Yes, the Super Bowl is an excuse to drink lots of beer.  But there’s no excuse for drinking bad, watered-down crap beer.  All you can drink specials are enticing, we know, but don’t fall for the ones that include only Coors Light or Bud Light.  We’re heading to Rattle ’N’ Hum bar (14 E. 33rd St) with a big group of friends where the deal is $40 for all you can drink – draft and cask beer and liquor – whistle-to-whistle plus free wings at halftime.  We’re pullin’ for the Saints all the way!  We’re hopin’ there will be some of N’awlins finest Abita beer on-hand.  Here some other spots where you can watch the Super Bowl and drink quality beer…

Hop Devil Grill (129 St. Mark’s Place) — HDG’s Super Tailgate party starts at 4pm w/ all the chicken wings you can eat, and unlimited craft draft beers for only $50 per person! 

Standings Bar (43 E. 7th St.) — In true Standings Bar fashion, they will have tons of free pizza throughout the game!  Plus we hear there will be some Abita beers on tap for Saints fans. 

The Stag’s Head (252 E. 51st St.) — $2 Checker Cab Blonde Ale Mugs, $4 PBR Tall Boys and 1/2 Price Wings

Brazen Head (228 Atlantic Ave.) — They’re having a Cask Ale Festival all weekend and come Super Bowl, all of the remaining Cask Beer will be $1 off.  Plus there will be complimentary chili (Traditional & Vegetarian), as well as Super Bowl Pool with Prizes & Happy Hour.

Manchester Pub (920 2nd Ave) — Happy Hour prices throughout the game + 40 cent wings.

Van Diemens (383 3rd Ave) — We hear they have a new craft beer loft.  Superbowl Party $12 select pitchers, $5 mixed drinks and shots througout the game. Tailgate party $25 all you can drink, Any 3 hours between 1 and 5pm.

East Village Tavern (158 Ave C) — 25 cent wings and $2 sliders throughout the game.

Foley’s 500 Specials:

- All pints of draft beer $5 (500 pennies… get it)

- Chicken wings (buffalo, bbq, or spicy garlic) $5

- Chicken fingers $5

- If Jimmie Johnson takes home the trophy, a round of Harp on the house.

- If Kasey Kahne wins, a free bud aluminum bottle on the house (he drives the Bud Dodge, #9).

- If Kurt Busch wins, a free pint of Miller Lite on the house (he drives the Miller Lite Dodge #2). 

- If Jeff Gordon wins, Jill pounds some celebratory shots (not a special, just a hope). 

- No word on any specials for Jamie McMurray’s performance in the Crown Royal 26 car, but I’m sure Andy will be sipping on some Crown regardless.

Also offered: a Jeff Gordon’s grilled chicken sandwich w/ lettuce, onions, and roasted peppers for $12, a Jimmie Johnson’s NASCAR platter of wings, fingers, skins, and sticks for $14, a Regan Smith’s roast beef sandwich with gravy for $11, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. burger w/ bacon, mushrooms, onions, and cheese for $13, and a Carl Edward’s big beef burger with an extra ½ pound beef patty for $19.  I’ll obviously be trying out the grilled chicken sandwich, but the wings special also sounds awfully good.

Gentlemen… start your engines.

Now, we know Growlers aren’t anything new to all you serious beer fans out there, but with saving some cash in mind, we’ve started to take advantage of the growing list of NYC spots where we can stock up on some great beer by filling up a Growler.  Growlers are half gallon (64 oz.)  refillable glass jugs that can be used to buy beer fresh out of the tap.  You can normally purchase a Growler at any shop that sells beer in them, but the trick is to hold on to your Growler to save when you go back for a refill.  Also, Growlers are ideal for bringing home some of your favorite beers that don’t otherwise come in bottles/cans (think our local favorite Sixpoint).  You’re also getting fresh beer at home and going a little green in the process (reuse, recycle…).  With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, it’s also a great way to entice a beer loving partner to spend a romantic beer filled night in (who can resist when you promise to bring home a fresh and favorite craft beer?).  We are working on expanding this list, so please let us know if you have some more places that will give us a fill of some quality suds.

Where we go to fill up our Growler:

- Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room: Check out the Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room at 95 East Houston and Bowery.  Head to their website for their current line up of draught beers and for their Growler prices. 

- Blind Tiger Ale House:  One of our favorite bars sells growlers.  Head to the W. Village for your fill and do stay for a bowl of chili by the fire (so good)- 281 Bleeker St. @ Jones. 

- The Ginger Man:  Head over to 11 East 36th btw Madison and 5th Ave. to fill up on your way home for work.  Definitely a great selection. 

- Rattle ‘N Hum:  While you’re in the Ginger Man area, make a stop at Rattle ‘n Hum- 14 East 33rd btw Madison and 5th Ave.  Two great beer bars only 3 blocks away… how convenient. 

- New Beer Distributors: You can also find some hard to track down brews at this LES beer center- 167 Chrystie St. btw Rivington & Delancey. 

- Grab Specialty Foods: If you’re in Brooklyn, specifically Park Slope, fill up at Grab Specialty Foods- 7th Ave btw. 14th & 15th. 

- Pacific Standard:  If you’re in Park Slope already, might as well head to Pacific Standard at 82 Fourth Avenue btw. St. Marks and Bergen. 

- Bierkraft:  Just in time for Valentine’s Day… if you’re heading to pick up Bierkraft’s 12 piece box of Nunu American Craft Beer Infused Chocolates for your special someone, might as well fill up your growler while you’re at it.  More my style is their 6 pack of chocolate stouts for $35 (that’s my kind of chocolate).  191 5th Ave. in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

- Captain Lawrence Brewing Co: If you’re up in Westchester, stop at the source, the Captain Lawrence Brewery at 99 Castleton St. in Pleasantville, New York (Fridays 4-7 pm, Saturdays 12-6 pm).

- Blue Point Brewing Co:  If you’re out on the island (Long Island), head to Blue Point Brewery where you can pick up some “fresh jugs to go.”  161 River Ave., Patchogue, NY.  (Thanks to our friend Riki for the heads up) 

- Dive Bars and Amsterdam 106: The “Growler program” is available at all of their locations for all you UWS’ers: Amsterdam @ 96th, Broadway at 101st, Columbus @ 75th, and Amsterdam @ 106th.  

- Chelsea Brewing Co: I just gave the folks at Chelsea Brewing Co. a call and they said that they are now selling/filling growlers.  After working on your golf skills at the driving range, stop by Chelsea Brewing Co. next door for a fill- at Chelsea Piers, Pier 59, 18th and West Side Highway. 

- East Village Tavern:  If you live in the East Village, head to the East Village Tavern for your fill- 158 Ave. C @ 10th St.  Be sure to make it during happy hour on weekdays from 4-7pm and grab any draft beer for $3 (what a deal!). 

Our friends at beermenus.com have a very handy list of “Places to get a Growler“ 

We’ll try to reach out to some bars to see if we can start expanding this list.  Cheers!

The TTB won’t let us call the beer Obamagang on the keg label. So it will be known legally as Inauguration Ale 2009, but the tap handles will be more…um…direct. The style lies between a porter and stout, with a bit of Kriek and a touch of chocolate blended in. It will be on draft only, beginning with the inauguration – in limited areas including DC, NYC, Syracuse, Philly, Chicago and Boston. We will donate a percentage of sales to charities in the respective cities where the beer is sold, and we’ve asked our distributors to match our donations and pick the local charities. (Also please note that the beer is not an endorsement of Obama.)

Leaving Whitehorse Tavern, the idea was to head home and order in Indian food and open a bottle of our new wine. Here’s where things got a bit spontaneous…on the way back east to our place, the car drove right by Gotham Comedy Club and Jill noticed on the sign that a show was starting in 20 minutes at 7pm. We looked at each other and said ‘yeah, lets do it.’ We had the driver pull over at the next block and proceeded to purchase 2 seats. The guy told us it was going to be a pretty full show, but that he was putting us at the front and center table. The show was Rob Bartlett’s Christmas Cavalcade. We soon found out why they put us where they did…we were used for about 20 minutes of material and it was hilarious. Everything from how we met at LaGuardia Airport and celebrate Christmakkah to the fact that we’re both attorneys and were wearing what he described as slippers to the club. He actually took our shoes off our feet and showed them to the audience. Mine were UGG’s and Jill was wearing her Tom’s. Everyone came over to us after the show and congratulated us as if we had just performed on stage. Rob called us over afterwards and thanked us for being good sports. We had a blast. Finally, we headed home and ordered in Indian. We were so beat we were barely awake when it arrived. Crazy day.

Before there was the Spotted Pig and before the rise of the gastropub, there was Waterfront Ale House. You would never guess from the outside that this Murray Hill saloon (there’s a second location in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill) serves up some amazing grub. A hand-painted sign on the wall self-depracatingly proclaims this pub to be the “Home of Warm Beer, Lousy Food and an Ugly Owner.”  But make no mistake about it, the beer is served at the perfect temp, the food is anything but lousy and as far as owner Sam Barbieri’s looks go, you can decide for yourself (he’s the one on the right holding his famous homemade egg nog). Given its location adjacent to the Kips Bay movie theater, Waterfront Ale House has been a part of our dinner and a movie night routine for some time now. What’s not to like about a friendly, neighborhood bar where you can choose among great beers, grab free popcorn from a self-serve popper and order just about anything from the menu and know that it’s gonna be pretty darn good. The taps are constantly changing and the kitchen features sublime pub fare with many comfort food favorites, including great burgers and award-winning bbq. It’s the perfect spot to grab a beer and a bite on a rainy day, which is exactly why we decided to head over there on Sat. afternoon…more of what we love about WAH after the jump…

There’s an assortment of different hot sauces lining the walls and on the table, but none comes close to Sam’s famous house brand (available for purchase). Using what tastes like Habanero peppers as a base, this hot sauce achieves the near impossible balance of being both flavorful and as someone on Citysearch puts it “still boasting a heat that’ll blow through the roof of your skull.” Not to worry, there are plenty of great draft beers to help wash it down and put out the fire.

Jill and I couldn’t find an open cab yesterday, but we remembered that Tylenol has been running a promotion right across the street from our apartment offering free rides to anywhere in Manhattan in London-styled taxi cabs.

We started with a crock of french onion soup. This 4-onion soup with porter, which the bartender told us is the chef’s mom’s recipe, is delicious. The porter really added a depth to the beef broth, the bread was thick and brown, the onions were soft and tasty, and the cheese was properly melted over the side of the crock with a nice crispy brown coloring. It was also topped with freshly chopped chives and peppers. I started with a Magic Hat Roxy Rolles, a hoppy amber, and Jill with a Maudite, a strong belgian ale from the same brewery as Le Fin Du Monde. I also tried the Dogfish Head Punkin’ Ale, one of the better seasonal pumpkin ales I’ve tried. They also had two warm cask ales, one of which was a Six Points Otis (oatmeal stout). Click here to check out the current beer list.  For my lunch, I had the french dip au jus and Jill went with a grilled vegetable focaccia sandwich with fresh mozzarella and sun-dried tomato pesto. People also swear by WAH’s burger and some call it the best beer+burger in town (they also have famous waffle-cut fries). Maybe we’ll feature it in an upcoming Burger Wars.  We look forward to our next dinner+movie night soon…even if the movie isnt’ great, we know we won’t be let down by dinner at Waterfront Ale House.

It may not be readily apparent given the name of our blog, but we also love BEER! Maybe our blog would be more aptly named ‘Wined & Dined & Chugged.’ In the past month we hit up the 2nd Annual NYBrewfest at South Street Seaport and then went with our friends Riki, Kristi and Joe to the Mahattan Cask Ale Festival at Chelsea Brewing Co. Where Jill tends to like the Belgian strong ales (I’m convinced she goes straight to the ABV% (alcohol by volume) and orders accordingly), I’m more a hoppy IPA person.

Thanks to our friends over at BeerMenus (great site where you can type in the name of any beer and find all the bars in NYC that serve it), we heard about this new beer bar Rattle ‘n’ Hum that just opened on 33rd b/t 5th and Mad. We went and checked it out this past Sunday. While we love our rowdy football Sunday Fun-Days at a local bar as much as the next person, I have to say it was refreshing to walk into a bar that was just barely crowded for a Sunday afternoon….and served something other than Stella and Bud Light. If you love craft ales and microbrews, this is your place. Their taps are ridiculous…they have just about everything. The bartender was really nice, too. She must have poured us samples of 5 beers each before we ordered our first one. What we drank and the full beer list after the jump…

Jill started with a Stone Arrogant Bastard (would have no doubt gone with a Victory Golden Monkey if they had it) and I went with a Great Divide Titan IPA. My Titan IPA had some aggressive hop flavors with a tinge of citrus and finished with a mellow malty sweetness. Before our second beer, we got to try some cask samples and also the seasonal Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale. I have to admit I was expecting a bit more from the Captain here after having the amazing Liquid Gold at the Cask Ale Festival. Jill moved on next to a Dogfish Head 90 Minute and I had an Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA. Mine was really good, but way too floral and fragrant. You can’t go wrong with the Dogfish Head 60 or 90 Minute. We tried some apps also but they were nothing to write home (or here) about. I hear we should have had the sliders. I had high hopes for the curry fries, but the curry was more like a thick gravy. We’ll definitely be heading back for the sick beer selection, though.

Click here for what’s on tap.