While the Frankenmuth Brewery heritage can’t be traced back to Ireland (we’re German remember), we do honor and celebrate one of the most important holidays to Irish-Americans, St. Patrick’s Day. We don’t suggest pouring green dye into a nice pint glass of Frankenmuth beer, but we do hope that you will try your hand at our beer pairings with these classic St. Patrick’s Day songs.

That’s right! Forget cheese and beer or dishes designed specifically for certain beers. The only way to experience Irish culture is to imbibe in music and good brew. Celebrate the holiday correctly with your loved ones, the St. Patrick’s Day songs below and some classic Frankenmuth beers.

The Dubliners and The Pogues – “The Irish Rover”

Legendary Irish music makers The Dubliners team up with the young guns The Pogues for a spin of the traditional folk tune, “The Irish Rover.” The song is about Ireland’s most famous exports and meets a worthy adversary in Frankenmuth’s Dry Irish Stout Ale. Just as the Irish shipped their barley all over the world, this ale features a strong barley flavor with notes of chocolate and coffee bean.

Thin Lizzy – “Whiskey in the Jar”

Proto-hard rockers Thin Lizzy hailed from Dublin, Ireland where there is a statue that honors the band’s late frontman, Phil Lynott. Their take on the traditional “Whiskey in the Jar” is perfect for saddling up to the bar with a shot of Jameson and a Frankenmuth Red Sky Ale. Styled after traditional Irish red ales, Frankenmuth’s brew has tremendous caramel-meets-hops flavor.

Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem – “The Wild Rover”

The Irish have been a nomadic people for many a year, even reaching as far as Australia. Co-opted by Irish folk singers, the Australian song “The Wild Rover” became an Irish standard as it tells a tale of a young, drunken lad who finally sows his wild oats. While Frankenmuth’s Baltic Style Porter Lager isn’t Irish in nature, just like “The Wild Rover,” it pairs well with all things Ireland. The taste of raisins that lingers throughout the beer’s body emulates a classic Irish Soda bread.

With that, remember to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a Frankenmuth beer, these classic songs and always drink responsibly. When taking in the sights and sounds, raise that Frankenmuth brew high and say “Sláinte,” the word for “cheers” in Gaelic.

The noble gesture when you’re out at the bar with  friends and loved ones is to pick up a round of beers. Traditionally, that meant you had to actually be in the drinking establishment with your friends, but now with help from a new Twitter tool you can buy someone a Frankenmuth Beer without ever setting foot in the brewery.

Thanks to Tweet-A-Beer, a new Twitter tool, the dream of buying a friend a physical beer, not an unsatisfying virtual brew, is now a reality. Tweet-A-Beer does this by using an e-commerce program that allows users to sync a Twitter account to a Paypal account. Once all of these components have linked together, users can send up to five dollars at one time to a friend to use for beer.

This week, Tweet-A-Beer, created by a Portland-based tenfour, launches at the annual South by Southwest music and film conference, where already there have already been 500 beers purchased through the application. Be the first of your friends to send someone a few dollars to spend on a beer at Frankenmuth Brewery. After all, anytime innovative technology and beer come together, the world becomes a much more friendly and happy place.

Follow this step-by-step guide to Tweet-A-Beer to a friend at Frankenmuth Brewery:

1. Head to the Tweet-a-Beer site and click on “Buy a Round.”

2. Clicking this button will take you to the Chirpify site where you will input your credit card information.

3. After putting in credit card info, the site will take you back to Tweet-a-Beer and you will enter the Twitter name of who you would like to receive a delicious Frankenmuth Beer.

4. Feel free to add a personalized message and tell your friend that you’d like them to spend the allotted cash on a beer at Frankenmuth Brewery. Then, simply click “Send Beer Money” button and your transaction will be complete and the world will be a better place.

Last week we blogged about J. Wilson, an Iowa man who fasted on only microbrews and water for 46 days while researching the history of brewing. In what may become a weekly column about people doing the darnedest things while drinking, we have another story for you: Tim Cigelske, a Wisconsin man who’s been drinking at least one pint of beer and running at least one mile every day for 509 straight days (as of February 25th).

Before getting into this amazing story, we had to ask ourselves if drinking beer and running is even safe. The answer is a mixed bag. Research shows there are health benefits to drinking beer, some of which stem from the B Vitamins and chromium found in the malt and hops, but others spring from the flavinoids found in beer that might actually reduce the risk of cancer and heart attacks.

On the other hand, the word continually popping up when discussing beer and running is “dehydration.” Dehydration is, of course, a serious situation for anyone doing physical activity—and because beer is such a well known diuretic, it’s extremely inadvisable to add fuel to the fire by drinking beer before running or while running. Aside from dehydration, alcohol also slows the body’s recovery rate, makes you less coordinated, and reduces body heat—all bad things. If you must, Runner’s World also suggests only having one beer the night before a race. After the race, they suggest drinking beer after running only after you’ve had eight to sixteen ounces of water and eating a combination of carbohydrates and protein to help your body recover.

At Frankenmuth Brewery, we sympathize. Finding motivation to exercise can be tough, so why not be like Tim Cigelske and reward yourself with a cold, refreshing beer every time you get out there for a run? Having a daily reward, Cigelske claims, will help you stick with a daily running regiment by taking away the mental stress of agonizing over exercising or not and by compounding it with real, physical results (a friend of his lost 21 pounds while on a 131-day streak). And as the weather warms up and the layers come off, you might as well get ahead of the curve by creating good habits now. Accordingly, we nominate the Frankenmuth Hefeweizen Ale as the best choice for your post-run adult-Gatorade: With it’s refreshing, fruity taste and lightly hopped smoothness, it’s sure to motivate you to get out there and run!

(Hat tip to our friends at Guyism for their great article on Tim Cigelske)

As Michigan’s oldest brewhouse, Frankenmuth Brewery has been happy to serve the best local beer to all of our favorite mitten-state hopheads, sud suckers and beer connoisseurs over the past 150 years. We hope that you have loved our brew innovations as much as we have loved making them and sliding them across the bar to you.

If you’re looking for a special birthday present to give Frankenmuth Brewery on its 150th anniversary, we would be extremely pleased if you took a few minutes of your time and entered our business in the annual Hour Detroit’s 2012 Best of Detroit Ballot. We are hoping that you will enter the brewery in two categories that we believe have a great chance at winning. Under the “Food and Drink” header, there is a space to enter best “Microbrewery” and best “Locally made beer.” We believe Frankenmuth is amongst the best and hope that you will see it fit to put our name in the allotted space.

We appreciate all of your support over the years and are beyond pleased to have so many loyal members of the Frankenmuth Brewery family. Please take a few minutes from your busy schedule and vote for us as many times as you can. Thank you again for all the love and years of friendship.

Click on the following link to be taken to the Hour Detroit’s 2012 Best of Detroit Ballot.