My Fellow Inebriates,
Here’s your booze horoscope:
Aries, no more griping about lack of attention—all eyes are on you this week. You’ll meet tons of new friends, all of whom you’ll wear out within the week. Two romantic prospects will come and go, scared off by your morning vodka-and-watermelon-schnapps habit. From there the week will become considerably more sordid. Enjoy!
Taurus, it’s time to broadcast your worth. Your brain cells are pulling together this week, and you can best anyone in a debate. Throw off last week’s introversion and start a verbal brawl. Take your newfound aggression to work; coworkers will be stunned when you refuse to deal with your piles (whether paperwork or hemorrhoidal). If shyness is an initial barrier, that’s why they make Southern Comfort.
Love is in your stars this week, Gemini, so make sure you strut your thong-wearing self. Take your red-hot charisma to Walmart, meet new people, and trade fashion tips. When you’re riding high (and your pants are riding low), it’s safe to go to work with a headful of Blue Curacao, Midori melon liqueur, Malibu, and Captain Morgan. All will be forgiven!
Cancer, be cautious with romance this week. There are weird people out there, and you are just one of them. There are no “best” days for hitting on strangers, so put your focus on holiday planning or decorating, or just mix up a big jug of vodka, bourbon, and peach schnapps that you can pound at home.
Leo, the stars call for sexual turbulence (interpret that as you will) but not necessarily a solid romance. One hook-up in particular will leave you tingling for an unexpectedly long time—perhaps until mid-January. Is it love? Or does that tingle come courtesy of combining rum with Red Bull? Nope. That tingle will need antibiotics.
Although as a Virgo you’re known for acting very deliberately, this week you’ll be seized by bizarre compulsions. Lost for an explanation of your own behavior, you thrash between nature and nurture. Did your upbringing mess you up? Or is your brain misfiring? Or is a breakfast of Kahlua, creme de bananes, and Bailey’s to blame? Phone your parents and ask if you’re adopted.
Libra, you’ll slough off old habits this week and embrace new ways of thinking. This will affect your personal and professional activities and launch you into new opportunities. You’d be surprised how impressed your boss will be when you quit mixing Captain Morgan and Dr. Pepper at work. It’s hard to say how long this positive upswing will last, so don’t spend too much money. You’re on your boss’s radar now, and if you lapse, you might end up putting your stuff in a cardboard box.
Is your interest in other people genuine, Scorpio? Admit it! You are bored with people! You want to hole up at home and experiment with gin. Taking a break from socializing will replenish your energy and eventually renew your appetite for the social scene. Have you ever put an egg, two limes, some sugar, and a big honking bottle of gin in the blender? This would be a worthy experiment. You could tell stories about it next week when you start enjoying human company again.
Sagittarius, the romance/sex dichotomy presents itself, and you decide to jettison the former. (OMG, who saw that coming?) Good week for it too—you exude sensuality, but only for one week. Next week you will be nauseating! Don’t feel sad; it’s not innate—it’s what comes of slamming drink after drink of vodka, Midori, and Chambord, ralfing it all over the floor, and lying in it.
Professionalism takes a backseat, Capricorn, as you ramp up for holiday mode. Cut corners at work, fob projects off on colleagues, or just work on the Penske file. You’ll find everyone else is ready to be festive too. Go to the pub on the weekend and buy a round of gin cocktails. Charge it to your boss.
Aquarius, you have an emotional week on tap. One second you’ll be crying, the next laughing, the next freaking out and starting a bar fight. Settle down and write some poetry or arrange some flowers. You need to occupy yourself so you don’t end up with a black eye. Hollow out a pineapple and fill it with different kinds of schnapps.
Pisces, sober up or you’ll forget to play Secret Santa. Somebody will buy you a bottle of Mastika (how specific is that?…the stars are pretty much f#cking themselves on this prediction), and there you’ll be, looking like a douchebag, with nothing for your giftee. Even if you’re feeling cheap, a small item will do. What about some homemade moonshine? Or some flowers swiped from a neighbor’s yard?
When a rep from Stanley Park Brewery emailed me promo materials for its seasonal dark ale, I thought I was being punked. Because, if you ever wanted to transport a small bear from semi-hibernative winter depression to crazed Joyeux Noel by appealing to his “writer’s ego” and then dash his spirit by announcing it was a hoax, that’s how you’d do it.
So I was both awed and frightened by the email. But mostly manic—I was so excited that I replied to myself instead of to the rep. If I hadn’t cc’d my mum, who did manage to respond to Stanley Park Brewery, my blathered thanks would have gone nowhere except my own inbox. 😉
Several days of fretting ensued. Perhaps, I thought with increasing paranoia, my mother is in on the hoax.
But it was the real deal, my fellow inebriates. Yesterday afternoon I acquired a sixpack of STANLEY PARK BRUN, a Belgian-style winter ale crafted by Canada’s first “sustainably-focused brewery.”
It starts with a big-ass wind turbine that powers the brewery. While this is the primary way Stanley Park Brewing reduces its carbon footprint, the devil is in the details, and they’ve got those covered too:
If you think I’m singing the praises of Stanley Park Brewery because they invited me to review their beer, you’d be only partially right. You see, they sent a bunch of interesting marketing materials, which I gratefully read, and which made me all the more excited to sample the product. The super-efficient measures they’ve taken to produce STANLEY PARK BRUN, it turns out, also contribute to higher product purity by eliminating “off” flavors that hitchhike along with crushed husks, unwanted proteins (I’m thinking they mean bugs), and residual hop material.
Okay, so the marketing materials are pitched just right for this gullible little bear who fell in love with the courier driver simply because he had beer-related propaganda for me. I almost kissed him on the mouth, friends, and most human beings don’t like that.
Think Belgian-style ale, and you might expect orchard fruit, possibly over-ripe, with typical Belgian sour notes. Think brown ale, and you might expect uncomplicated sweetness. Think either, and you might expect more alcohol than 5.1%.
That accessible, approachable 5.1% is really my only quibble with STANLEY PARK BRUN. If a Belgian-style ale is going to occupy my fridge, I want to get hammered on it. But ultimately I was content with a warm buzz.
Moreover, the feared rotting fruit was not a factor. If anything, STANLEY PARK BRUN hints at fruit—and not sour cherries or pears that have been lying on the ground for a month, but nicely contained raisins and other dried-fruit flavors taking a subdued position behind nuts, cocoa, and warm bakery notes. At 18 IBU this beer is friendly—no hop-bullying here, just warm, well-balanced malt with a lovely dark-amber hue.
The effervescence was a surprise. Usually brown ales offer a little less fizz, but STANLEY PARK BRUN is sparky, a not unwelcome quality. It plays a bit of a trick in terms of mouthfeel, though, making the ale seem a little thinner than it actually is. After sitting in a glass for a while, the beer’s true texture reveals itself as a smooth, lingering palate-coater with interesting Belgian-style harmonics in the finish.
Maybe…just maybe. More to the point: I don’t usually call the shots when it comes to LBHQ beer purchasing. (Surprising, right?) They don’t allow bears in the liquor store, which means I rely on the kindness of my parents to buy beer, and sometimes they just trail around the liquor store and then walk out undecided (with nothing!). Stanley Park Brewery’s kind suggestion that they try its brown ale meant that, just for one day, I didn’t have to beg my parents to choose a beer. Just for one day, I could be an independent bear choosing a Belgian-style brown ale for us, and become the magnanimous pourer for my parents (who are allowed only one each). My immeasurable thanks goes to Stanley Park Brewery for salvaging my fragile ego and validating the whole LBHQ enterprise.
Liquorstore Bear 