Sorry, I don’t have any lines on getting more free beer stuff, but I thought it interesting to go over some of the great stuff I’ve gotten for being in the right place or volunteering at the right event.

My favorite by far is volunteering to work a beer fest through a local brewing club. For five or six hours of walking around schlepping ice or filling water pitchers (and sampling as I went, of course, plus admission to the event) I got a nifty “will work for beer” tee shirt two years running. Not only did I get the t-shirt, but I also got to sample a sizable offering from dozens of local breweries! That kind of luck won’t likely happen again, but it was fun while it lasted.

Another cool freeby came from a bar where we met some friends. The “Miller Girls” were walking around the bar with a hand held computer letting guests design a t-shirt with a few options. It was pretty cool, and I still wear that one regularly. The Girls were walking from table to table asking folks to trade in the beer they were drinking to try the equivalent of a Miller product. Our friends were drinking Mich Ultra and they the nearly empty beers for full Lites. They looked at what my wife and I was drinking and just said “right on”! (Miller High Life Light. No apologies, it was happy hour, it was cheap.) They also handed out some bottle openers and head thingy whose use I am unfamiliar with.

For the record, though I own a fairly large number of Old Chicago beer shirts from the beer club, I don’t consider those “free”. The beer club costs make the t-shirts very expensive, but it does broaden my palate and lets me explore beers that I normally wouldn’t have bought with out incentive.

Cheers!

*ugh, all the brewery sites are age verified. How annoying.