lager

WHISTLER BREWING COMPANY BEAR PAW HONEY LAGER—Unembarrassing, even if it won’t put hair on your chest

My dad has stopped tucking me in at night.

Now wait, you say. How many adult males tuck little bears into bed at night? Well, my dad for one. At least until last week.

Waiting to be tucked in

I wouldn’t be worried if he hadn’t omitted to do it four nights in a row. One’s not atypical; sometimes he falls asleep on the couch and then drags himself into bed without remembering. I get that. But four nights in a row? WTF, Dad??

So what difference does it make? you well may ask.

On lucky nights I’m too looped to notice. Other nights we’ve just watched something on TV—maybe a crystal meth dealer’s body being liquefied in an acid bath or some similar violent shit—in which case I stare at the wall all night afterwards, traumatized.

Up until last week, my dad used to get me settled for bed with the other bears he likes (plus Fluffy, who’s somehow gotten himself included). He used to make sure we were all comfortable and not too squished, then he’d put a blanket over us.

I’M NOT SAYING HE SINGS ME A LULLABY OR ANYTHING. HE DOESN’T FEEL MY FOREHEAD OR CHECK TO MAKE SURE MY NOSE IS MOIST. HE JUST USED TO TUCK ME IN!!

So what the hell, Dad?

Maybe running his own business lent itself to the sort of maverick mentality that says, I do what I want. Sure I tuck bears into bed—what’s it to you, mofo? And now he’s got this new corporate gig, he’s probably more like, I model and demonstrate best practices to help build accountability. His new coworkers play golf and video games while talking about their stereos.

Perhaps my dad is reassessing the machismo of tucking bears into bed.

But does this mean we’ll be buying more beer? I certainly hope so, and I’d be willing to trade my beddy-byes ritual for an extra case here and there. Perhaps another Whistler Brewing Company Travel Pack would be sufficiently manly for my dad. The four beers it contains are pretty mainstream (PARADISE VALLEY GRAPEFRUIT ALE being the one weird but good exception) and, while none of them will put a clump of hair on your chest, the collection is solid.

Naturally the BEAR PAW HONEY LAGER has extra appeal. Beer and organic honey make a win-win combo, even if their synergy occurs at only 5% alcohol.

The lager pours a crystal-clear copper with light foam that quickly dissipates. Honey is immediately apparent to the nose along with breadiness and faint hops. Taste follows smell without much surprise, supplying the expected honey along with some caramel notes and minimal hoppiness.

With a light-to-medium mouthfeel and reasonable carbonation, BEAR PAW HONEY LAGER is moderately refreshing but perhaps too sweet to pound endlessly (although I would without complaining). It has an unexpectedly long and dry finish, especially given its tendency to cloy at the front of the palate.

This would be an easy beer to disparage as too commonplace. It’s true the market is inundated with honey brews, but only because honey is such a delightful note to find in one’s beer. I’ve certainly experienced better versions of honey lager, but this one’s not bad at all. It’s certainly nothing for Whistler Brewing Company to be embarrassed of—not that anyone should be embarrassed of anything. Including my dad.

OK SPRING 1516 BAVARIAN LAGER—Fantasy beer for the shackled

I spent the afternoon somewhat compromised.

Abandoned like a piece of prey to be carved up later, I had only positive thoughts to sustain me.

At first I tried to remember the most sublime alcoholic product I’d ever had, but then it occurred to me that I wouldn’t want to create a permanent association between my pre-K torture and say, some fantastically mind-blowing whisky. Plus I was thirsty. So I focused my thoughts on something refreshing but average.

A couple of months ago we bought an Okanagan Spring sampler pack. Of the four beers it included I forgot to review one, which came raging back into memory as I lay shackled by a hair bauble: 1516 BAVARIAN LAGER, brewed to commemorate Duke Wilmhelm IV’s 1516 declaration of the Bavarian Purity Law, or Reinheitsgebot.

Okanagan Spring’s 1516 BAVARIAN LAGER conforms to this historic law, being constituted of nothing but barley, hops, yeast, and water. (Which makes me wonder what the other beers in the OK Spring line-up contain.) Clear straw-yellow with a full paw of foam, it gives off a hayfield aroma—slightly malty and lightly hoppy without any attention-grabbing characteristics.

On the palate 1516 BAVARIAN LAGER follows through with uncomplicated hoppiness and malt plus snappy carbonation. Crisp and light, it’s definitely a summer player—a beer you’d pound quickly from a paper bag at the beach, for instance, before it warmed up and became less palatable (or before the cops arrived and seized your cooler). 1516 BAVARIAN LAGER is a decent, serviceable lager, but not particularly memorable, although it could be if you were in an extended hostage situation and overwhelmed by thirst.

MOLSON CANADIAN—Drink if you’re hot, thirsty, or wearing a mullet

My Fellow Inebriates,

Ever since an old derelict outside Superstore tried to bless the kids and then damned the whole family to hell when my mum wouldn’t let him, the Langley township itself has been on her shitlist, as though its very geography is a magnet for religious mania, something she suspects abounds at the local elementary school.

So when Miss V’s teacher started waving packets of Kool-Aid around this morning, my mother wasn’t impressed. She didn’t have the energy to thwart a Canadian Jonestown so early in the morning, nor did she want her stupid-looking hair to end up on TV.

But before you could say “Hallelujah,” Miss V’s teacher was mixing that Kool-Aid (not even cherry, but lemon) into a batch of homemade play dough. Yes indeed, if you’re tired of shelling out for actual Play-Doh, you can make your own with just a few ingredients:

KOOL-AID PLAYDOUGH

    • 1 cup flour
    • ½ cup salt
    • 2 tsp cream of tartar
    • 1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid, any flavor
    • 1 tbsp cooking oil
    • 1 cup boiling water

Combine dry ingredients. Add oil and boiling water. Mix with a spoon. As soon as the mixture is cool enough, knead together with your non-furry, opposably thumbed hands. Store in airtight container.

Fifteen minutes later the kids were sculpting lemon-scented masterpieces, including this handsome sculpture of yours truly.

OMG, what the hell is that little piece over there supposed to be?

Not content with mere verisimilitude, Miss V insisted on adding a long braid to the bear. She was thinking Rapunzel, although you might think mullet.

If she’d meant mullet she would have been reading my mind, because while she and Mum were sculpting, I was waking to memories of MOLSON CANADIAN.

The MOLSON CANADIAN bottle had come from next door (not the next-door neighbors who hate us, but the normal people on the other side). They don’t wear mullets, but last night they were going to wall-mount some speakers with the wires dangling visibly down the wall, which is pretty much the same thing. When they tried to borrow a tool from my dad, he rushed over to help them hide their unsightly wires and returned with a MOLSON CANADIAN.

The neighbors hadn’t asked for my dad’s help, but he is obsessive about visible wires in other people’s houses. (Our own house, which is festooned with wires and littered with teeny tiny bolts/screws/unidentifiables, is another matter and does not fall within my dad’s OCD radar.) Having recently shut down his home theater business, which had involved a lot of hands-on installation, my dad must have been itching to make holes in the neighbors’ wall, because he practically bounded next door to help. And lucky for him, they were breaking out the MOLSON CANADIAN.

This is a lager that reminds me of hockey and parking lots and camping. It’s a nostalgic brew for a lot of Canadians who started drinking beer before macrobreweries came into force. Wan and straw-colored with a quickly dissipating head, CANADIAN gives off a signature macro-brew graininess—corn, white bread, no-name toaster waffles and minimal malt. The first taste is crisp, thin, and refreshingly fizzy if cold, but the beer grows less charming as it warms.

The clock is a real enemy to MOLSON CANADIAN; with each half-degree the beer rises, it becomes less palatable and more metallic. But—importantly—this beer is inoffensive when cold. If you’re really thirsty, a CANADIAN from an ice-filled cooler is like liquid manna in the dessert, replete with the requisite breadiness. My dad didn’t turn it down after he’d finished fixing up the neighbors’ system, and he didn’t bitch about it either.

And needless to say, MOLSON CANADIAN beats the crap out of lemon Kool-Aid.