beer

CUTTHROAT PALE ALE—Arrrr!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Ordinarily I’d say you can’t watch too much Star Trek, but then you have bears like my friend Scary, who’s logged at least 10,000 hours watching every Trek iteration in addition to Stargate, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Andromeda plus every single other sci-fi program that every got green-lit for production. You could say Scary got sucked into another reality.

Scary used to lead a charmed life. Before his humans had kids they used to go to work every day. They’d leave Scary watching the Space Channel on a 50-inch plasma all day. They didn’t want him to be bored.

Then they had kids and suddenly the TV fell under new orders: Elmo, Sesame Street and Barney took over the screen, leaving Scary to wallow in his sudden secondary status and his sci-fi withdrawal. Feeling neglected, he became bitter, resentful, jaded. He became a dick.

With only his science fiction memories, Scary retreated into a dark world of apocalyptic fantasy and excessive snacking.

I invited him to join me in sampling Tree Brewing’s CUTTHROAT PALE ALE with me but he was too busy watching YouTube videos consisting of open sky shot in people’s backyards with some distorted (sometimes obviously modulated) audio behind—i.e., the strange sounds of 2012 that have gone viral recently.

Luckily, the lovely Christine and my somewhat less lovely parents were there to open the CUTTHROAT bottles.

I’d recently tasted THIRSTY BEAVER AMBER ALE, a delightful but more mainstream offering from Tree Brewing, so I was buzzing with anticipation and the usual alcoholic jitters. I realized I didn’t miss Scary’s company; with his End-of-Days mentality and general paranoia, he’s not the sort of guy you should take along on any sort of mind-altering odyssey. Although in lots of ways I share his fascination with the apocalypse, I don’t think it’s going to swoop in on a seven-headed dragon the way he does. Plus there was more beer for me and the humans without him.

Poured into the glass, CUTTHROAT PALE ALE is golden orange with a foamy head that dissipates quickly. Right away the aroma is intriguing: malty and grassy with suggestions of caramel and buttered bread. So the actual first sip is disconcerting—instead of the mellow, malty flavor I’d expect from a pale ale, CUTTHROAT jabs you with hops and an aggressive carbonation level that actually challenges the palate to reconcile its one-two-punchiness with the delectably gentle malt promised to the nose.

It’s kind of fisty that way really. Everything olfactory tells you you’re in for a soft, caramel-tinged sipper, and then CUTTHROAT yanks your arm up behind your back and says very threateningly, “Bend over!”

Because it’s really much more of a bitter than a pale ale. The hoppy profile would appeal tremendously to IPA fans as well as classic bitter drinkers. After a quick adjustment of expectations the hops are in fact delightfully clean and fresh, not to mention perfectly appropriate for the fizz level.

The finish is very dry and long. At first my impression was OMG, what was that? but halfway through the bottle I was smitten with CUTTHROAT and couldn’t possibly begrudge its take-no-prisoners assault on my tastebuds. It’s a fantastically violent beer that, in all honesty, Scary probably couldn’t have handled.

As Christine said approvingly, “It is called CUTTHROAT, after all.”

SMITHWICK’S ALE—What to buy with that government cheque

My Fellow Inebriates,

It came completely as news to me today that the Canadian government does not and has never had any plans to subsidize my drinking.

My parents were characteristically insensitive about the whole thing.


I was talking about the hundred bucks per child my mum gets each month in the mail. Little did I know, the money in question represents not a small beer fund provided to keep Canadians happy, but in fact the government’s laughable and deliberately blinkered estimate of what monthly child care might cost. The $100-per-child benefit is sent to all Canadian families with a child under 6, to help them “balance work and family life by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support.”

As of January, the cheque has been halved because only one of the kids is under 6.

I just assumed the money was for beer because such a paltry sum couldn’t make more than a 15% dent in child care costs. I figured most parents received the cheque, snickered at it, snickered at the government, then cashed it and headed for the liquor store.

Okay, so it would be a bit of a departure from the norm if my mum took the cheque and bought, say, eight six-packs of SMITHWICK’S ALE. But even if she were willing—how sad it is that, thanks to Miss P attaining 6 years of age, it would cover only eight and not sixteen half-sacks!

My dad has enjoyed SMITHWICK’S for years, although he occasionally opts for GUINNESS instead. My mum doesn’t mind it, and probably gives it a bit more allegiance than it deserves because she has some Irish genes, but finds it less interesting than other ales and a bit too hop-forward than it needs to be.

As you can guess, I love SMITHWICK’S. It pours a nice rich amber with lovely foam and a slightly earthy but mostly malty aroma. On the palate it is crisp and refreshing with a longish, hoppy finish. It’s a bit of a cross-over between a lager and an ale, which makes it perfect all year—refreshing in summer but heavy enough for fireside imbibing in winter.

Once you’ve been drinking SMITHWICK’S for a while, its lingering bittersweetness becomes an acquired taste. It’s true—we’ve had SMITHWICK’S more than any other beer in the house over the years and I do find myself desiring its refreshing hoppiness every single day.

I was only joking when I suggested 6-year-old Miss P should earn some money. She doesn’t even really like doing her homework, and is otherwise such an absurdly happy kid that I wouldn’t want to introduce her to the wicked work force too soon. That and the fact that they don’t hire kids to sweep chimneys any more…because to do so would be demonstrably more archaic than supposing that $100 can buy anything meaningful in the way of child care.

But I do think my mum should get cracking and find a way to replace Miss P’s monthly $100 government largesse so we can stay properly hammered while we’re helping her with her homework.

SLEEMAN FINE PORTER—Don’t forget to sip and enjoy (unless you’re an alcoholic)…ARE you an alcoholic?

My Fellow Inebriates,

I found an old blog I started months ago and forgot about because I was drunk at the time.

It was a Blogger blog. I’d filled out my profile information and some preferences, uploaded a background and selected some fonts, then abandoned the thing, presumably because we’d bought some gin or something.

If I hadn’t accidentally visited Dan Lacey’s Blogger blog, I’d never have remembered.

It worried me how completely the memory of starting a Blogger blog had vanished. Easy to forget, too—its stats showed one visitor in the past three months, two in its entire lifetime.

Now, you’re probably thinking this is a sign of advanced alcoholism, and you may be right. But OMG, what if it’s another kind of dementia? How would I know the difference?

Turns out it’s pretty hard to tell the difference. Common symptoms of both:

    • Memory loss
    • Difficulty performing familiar tasks
    • Impaired judgment
    • Language problems
    • Personality changes

I totally have memory problems. For instance, I almost forgot to mention the SLEEMAN FINE PORTER I tried over the holidays. SLEEMAN is a bit of a go-to at our house; during summer we buy the HONEY LAGER quite often because it has more body than a typical lager while still being crisp and refreshing. Safe to say: SLEEMAN would have some know-how about producing a porter.

Pouring it into a glass was difficult despite the familiarity of the task. These little paws of mine are no match for even twist-off convenience, lacking as they do any muscular or skeletal construction. Intelligent design, my furry ass! I should have been constructed with an opener built into my paw, but then I’d be such a robotic mutant that I’d freak myself out. Luckily my dad finally opened a bottle.

In the glass SLEEMAN FINE PORTER is a beautiful dark mahogany with a pillowy-soft layer of inviting foam. The smell is faintly nutty with detectable chocolate and caramel—not aggressively aromatic and in my judgment—the same judgment that prompted me to release my own porn video—just right.

Moderate carbonation makes this porter unlike the British cousins it’s partially aspiring to imitate; the crispness is a savvy move on the part of SLEEMAN and their best bet in terms of capturing mainstream market popularity. This brew will probably turn off ardent purists, but they probably don’t drive the SLEEMAN market anyway. I like the way the fizz balances against the bread-and-chocolate background flavors, mitigating the expected heavy creaminess, highlighting the hops, and settling down into a satisfying, long finish with just the right hint of bitterness.

After consuming an abundance of SLEEMAN FINE PORTER I certainly struggled with language problems, so I’ll borrow my dad’s pronouncement: “probably the best beer SLEEMAN makes.” But then his personality changed (OMG!) and he denied me another bottle. And then my personality changed, and I called him a dick.

It all feels a bit demented—but in an elderly way, a neurologically-impaired sort of way, or an alcoholic way?

There’s plenty of overlap between diagnoses, but luckily medical experts are on the job. In fact, recent studies show that brain impairment differs among alcoholics from that exhibited by Alzheimer’s patients.

One recent study compared 39 elderly detoxified alcoholics with 9 Alzheimer’s patients and 15 control subjects. I’d have liked to have been a fly on that wall, or even played bartender, but apparently it was all business. The subjects with alcohol-related dementia showed different types of impairment from the other groups, the former group specifically challenged by fine motor control, initial letter fluency and free recall. As you can imagine, these skill deficits make it awfully hard to write a coherent booze review, so my apologies.

Curious whether you’re an alcoholic? If you suspect you are, there are plenty of tests to help you confirm it. Go on, find out! In fact, here’s the Johns Hopkins University Test for Alcoholism. Add up your answers! And send me your comments 😉

Please answer yes or no to each question.

  1. Do you lose time from work due to drinking?     Y     N
  2. Is drinking making your home life unhappy?     Y     N
  3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people?     Y     N
  4. Is drinking affecting your reputation?     Y     N
  5. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?     Y     N
  6. Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your drinking?     Y     N
  7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking?     Y     N
  8. Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?     Y     N
  9. Has your ambition decreased since drinking?     Y     N
  10. Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?     Y     N
  11. Do you want a drink the next morning?     Y     N
  12. Does your drinking cause you to have difficulties in sleeping?     Y     N
  13. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?     Y     N
  14. Is your drinking jeopardizing your job or business?     Y     N
  15. Do you drink to escape from worries or troubles?     Y     N
  16. Do you drink alone?     Y     N
  17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory?     Y     N
  18. Has your physician ever treated you for drinking?     Y     N
  19. Do you drink to build your self-confidence?     Y     N
  20. Have you ever been in a hospital or institution on account of drinking?     Y     N

Results

YES answers:

3—indicates a probable drinking problem.

4-7—indicates early-stage alcoholism.

7-10—indicates middle-stage alcoholism.

10+—indicates end-stage alcoholism.

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How did you score? I got a 5! That means there’s plenty of fun left 😉