Last year, on a whim, we decided to go back to college, rent out a bar, and see how many (if any) Chivers would show up. It was a complete accidental success and we vowed to return again to burn out what remained of our youth and drink the bottom out of Bloomington.
This year we returned to the upstairs at Kilroy's on Kirkwood for Chive Five (the weekend before IU's famous Little Five bike race). All the beer was on us, no corporate sponsors, no tickets, and the first 100 people in line received free limited edition IU KCCO's. All we asked in return was a $5 donation to the Indiana University Dance Marathon supporting Riley Children's Hospital.
When we arrived, we war blown away. The line to get upstairs stretched through downstairs and outside the bar. Last year we burned through 65 pitchers of beer. This year the Chivers rang up 470 pitchers of beer. Wow. Who knew you can measure % of annual audience growth based on pitchers consumed from one year to the next? Go figure.
Thanks to all the staff at Kilroys and especially to all the Chivers for your kind words, input, and Olympic-level beer drinking ability. theCHIVE would be nothing without y'all and we don't take that for granted for a second. We'll see you next year.
Next stop: New York City.
- The day of the meetup. It begins…
- Even a broken leg didn’t keep this Chivette away
- This was the first Chiver in line at 10 am. When I asked him why he wasn’t wearing his shirt, he told me his cousin serves in the military and all he wanted for his birthday was an IU KCCO. He drove from St. Louis to get it as a gift. This dude would later go on to build a pitcher pyramid that reached the ceiling, the 9th architectural wonder of the world.
- Instead of donating $5 to charity, one of our Chivers, Grant Schultz, donated $1,000 to Riley Chilren’s Hospital. Thanks for that, Grant, you’re a true Chiver.