Milsurp After Hours

This should probably be in the hobby and things you collect forum....but I thought I'd put it here.

Long years ago. Back about 1966 when I was in college, a bunch of us who belonged to a fraternity...Tau Kappa Epsilon...used to take trips from the University of South Alabama in Mobile across the state line into Mississippi where the drinking age was lower than 21. We used to go to Johnnies Smokehouse , and another place I can't think of the name of, and drink Lowenbrau draft at $1 a beer. And we used to get served in a particular glass mug with the logo on it. And...if we felt like paying an extra $1 we could keep the mug. I had such a glass. I only bought one as $1 was real money back in those days.

A week or so ago I got the old mug out of the cabinet and had a beer in it. Like a fool... I put it in the dishwasher afterwards and for some reason the mug cracked. Damn...my historical relic gone! Then I found a pair of the exact same mugs on ebay. Paid $3.95 plus an outragious $12 in shipping, although the glass mugs were relatively heavy.... and now....back in business again. This is the worst of the two examples. This one has some chipping on the shield. The other is premo.

By the way...that isn't Lowenbrau in the mug.. couldn't find any today at the regular grocery store.

I used to go over to Manchester to a 'Beer Celler' in the early 70's and drink the same stuff. We called it 'Laughingbrew'. I remember 'acquiring' a glass and 'liberating' it under my armpit It's still around somewhere in the stuff that is still packed from our move here. In fact, I don't think it has been in the glass cupboard since about 1980!

I've got 4 of those Lowenbrau steins, all are different. Three were from The Oktober Fest in München - liberated from a beer tent in spite of the watchful eyes of the breweries Sicherheits Polizei and the other was bought in the Army PX in Berlin.
I made it to Oktober Fest 9 or 10 times in 15 yrs and brought home a different beer stein each time. Still have all but one that got broke. The different breweries changed the logo on the steins occasionaly so I have duplicates from the different breweries.
I would not drink beer in any of the beer tents where the brewery was to cheap to put their brand name on the steins. I also never had a problem getting out of the beer tent with a full stein of beer. I then went to the pretzel stand in front and bought a giant pretzel. Beer u. pretzel lasted for the short walk to the Bahnhof and part of the train ride back to Bad Tölz.
Sarge