LB is on the road

My Fellow Inebriates,

We are on the road. This is very dire, actually, because the trip from LBHQ to my Nana & Papa’s place requires a lot of driving, and this of course means no alcohol.

Now, maybe I’m naive, but I figured as soon as we boarded the ferry we could start the party. Surely there must be a fabulous bar aboard the ludicrously named Coastal Celebration?

Well. You, being smarter than a bear, will have guessed the answer is no. BC Ferries is part of the BC Highway system. This means you can’t get blasted on the ferry, then burn off the ramp into Victoria with a headful of Bloody Marys.

When I think of this I’m actually filled with admiration for the government of British Columbia. Because I would have forgotten that, after the awesome ferry ride (which wasn’t awesome because Scary and I had to remain on the vehicle deck—”Bears are too scary for the general public,” said my dad), there was a whole other leg of driving to do on the way to our next destination:

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Butchart Gardens

Score another one for BC Highways. You really wouldn’t want to stumble into something like Butchart Gardens and its megawatt Christmas display while wrecked out of your head. Nana & Papa treated the family to a tour. The object was to find all the items from the Twelve Days of Christmas, from a partridge in a pear tree to the twelve drummers. Okay, if you weren’t the designated driver, you could probably handle it drunk, but Butchart Gardens is vast. It takes a good two hours to really see everything. You’d certainly have to pee, and you wouldn’t want to be the jerk relieving yourself against the maids-a-milking.

NOT THAT LB GOT TO ENJOY THIS!! Once again, Scary and I were confined to the car. “Bears are just too frightening for the general public,” said my parents again, which started to make me suspicious.

After Butchart Gardens…the ride to Nana & Papa’s house in Mill Bay. OMG! A half hour’s drive, and we could break out the wine! But it was not to be, my fellow inebriates. A rockslide had occurred on the Malahat Highway, closing off a lane to traffic. We sat for two freaking hours with the kids going apeshit in their car seats. We listened to “Call Me Maybe” and “Party Rock Anthem” twenty times each. We ate a giant box of SweeTarts instead of dinner, which took the linings off our tongues.

The kids passed out from exhaustion (which was good). Finally traffic moved. At last we arrived. A bottle of COPPER MOON was opened (review coming), and even though the SweeTarts had seared all our tastebuds off, we enjoyed it.

And guess what’s sitting under Nana & Papa’s Christmas tree? A little box labelled “LB.”

And guess what else??

It sloshes. 🙂

Safe from the Apocalypse (I mean, maybe, I don’t know, we’re going to bed…)

Said Scarybear as one time zone after another safely squeaked out of December 21, “Yeah, well, I didn’t really believe the End of Days was coming. I was just worried some freak would turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone constantly writing about it perhaps. Someone misquoting me.”

“So if it happens in the next few hours, you’re gonna put that on me?”

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“Yeah. Weirdo.”

“Oh. So I guess I’d better get working on a horoscope, since there’s actually going to be a next week.”

“Nah. Sleep it off, buddy. Your horoscopes suck.”

“Damn it, Scary, I’m still going to write it. Tomorrow.”

 

 

STORM WATCHER—The last drink before Armageddon?

My Fellow Inebriates,

If you’re like me (and I hope for your sake you’re not) you must be wondering exactly how the Apocalypse will come, as well as the exact moment. New Zealand chimed in earlier to say it had made it to December 21, but that was 12:01 a.m.—a little optimistic if you ask Scarybear, who will no doubt maintain his apocalypticity until Pago Pago has crossed into the safety of December 22.

Which happens to be Miss P’s seventh birthday. Note that Scary did not advise against making a cake, which throws his confidence in global annihilation into question. For if we were going to blink into non-existence on the 21st, surely it would be torture to observe the cake’s preparation knowing you’d never get your greedy paws on it.

“But the cake will be in the fridge. The fridge is the safest place,” Scary insists. “Didn’t you see Indiana Jones when he survived a nuclear bomb blast by getting inside one?”

Note Scary says “Indiana Jones.” Not “the character Harrison Ford plays.” Indiana Jones.

scary 2Scary has always struggled to separate action and sci-fi characters from the actors who portray them. Throughout his pre-literate years, Scary believed in Jean-Luc Picard, Jack O’Neill, Seven-of-Nine, Morpheus and Agent Smith, Han Solo, Sarah Connor, and RoboCop. Only when challenged by the subtitles in Heroes did he become literate, read the end credits on his shows, and reluctantly admit the possibility that these were characters. And even now, he forgets. He sees continuity between Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in Angel, then wonders why Angel switched jobs for Bones. So of course the “nuke the fridge” scene in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems fully plausible to him.

Okay, well, it might work if you had a lead-lined fridge rather than the cheap piece of shit that came with our house. But what about the beer in the fridge? OMG! The bottles would shatter. And that’s why we have to finish our supply of STORM WATCHER WINTER LAGER.

storm watcherVancouver Island Brewery isn’t renowned for departing from mainstream flavor. While its winter offering can be found in the Craft Beer section of our local booze shop, it differentiates itself from macro beer mainly by location and scale—not with oddball tasting notes or niche beers. (For a great dissection of “craft versus macro” and whether it matters, check out beerbecue.) Vancouver Island Brewery has often tended to be very “safe,” and while it’s expanded somewhat into beer-nerd territory, its winter lager is a fairly predictable offering. Which isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes you just don’t need a surprise. Especially on Apocalypse Eve.

The color is reddish amber with minimal head and patchy lacing. On the nose there’s… well, beer aromas—slightly sweet and malty, but not much going on.

STORM WATCHER hits the palate with a wash of…beer. Decent beer. There’s some toffee sweetness and a pat of honey; moderate hops, carbonation, and mouthfeel; and a friendly, lingering finish. It’s pretty good, but not a stand-out. There’s nothing to wonder about, no odd flavors you can’t place—just nicely harmonized hops and caramel malt. Overall: yummy enough.

But do we want this to be our last drink ever?

Huh. Not really. But the alternative is to dig the Canadian Cream* out from the back of the fridge and put it through a strainer to get rid of some unexpected curds—the very sort of pre-Apocalypse surprise I didn’t want.

So much for my teats. (Actually, I don't think the lumps are curds; they're more like lumps of cream that separated because my mum decided to use organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cream.)

So much for my teats. 

And the last word goes to Scary: “You should buy cans, weirdo. And put them in the fridge right away.”

 

 

*If you decide to make your own Canadian Cream, make sure you use homogenized whipping cream 😉