OK, You Mugs

by Brian Howard

We had no idea what we were getting into. When we hatched this little scheme to give readers a chance to win a couple growlers of the Victory Throwback Lager that graced our cover a few weeks back, we wanted to run a contest that would encourage our readers' creativity and slake their surely mighty thirsts.

"Let's have an essay contest," said Swierczynski.

"Too much work," I countered.

"For readers?"

"No, for us."

A caption contest sounded like a great idea. One-line entries. Easy for us. Fun for you. Yeah?

And then the entries started pouring in. Forty-seven in all. Most with multiple captions. "I hope this is legal. I didn't see anything saying it wasn't," cheerfully pointed out one seven-caption submission. And so we waded through the entries, all of which were amusing on one level or another.

Some were even informative. Local beer expert John Ahrens (a Google search reveals that he was a finalist in 2003 for something called "Beerdrinker of the Year") pointed out that in our zeal to get a funny beer picture in the paper, we may have been overzealous.

Ahrens had this to say: "Most likely [the picture] is between 1957 and 1962, based on the Miss Rheingold sign in the right corner and the Prior Beer (Norristown then) sign. It is quite likely that the bar or liquor store was in central or northern New Jersey as Rheingold was not generally sold down this way, though maybe it was in South Jersey."

Our bad. Consider us chastened. Just shows you what can happen when you write a story half-cocked. Stay in school, kids.

So without further ado, we present the winning entry in the City Paper "Write A Caption, Win Some Beer" contest.

Gertrude wondered what would happen when she kissed the other six kegs.

— Don Montrey

(Montrey, a member of local sketch comedy troupe Bad Hair, perhaps had an unfair advantage being that it's his job to be funny. But if we've learned anything from the Bush presidency, well, it's that we shouldn't be unfair to those with unfair advantages.)

Honorable Mention

Sadie, trust me, if you drink all this beer, it will LOOK 14 inches long.
--Debra Schiff
(Hands down, the best of many penis submissions.)

We need more ballin' time? Gee, I thought you said Ballantine.
--Bill Dingfelder

I dug to China. They gave me beer for smuggling people.
--Ash Doyle

I'm telling ya, six packs are goin' to be big one day. --Mike Viñales
(Of the multitude of six-pack jokes, this one made the nice pun on the size of this particular six-pack.)

You're on. Five dollars says the boys will prefer my cans to your kegs.
--Kevin Blanton

Of course we need six barrels. That shark has a mouth on it this big.
--Anonymous
(Gotta love a Jaws reference.)

Oh, that's just swell, George! Now when they drop the Big One, we'll be too hammered to defend our bomb shelter from the mutant hordes!
--Lou Primus
(Also, we love mutant hordes.)

Sorry lady, but we're all out of urns.
--Jack Sheehan
(Yeah, we're confused. But bemusedly so.)

Dumkomf! Die Kinder at die Frathausen said 'Schissen load case of kegs, keine sixpacken!' Is der Pope Katholic? Ach, was!
--Charles K. Hofmann
(Auf Deutsch! Sort of!)

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