It was 2016 on this day that Liz and I brought Barnaby in to a bar for the first time. It wasn’t his last time. But, since Liz and I have already shared our first beer experiences here, I figured it’d be important to share Barnaby’s first bar experience. And why not on the 2nd anniversary of that?

Before then, Barnaby had sat in the car outside plenty of bars and breweries — I even got a picture of him outside of Stack Brewing one time — but this visit to Lowertown Brewery was his first official visit to a bar.

Barnaby hanging out at Stack Brewing in Sudbury, ON

We were in Ottawa for the weekend to do a number of bookstore visits as well as a couple of radio spots to promote my newly released book of ghost stories about Ottawa called Creepy Capital: Ghost Stories of Ottawa and the National Capital Region.(And yes, Barnaby has been in countless bookstores, radio stations and television studios)

I had just done the official book launch at the Chapters Rideau location, and we were meeting some of Liz’s family at Lowertown Brewery in the Byward Market afterward. It was a significant walk (particularly in an amazingly beautiful spring weather heat-wave) in the other direction to go back to the hotel to drop Barnaby off, and the bar was just a block or so away from the bookstore. So we brought Barnaby with us.

Barnaby normally wears a t-shirt promoting my latest book, and, because I usually “dress it up” a little for book signings, I had been wearing a Creepy Capital t-shirt as well with a black sports coat. But it was a little too hot to keep it on, so I put the jacket onto Barnaby (he serves as an excellent coat rack) and sat him beside me on the patio.

And because I know the beer-inclined are always curious, the beer pictured with Barnaby is Lowertown’s Shooting Rapids Pale Ale. (Also known as Lowertown Pale Ale)

My favorite of the many beers we had that day at Lowertown (not our first visit there, and definitely not our last) was the Blood Orange Belgian Wit (picture below retrieved from my Untappd check-in)

It was the perfectly refreshing beer to enjoy on that hot early evening.

I’m pretty sure the sight of Barnaby sitting there with the big goofy grin on his face turned a lot of heads. And, on our walk back to the hotel later that night, we did get stopped by a number of people who were quite interested in what we were doing and wanted to get a picture taken with my bony buddy.

We also couldn’t resist getting a shot of Barnaby on Parliament Hill on our walk back to the hotel. (The RCMP folks did keep a close eye on us, but none of them stopped me or questioned what I was doing walking around with a skeleton)

After all, he is just as proud of our fine nation and the great Canadian breweries (and other cool things) from Canada, as we are.