The Student Room Group

College Bar Crawls

I was thinking about this recently (i.e. avoiding revision by planning things to do after exams), and I remembered that every college bar crawl I can remember doing we've exited Hatfield over the wall, I heard someone on our exec mention this 'tradition' too, and I was wondering if there's any story behind it and if anybody else has any 'traditions' to do with college bar crawls as well, since it might be nice to try to incorporate them into our own. Another thing we've done a few times is the "Mary's Challenge", which is that you buy an aftershock in Mary's bar, and, since it is generally sh*te and dead, put it into your mouth in the bar and not swallow it until you're outside the doors. This sounds easy until you realise that Mary's bar is the furthest from the exit of all the college bars and you have to run up about 3 flights of steps and down a corridor to get out of the building. The relief is immense, and the smell of cinnamon outside is pretty strong... I don't think that the Mary's security guards like this activity very much (when they're there).

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Reply 1
We always down Smenergy's in Castle but that's all. Exiting Hatfield over the wall is an interesting one...I have seen some people doing it and always wondered why
Reply 2
Rebecca/Becca
Yeah why is that? Never done it myself because I'm always too drunk by the time we get to Hatfield!


Perhaps it is to overcome the feeling of inferiority at being in such a great college...and this inferiority leads to a lack of confidence to use the gate :biggrin: (like normal people do!!)

(Only joking...other colleges aren't really inferior so don't anyone go getting all annoyed with me :wink: )
Whenever I go on a colege bar craw, Hatfield, Castle and Johns are usually closed.

Perhaps they're worried that one day they'll actually get some customers?
morals_officer
Whenever I go on a colege bar craw, Hatfield, Castle and Johns are usually closed.

Perhaps they're worried that one day they'll actually get some customers?


The answer there is not to go on a college bar crawl on a tuesday or thursday night for Castle and John's and friday night for Hatfield....

Either that, or befriend a castleman, johnian or hatfielder... :cool:
Reply 5
Hmm, this is all well and good but I need some TRADITIONS people! Well, apart from the obvious tradition of being dressed up that is.
Reply 6
Sounds reasonable, there isn't really much else you can do in a bar designed to be as much like a cold-war bunker as possible, unless of course you were going to do a comic book themed tradition, or a houdini themed one...(oh, wait, we already used "escape" as the theme for Mary's)
Reply 7
so are ALL the college bars. Except that one on the hill. VM I think it is, but as a student, you prospective types will discover the magic that is £1.35 a pint, or £4 a bottle of wine... (chain pubs round here charge about £2.50 a pint.)
Reply 8
You and your girly drinks, you should drink drink beer; twice as much alcohol for the same price, hence a saving overall. Either that, or just get twice as drunk for the same money.
I always seem to get into an odd happy mood whenever i've been in Aidans bar....

might possibly be because the first time, i'd had so much to drink i thought it was triangular :p:
Reply 10
Rebecca/Becca
Yeah VM is a bit cheeky charging £1.60 for a spirit! But at Castle it's £1.40/£1.50 (depending on what you have) whereas at Chads it's £1 a shot! :eek:


I didn't think Castle bar sold 35ml shots though- I thought they were 25ml. I may however be wrong...

I was very very drunk in Castle bar on Saturday night.
Reply 11
Mattmoy_2000
You and your girly drinks, you should drink drink beer; twice as much alcohol for the same price, hence a saving overall. Either that, or just get twice as drunk for the same money.


Surely you get the same amount of alcohol in a pint of beer that you do in a shot of spirit and a mixer? Same amount of units isn't it?

If not, then can always go for a double :biggrin: - it's also not as fattening as beer and you don't need to keep going to the toilet all night due to massive intake of liquids :p:

But yeah, the overall reason is that beer/lager is disgusting and I wouldn't drink it as a dare (makes me puke!)
Reply 12
you get approx 2 units in a pint and exactly 1 unit in 25ml of 40% spirit. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means that you'll need to go to the toilet a lot whatever you drink - beer is less damaging than neat spirits because it contains more water, which means you get less dehydrated, although you do still lose loads of electrolyte by weeing it all away. Admittedly, rate of alcohol absorption does peak at about 12-13% ABV - the strength of most wines or a well mixed sprirt and mixer in the ratio of approx 3:1 (i.e. the alcohol that's in your stomach gets into your bloodstream faster - at higher concentrations your stomach slows absorption because it recognises that it's a poison, and at lower concentrations there's less alcohol to absorb per unit area of stomach wall.) Faster absorption means you get drunk quickly, which is why wine seems to hit people a lot harder than most other drinks, meaning that you need less units of alcohol to reach that drunken stage, but it will wear off quicker than other drinks, but by the time you've drunk a bottle of wine, extra alcohol always seems like a good idea so that shouldn't be a problem anyway...
Hence Wine is the best and cheapest way to get drunk, but beer is a more sociable drink, and you can have beer without having to finish 10+ units worth of the stuff, unlike wine...
Reply 13
Rebecca/Becca
NO, Castle spirits are definitely 35ml, they were talking about it at the last JCR meeting. And Matt, I'm not going to drink beer because I don't like it! Wine is the best way to get drunk!


Oh right, well then we have no excuse.
Reply 14
Rebecca/Becca
The thing with Van Mildert bar, is I'm quite prepared to put up with the prices:
a. because they're still bloody cheap compared to non-student establishments
b. it's well run, you get served very quickly - something imperative when on a full bar crawl
c. they have a wide selection of drinks on offer


Yeah all of that is true. I really like our bar (obviously biased). I've only been in Castle bar twice and both times it's taken me ageeees to get served. Cuths always seems to serve me quickly.

I've never been in any of the other bars except Collingwood. We don't tend to do bar crawls :frown:
Reply 15
Rebecca/Becca
How many units are there in a bottle of wine? Because people consume full bottles regularly at formal in the space of an hour. That's not helathy!


http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/howmany.php
Reply 16
Rebecca/Becca
Oh you HAVE to do one, they are so much fun! Castle bar is always packed, and normally Cuths has always been really busy when I've been in there. Busy as in you can't actually move for people!!


Yeah but Cuths has heat lamp things outside and loads of benches so it's really nice!

I will do one after exams. I'll pre-warn everyone :wink:
Reply 17
Yes. That's a fcukload of alcohol. Also, Castle Bar is usually so slow because the design is really inefficient for large numbers of people, despite the fact that the barstaff are working their derrieres off. It's really popular because, well basically Castlemen are alcoholics and we have a really nice bar. You're allowed to drink in the courtyard this term AFAIK, which should be nice after exams.
clearly castle is the place to be for the post exam drinks (bierfest, castle day, june ball), however other events i will be gracing are hatfield day, cuths day, obsfest (which will be AWESOME) and adians day (and a beerfest you guys also have apprently), also a planned amphibious assault on the princy b!
I thought Aidans day happened last term? :confused: