Drinking beer on all fours
On Saturday, downtown Reno will become immersed in the fourth installment of the monthly Reno Beer Crawl. From 2 to 6 p.m., prior to the start of the University of Nevada, Reno vs. University of Nevada, Las Vegas football game, 18 local taverns will open their doors to patrons interested in specialty beer tasting.
Photo by Lauren Randolph
For $5, three central points of the crawl will have glasses, maps, and raffle tickets available for purchase. Those three points are Amendment 21 Grill and Sports Bar, The Foxy Olive and The Waterfall. The raffle is set to take place at 6:15 p.m. with a grand prize of a booklet featuring $25 gift certificates to each of the 18 participating bars up for grabs, along with other prizes.
Every bar on the crawl selects a specific type of beer to distribute during the event. At each stop, six ounces (or the equivalent of half a can) of the specified beer are sold for one dollar.
So far, the beer crawl has been fulfilling its purpose of bringing more customers to downtown bars during the normally slow times of day.
“A lot of people who had never been here before loved our bar and made it their home afterwards,” said Nate Lance, Amendment 21 owner and beer crawl organizer. “Everyone has followed the rules and all of the participants have been really respectful. We started out with a couple hundred people and now we’re up to around 600 to 700 people. The crowds have been awesome.”
The Waterfall will offer its low, beer-crawl-friendly prices on all of its 22 beers on tap until 9 p.m. But before that, at 7 p.m., Amendment 21 plans to continue the festivities by showing the football game both inside and outside.
“We’re going to have a parking lot party to create a more lively atmosphere outside for the game,” Lance said. “We’re going to project the game on the wall outside.”
This will be the first beer crawl to take place during the school year, and the bar owners anticipate many more college-aged participants.
“We usually do good business for college games,” Lance said. “This is the first beer crawl since school has been back. Once they figure out the event, I think it will be ideal for students. It’s definitely the kind of event that college students would enjoy.”
Proceeds from the beer crawl benefit one local non-profit organization each month. This month’s featured group is the UNR Marching Band, which is fighting to remain active after budget cuts.
“We try to choose non-profit organizations that don’t have a lot of exposure,” Lance said. “We look for organizations that might have a little harder time reaching people in order to raise funds, and something that’s a little different from your standard non-profit.”
Free parking for cars and bicycles is provided at various locations, including the five-story parking garage of Amendment 21, the new Washoe County parking lot on Court and Virginia streets, and the City of Reno parking lot on Second and Virginia streets. A free shuttle will also circulate along the path of the crawl.
The crawl is to be held on the fourth Saturday of every month.
“We were looking for something that would generate business on the weekends,” Lance said. “The time of the beer crawl works out really well. Those are generally our slow times.”
Downtown bars are looking forward to the next installment of the beer crawl and encourage all beer lovers and social drinkers older than 21 to join in the crawl.
“Anyone that’s not going to Vegas should come here,” Lance said. “We’re going to have a great atmosphere.”
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on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 am and is filed under Arts & Entertainment, InsideReno.
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