Are you 21 & over? If so, please continue reading. If not, it’s probably safe for you to read anyway. You’re hungry or thirsty for some hot sports takes and a frosty Bud Light. You have four options.
Option 1: Stay where you are. Grab an ice-cold, aluminum bottle of Bud Light Lime from the fridge. Surf those channels until you find the game or match of your choice. Open Twitter on your phone. Dig into imagined company and beer.
Option 2: Re-play Option 1, then invite a friend or two or seven over for some real company if the Twitter scrawl starts to hurt your eyeballs.
Option 3: Skip over to your local sports bar. Cityside is just a bus ride away. And sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes that’ll do.
Option 4: Crawl. Well, like you can walk and jog as well. Or take an Uber. Or public transit. Whatever, you can “bar crawl.” Sometimes, your couch just won’t do. Sometimes, Cityside just won’t do. The crawl is for all.
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To truly sports bar, you have to get close to the sport, smell the grass, popcorn. You want everything the ballpark offers, with everything a bar does. You want the combined hum of the bar and the ballpark. You head to Fenway.
You start at Boston Beer Works, where you can see the “large metal cylinders” brewing your beer. You scan its industrial aesthetic and look up at the chalkboard of beers. Don’t worry about the acl content or the color of its label. Don’t ask the waiter. There’s no time for that on the crawl. Just sound ‘em out in your head. No points for simple alliteration. You’re looking for evocation. “Perfect Pils?” Boo. “Bunker Hill Blueberry?” Close. “Redeemer?” Yes, that’s a crawl beer.
You work through that Redeemer. Really chew it down. But despite Boston Beer Works’ homebrewing charm, we need to get closer. The crawl moves on.
We head down Lansdowne Street. The Cask’n Flagon looks fun, all decked out in Red Sox-red and pretty flags. But there’s no time to dilly-dally. The end of the line beckons. Every crawl must end at Bleachers.
Bleacher Bar is a bar built into Fenway. It opens into right field. It’s as close as you can get to the game without paying for a ticket. When you go to the urinal, you can look down at the bar and it’s oddly comforting. There’s beer here too. You enter, put your back to the far wall, watch baseball in a bar, listen to both crowds. That’s sports in a bar, in a nutshell.
Featured Image by Emily Fahey / Heights Senior Staff
