Broke Ass Stuart is a very cheeky and well-dressed young man who evangelizes the practice of being young, broke and beautiful to throngs of frugal twenty-somethings on both coasts, primarily New York City and our dear Baghdad by the Bay.

Last Friday night he graciously hosted the raucous and boozy 5th Annual BAS Pub Crawl. It takes place on a tricked out school bus stocked with PBR and makes four mystery stops, where attendees spill out of the bus to “ransack local bars.” The bus has an ipod hook-up, dance floor and runs on bio-fuel, but I climbed into a completely obscene limo with other members of the press and VIPs, including some very amusing contest ticket winners. I was lucky enough to sneak a peek at the top-secret destination list as we set out, but I will admit to a moment of near-panic when we drove so far up Mission Street that we turned onto Geneva! Thank goodness I had the good sense to water myself and limo-mates down with impromptu vodka tonics on the ride up.

First stop, The Broken Record, a wonderful dive with a cheap-but-fancy menu to die for. Hilariously enough, the bartender misheard my order for a Bulleit sidecar and made me a classic (and tasty) version with a shot of my choice of bourbon on the side. Booze is booze! Not a drop was wasted, never fear.

From the kitchen, I was torn between the bacon-cornbread crusted mac ‘n cheese ($5) and the duck confit potato skins with truffled butter and Gruyere ($8), but picked the former, as well as an order of warm, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk (only $2). BAS bustled us all out of the bar before I got to dessert, so I transfered my milk to a champagne flute on the limo and shared bits of the cookies with fellow passengers.

There’s much, much more but I’d be hunted down and tortured if I printed it, so I’ll leave the rest to your imaginations. I will say that our next stop at the Castro’s Pilsner Inn, which boasts an extensive draft beer selection chilled by a cutting-edge system that brings the lines to a frosty 31 degrees, was pretty amazing. I can’t imagine what the regulars thought of being taken over temporarily by a busload of enthusiastic drinkers, but I hope they won’t hold it against us!

All told, I was completely won over by how well organized the event was and how friendly and warm the participants were. If I were you, I wouldn’t even think about missing it next year! A little birdie told me that it might become a biannual affair, so keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I hope to see a ton of BAS fans and followers at our Issue No. 4 party tonight!