beer

HUMP! 2012 and its least sexy entry

My Fellow Inebriates,

In last week’s Savage Love column, Dan Savage exhorted readers to submit their entries (pardon the pun) for the annual HUMP! amateur porn contest.

Needless to say, the prospect of $5,000 is pretty compelling. With $5,000 we could buy over 200 cases of beer, which would help me forget the way my parents went to a pub without me two nights ago.

Even though I don’t own a sweater-vest; even though Dolly and I are engaging in hetero-bestiality; and even though we didn’t think to get some packing peanuts from my dad’s massive collection in the garage (my ass is full of walnut shells; does that count?)—despite these shortcomings we have two videos for HUMP!’s consideration. Which one should we submit?

This was our first effort:

 

And then (understandably) Dolly took charge, which led to this:

 

And as you all know, Dolly is done with me. But I don’t think she’ll really be mad if I submit our videos to HUMP!, do you? The question is which one?

 

 

The first chance in seven years to go to a pub…

Last night my parents visited the Town Hall Public House.

I had no idea. They never go to pubs. In the seven-odd years since they pooled their DNA, they have never once gone to a pub. But this week their little spawns P and V went off to Victoria to visit Nana and Papa, so they had a “date night.”

I should have known they would act on their temporary childlessness. I mean, Scary and I both know the house changes a bit with the kids away. We know, for instance, not to be anywhere near the bathroom lest we catch one of those eye-searing glimpses of my dad naked. And the bedroom? ‘Nuff said. The last apparition any of us bears wants to see is that of my parents reveling in “alone time.”

But a pub?? OMG, I had no idea they’d go to a pub. I thought, if they ever did, they would at least take me along. I could have ridden in a purse like Scary did when they went to see Avatar.

The Town Hall Public House is a gorgeous establishment with massive antique chapel doors, an imported English fireplace, and a thick, polished bar made from an old church pulpit. Flat-screen TVs shed a comfy light on solid wood tables with comfy leather stools. There are over a dozen beers on tap, including INNIS & GUNN, which I smelled on my parents when they returned last night, plus a generous array of craft beers and unusual wines. I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO GO THERE, PEOPLE!!!

I feel…

I can’t see the computer screen; my tears are blurring the page.

WHITE BARK Wheat Ale—The start of a good party

My Fellow Inebriates,

This morning, in a moment of disloyalty, I tried to stow away in Christine’s fabulous canvas bag. Yes, Christine had arrived the night before bearing wheat ale, red wine, and—treasure of treasures—Glenmorangie 18.

We kicked things off with the wheat ale. WHITE BARK is a traditional Belgian-style ale brewed by BC’s Driftwood Brewery. Intended to be cloudy, WHITE BARK pours a hazy golden hue with a fine off-white foam that settles down quickly. It announces itself to the olfactory centre with a wheat-borne flood of coriander, clove, and citrus notes—in some aspects (perhaps I have gin on the brain) channeling Bombay Sapphire down to the very bottle, which sports a similar vertical row of tasting-note glyphs.

As we inhaled WHITE BARK we noted a strong yeasty backbone, which played out on the palate along with Belgian-style fruitiness and malt. Refreshing at ice-cold temperature, the ale became slightly cloying as it warmed and the flavors cut loose. The carbonation was prickly and pointy, urging WHITE BARK toward mainstream Pop Rocks quaffability even as the intriguing fruit notes insisted that no, it was not in any sense an ordinary beer.

And it wasn’t. But you have to really like wheat beer to appreciate an ale like WHITE BARK. It’s crisp and dry but still belongs unmistakably to the fruity-yeasty-wheaty camp. There’s a lot going on in it—sort of like a party that splits off into several factions, one of which decides to chuck a seven-foot cactus off the roof into the pool while the rest continue their obliviously sedate conversations. Which is to say I liked it, although I might not buy it again immediately.

And that was when I noticed, one of the compartments contained not booze but paper towels. Paper towels!!

Finishing the WHITE BARK bottle left a compartment empty in Christine’s canvas bag. (We didn’t get to the red wine, although some other, magnificent booze was shared.) When I peeled myself off the counter this morning, the first thing I saw was that empty space—just roomy enough for a little bear. So I climbed in.

And then I started to worry. My initial thought had been: Every time Christine comes over, she brings tons of booze! But my worry was this: If Christine has tons of booze, it’s because she saves it, and that means she doesn’t drink it very often. OMG!!!

At that moment my mum found me and helped me out of the bag. She said I had a blog to write, and some cheap crap to drink later—hooch so cheap we can drink it every day.

I’m right where I belong. (But Christine is welcome to come and live with us.)