Vegan Drinks Houston –at Rest & Rec w/ FREE Buff Brew + Ripe Cuisine + DJ Chris

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• FREE vegan beer from Houston’s own Buffalo Bayou Brewery

• Vegan food from RIPE Cuisine (will include a special that is no-oil, whole food, plant-based + non-alcoholic drinks.) Refreshing vegan flavors of BPops also available.

• Vegan tunes! Deep house music mixed live by vegan DJ Chris; Event starts at 6pm - music starts at 8pm.

• Sit in Houstons first-ever green 'parklet'!

• 10-Minute shout-out on the mic and bring flyers or cards to promote your vegan event, vegan product, vegan group or just your vegan self.

• FREE chair massage from vegan massage therapist Sterling Badipe!

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FELLOW VEGANS: Spring-fever is in the air and that means it’s time to rest & recreate. Let’s get together this Thursday, 28 April 2016 from 6 to 10pm. Our party is being hosted by New Living’s Rest & Rec in The Heights (321 W 19th). And even better, one of Texas’ best craft beer companies, Buffalo Bayou Brewery, are offering FREE beer (yes, free!) Buff Brew are known for their creative beer flavors including their classic More Cowbell (and if you don't get the reference, read below.) Not only that, we'll groove to vegan tunes—deep house music will be mixed by vegan DJ Chris from 8 to 10pm. And nibble on the always-delicious vegan food from RIPE Cuisine (including an oil-free, whole food, plant-based item, as well as non-alcoholic drink options.) Chef Stephanie’s food truck will be parked next to Houston’s first-ever ‘parklet’, a green space that New Living created outside their doors. You can also try the healthy popsicles from BPop. ALSO, there will be a table where you can drop off flyers or cards AND we'll have a 10-Minute shout-out on the mic to promote events/groups/actions, as well. Please PM me if you have something to share. Just RSVP and we’ll see you there! (REMEMBER: When you arrive, make sure to get a vegan drinks STICKER to get your free beer.)

For more details, read below:

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WHO: Vegans—and their friends (Vegetarians and regular folk welcome too. Hopefully our vitality, insights and respect for all life will inspire them!)

REST & REC is owned by Jeff Kaplan, Adam Brackman and Monte Large, the same guys who own the Axelrad Beer Garden (where Vegan Drinks Houston was last month.) Axelrad has been a bit packed lately. So, to help us mingle, they donated their space for our event. The outlet, which also has a location in Rice Village, specializes in products that help create green buildings and healthy homes—like furniture made from sustainable and organic materials. Houston’s Culture Map quoted Jeff: “We're like the Whole Foods movement 30 years ago, starting with a small organic-goods store. That model shifted us to the green movement, and now with New Living Bedroom, we're interpreting that movement for the home — reducing and hopefully eradicating indoor pollution." http://bit.ly/1VMZ40R (FYI: Organic Vegan mattresses are hard to come by, but you can order one from them.)

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Their company, New Living, is one of the country's first members of B-Corporation, an organization of companies dedicated to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. http://bit.ly/1qetDdG One of the first things they did when they opened was to give up a parking space to their store. They created Houston’s first ‘parklet’, a micro-park designed to help green-up urban areas. It was met with some controversy when first introduced by those who were stingy about losing a parking space….these are some of the hysterical comments: http://bit.ly/1XQNyyN RIPE will be parked next to this lovely little parklet. So, you can eat your vegan nibbles on one of the benches.

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DRINK: Buffalo Bayou Brewery (aka Buff Brew) http://www.buffbrew.com

Buff Brew are generously donating FREE beer to our vegan cause. They are a new Houston-based craft beer company that makes beers which are mostly vegan—and very, very interesting. The brewery was started by Rice University and Harvard MBA grad Rassul Zarinfar. He told the Houston Chronicle: “I started the brewery because no one was making the beer I wanted to drink. I thought everyone was playing it safe with their IPAs lagers and their wheats..” They use exotic and unusual ingredients to enhance their craft beers. He explained, “We take risks, and it’s a little bit crazy sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t necessarily makes sense on paper, but it always makes sense in the glass.”….“We set out to fail a lot because I think that creativity is about failure. I mean, you've got to try a lot of bad ideas to get to a really great idea that just pushes the envelope.” http://bit.ly/1T86hlJ

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One of their earliest and signature beers is More Cowbell. If you don’t get this reference then you must follow these two steps: 1. Listen to this: http://bit.ly/10uU6ep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA3vUv2c

and 2. Then, watch this: http://hulu.tv/1tAsNce

http://www.hulu.com/watch/536145

and 3. These are interesting, too: http://bit.ly/21brHUQ AND http://bit.ly/1YPoWGR

Back to the beer: The Star-Telegram wrote: “More Cowbell is some kind of a missile of beer. Ringing in at 9 percent alcohol, it’s dangerously drinkable. With big floral notes and moderate bitterness to match, it wears its hops like a badge of honor.” http://bit.ly/1VIp4tO Among their many exotic varieties are Bananas Foster, a beer with notes of banana and caramel and dark chocolate, and Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, a beer that contains figs.

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FOOD: Vegan chef and registered dietitian, Stephanie Hoban, owner of the Ripe Cuisine Food Truck (http://ripe-cuisine.com/ ) will be serving the same delicious 100% plant-based dishes that you may have tasted at one of the farmer’s markets or other locations around town—or at the last Vegan Drinks at Axelrad. Chef Stephanie will offer her regular items as well as an oil-free, whole food plant-based VDH special and some non-alcoholic drink options for this event.

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From the Houston Press: “In May 2013, Hoban started Ripe Cuisine, a pop-up at Urban Harvest farmers' markets, where she sold complete vegan meals to customers who often weren't acquainted with all that vegan food could be. In fact, Hoban often serves customers who don't realize at first they're ordering vegan food. They'll ask her for a burger (because, she says, they look like actual burgers), and she'll have to explain that they're vegan.”

And if you want a healthy dessert, you can try one of the many vegan flavors of the frozen B-POP, an organic breakfast-sicle created by 3 Houston women. (Check them out: Blueberry Banana Pancake, made of banana, cashews, blueberries, chia seeds and maple syrup OR PB& Fig, made of figs, peanut butter, cashews, peanuts, hemp seeds and chia seeds OR Pineapple Green Mama, made of pineapple, cashews, dates, spinach, avocado and chia seeds. http://www.bpopbetterpop.com/

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MUSIC: Vegan drinks starts at 6pm, but from 8pm to 10, you can groove to the tunes of vegan DJ Chris. He’ll be playing deep house in a great upstairs space inside REST & REC. Chris Lewis has been been playing guitar, writing songs and loving music since he was a kid. He began DJ-ing in college. He was a vegetarian starting in 2005 and went vegan for ethical reasons in 2012. Listen to his mixes here: https://soundcloud.com/deep-sleeper/chris-dj-mix-2015 (Chris is donating his time and talents. So at the event, please chip in a few bucks when the hat is passed around to help fund the sound equipment rental, etc.)

AND THAT'S NOT ALL, FOLKS!

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CHAIR MASSAGES: There's one more bonus at the party: FREE massages to help folks chill out! Sterling Badipe, a vegan for the past 2 years, has offered to bring his massage chair and give free short massages. He attended UH and was trained at the Texas Center for Massage Therapy and has a mobile business, Sterling Badipe Massage Therapy. So first come, first served to sign up for 10 minute, fully-clothed chair massages—unless it gets really busy and then they might be a little shorter to fit more people in. https://www.facebook.com/sterlingbadipelmt/

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WHEN YOU ARRIVE:

IMPORTANT: When you arrive, get a vegan sticker so you can claim your free beer. AND IF IT RAINS, the event is still ON since we’ll be inside, too.)

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EVEN IF you RSVPed for THIS event, please make sure to join the group on either FB or Meetup so that you are notified of future events. *****If you are on FACEBOOK, please join our FB group: "Vegan Drinks Houston" https://www.facebook.com/groups/1713876845492686/ (or click on the name Vegan Drinks Houston above under address of the bar and next to 'created') . *****IF you are on MEETUP, join VDH: https://www.meetup.com/Vegan-Drinks-Houston/ *****IF you are on neither, send a private-message on one of these pages with your email address to get notified of future events.

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