News Photo by Mike Gonzalez A group of workers from Lucky D’s in Atlanta celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day at Bogart’s Tavern on Werth Road. Residents across Northeast Michigan celebrated St. Patrick’s Day like most people would: at the bar with a green beer in their hand.

ALPENA — Residents across Northeast Michigan celebrated St. Patrick’s Day like most people would: at the bar with a green beer in their hand.

Most bars in the Northeast Michigan region also celebrated with customers by putting food coloring in beers and holding special evenings filled with musical entertainment, corned beef and cabbage dinners, and lots of green shamrocks scattered across each venue.

Some of the traditions hold to Irish origins, such as the shamrock, which, according to history.com, was a sacred plant in ancient Ireland that symbolized the rebirth of spring.

Most of the traditions, however, originated from the United States.

Cabbage was a common food in Irish citizen’s diets, but corned beef became a common delicacy for Irish immigrants living in New York City in the early 1900s.

A pub in Alpena that held festivities for St. Patrick’s Day not only had plenty of corned beef but went as far as to change the type of pub it was for the weekend.

The Black Sheep, an English pub turned into an Irish pub for the weekend, hoisted an Irish flag in front of the location on 2nd Avenue, fired up some corned beef early in the morning, put some Guinness on draft, and hosted some local performers such as Doug Haines and the Birch Roads String Band to play some Irish tunes.

“We’ve been doing this for 14 years, and (Saturday night) we had St. Francis Day for the younger people, but we only serve our corned beef and cabbage dinner the day of St. Patrick’s Day,” Kris Conger, co-owner of The Black Sheep, said. “But (today), if we have some leftovers, we’ll serve that for lunch. The meat, we shave and use for our Reubens anyway, but stuff like the vegetables we donate to soup kitchens.”

Many of the patrons at The Black Sheep wore green, but at the end of the bar sat a man in a bright green sports jersey, clinking a pint of Guinness with a few friends.

His name is Declan Higgins, a man who came to the U.S. from Ireland 12 years ago. When asked what he likes to do for the day, he said, “That’s super easy — drink pints of Guinness.”

“I usually have a party at my house every year,” Higgins said. “But this year, my wife and kids are out of town so I thought I’d go hang out with a few friends.”

The Black Sheep was not the only bar around Alpena that served a corned beef and cabbage dinner and green beer, as both Player’s Pub and Grub and Bogart’s Tavern served similar menus for the holiday.

Green beer, according to foodandwine.com, had its origin in New York, as well, when Dr. Thomas Curtin, a coroner’s physician and eye surgeon, put a drop of blue dye into a large amount of beer for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1914, turning the yellow drink green.

Now, the traditions many celebrate as Irish culture have become so ingrained in the day’s festivities, that it’s no longer St. Patrick’s Day without it.

“Last year, on St. Patrick’s Day, was super busy — one of our busiest days here — so the owners really prepared for this year,” Laura Currier, a worker at Player’s Pub and Grub, said. “We’re doing a lot of corned beef Reubens and pints of green beer.”

Because St. Patrick’s Day was on a Sunday, Bogart’s Tavern started the festivities early on Saturday, featuring karaoke, jello shots, green beer, and more.

“It’s always very busy,” Mary Stosick, a worker at Bogart’s Tavern, said. “It’s a very, very big party here, and (Saturday night) we had a lot of people. It was probably about as big as New Year’s Eve.”