going to hell, and it has nothing to do with High Life, which has thankfully been replaced, although the replacement should have been Busch Heavy, not Busch Light. This is coming from a man who may have consumed more High Life at the Tombs than anyone in the history of the establishment, even though I renounced High Life after graduating in 2000. Chunky foam-topped malt liquor is not an acceptable beverage, particularly when the King of Beers is only $3 more per pitcher.

However, the real problem at Tombs is the almost total turnover in the bar staff that will be complete by the end of this month. 4 years of good will I have built up there, and it will all be destroyed. My friends have long resisted going back to the Tombs, but as the closest bar to my home and my office, I still made the occasional trip to see old friends behind the bar. With RJ's abrupt dismissal and other impending departures, I have no reason to go back there except for pure nostalgia now.

The other problem for Tombs is the changing culture of Georgetown students. I am not one who blames the students as geeks and nerds, I simply see a completely different world from my time there not long ago at all. DC's crack down on underage drinking has had a dramatic effect on life for most undergrads. Whereas I was weaned on freshman bars like the Cross and graduated to Chadwicks before spending a junior year abroad in Irish pubs and a senior year at Tombs, today's youth are much less likely to risk life and limb for the pleasure of paying for their beer, and when they do become of age they are more likely to flock to seek out the more party-like atmosphere of Rhino's, or even explore the reaches of Adams Morgan.

All of this is more than a little disheartening for a man with his name on two plaques at the Tombs, a man who spent 98% of his eveninings senior year at the Tombs, a man whose roommate invented 80's night at the Tombs, a man who has consumed more free alcohol at the Tombs than most people have paid for in their lifetime. Too think my brother, a junior, turns 21 in a month, and already the life I remember just 5 years ago is gone. I am starting to feel like some kind of 80's graduate/relic lamenting the long-lost pub and the disappearance of kegs on the quad during orientation. Bring back the pub! Bring back block party! Bring back RJ!

[showcase]

"Rhino's"?! It's Winston's, my young man, Winston's. That is what it was, and that is what it always shall be. You young whipper-snappers and your crazy ways...

I suppose you'll deny ever hearing tell of The Library, too, or Hennessey's. What is this university coming to? Nurse! Bring me my Geratol!

[tgo]

Hennesseys and their all you can drink Tuesdays, so many memories, or at least parts of memories.

RJ still works at the Tombs? RJ from Massachusetts? I dont believe it, tell me he left because he finally got a real job, is he still showing up at village A parties?

tell me it is a different RJ from the one who worked there with me in 1996.

[Jack]

It is probably the same RJ (actually from SoCal, but a BC grad and Boston sports fan), and I don't think he has any interest in a real job. He left for a few years, but he had been back behind the bar since about 2001. He left for unspecified reasons not necessarily of his own choosing. Management at Tombs does not seem to value good rapport with customers for their bartenders.