Pumpkin Pie in a glass…it tastes just as it’s advertised.
It’s that time of year again. The Pumpkin Ale beers are out. This is from Crown Brewing in Crown Point. Look forward to the ones at Whiting’s Oktoberfest Oct. 8.
I’m sure this will be available at Crown Point’s Oktoberfest, which is also Oct. 8.
We still wish they weren’t on the same night, but plan to hit both and take some beautiful pics (better than this).
I didn’t stick around for the entire Popcorn Fest parade, but what I saw…as with most regional parades, unsatisfying. A bunch of people in matching grey shirts and jeans holding a banner just isn’t what parading should be.
Maybe I’m spoiled by my time in New Orleans. And after sweating through Chicago’s great Pride Parade.
Hundreds of people line the streets to cheer on something they’re pretty much gonna see on any given day. I could literally walk out onto the street, join the parade and wave to people and no one would be the wiser. “Cause that’s basically all you see in these things. Yea, yea, the kids like it. They get candy and shit (well, not literally shit, I don’t think) and police and fire engines wail their sirens. Whoopee.
There was this guy.
The Valparaiso University mascot. The Popcorn Crusader. The band was there too. Where the hell were the cheerleaders?
Ah, they may have been at an away game. And look behind Popcorn Crusader. A politician. What was parade rule I made awhile back? Politicians can’t be in parades unless they were clown outfits or some other gaudy get-up.
At least we had the Popcorn Fest nightcap in the form of the Franklin House beer garden.
The night was a blur
I’ll never knock this, one of the last beer garden nights of the season. Out of all the beer gardens, this one draws the finest looking women around. And it’s the one beer fest where I usually find a few drink tickets lying on the ground. Well done me.
The band was Chris & Lou. Not bad, a decent mix of music. Honestly I wasn’t paying that much attention because it was all on some tall pint of a girl wearing black knee-hi boots and a short skirt. But yea, they seemed OK.
I just realized for all my talk about fine gals at this soiree I didn’t seem to locate them in the pics. Trust me, they were there. I did, unknowingly, get that Bret Michaels lookin’ dude in the pic (lower right hand corner). I think his gf was checking me out.
Suspiciously, the outdoor party ended at 10 p.m., with cops kicking everyone out. Most of these things run ’til 11 or midnight, at least. Hmmm…could other local bar owners be involved???
Cheers
The alternative rock, folksy, pyschtrippy, alt-country band Cracker is the main stage entertainment at Valparaiso’s Popcorn Festival Sept. 10.
I bet you ask most Northwest Indiana folks who these guys are and they don’t know. Oh sure, the music community might. But I don’t think Valpo-ites and fellow NWI Hoosiers really appreciate what they’ve got that night.
A true kick-ass band. Been around since the early ’90s. A lot of people will know, when they hear them (assuming they perform them) their songs “Teen Angst” and “Low.”
Liffey’s personal favorite is “The Good Life” (1998) and “Be My Love” (2000). The boys also put out an alt-country cover album (except for one song) in ’03 called Countrysides.
By the way this isn’t the band’s first venture to Chicago’s northwest Indiana suburbs. They played the Hobart Jaycees Fest a few years ago.
They are delicious. Enjoy. Then go to Franklin House and get drunk and disorderly at their beer garden.
The Dodgy 