oak aged beer

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.

HARVIESTOUN OLA DUBH—ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

My Fellow Inebriates,

I was shattered when Christine left our house this morning. By which I mean, when I woke up hours after she’d gone and realized the fact, I felt betrayed. Not by Christine, who can do no wrong. (Christine arrived at our house yesterday afternoon with her special canvas bag containing two fine whiskies, two unique craft beers, and an outstanding Shiraz she’d been cellaring since 2003.) Christine is beyond reproach.

But I felt sort of let down by my parents, who didn’t bother to shake me awake to say good-bye. I actually meant to stow away with Christine this morning in the canvas bag. Although it was still occupied by two bottles of Scotch, it had a compartment I could have slipped into if I weren’t comatose at the time of her departure. Evidently my parents couldn’t entertain Christine until I finished sleeping off last night’s alcohol; I didn’t even get a chance to pant after her booze or press my nose against the window.

Why are my parents so boring? I can’t imagine why anyone visits them at all. What a testament to their dullness that any visitors they do get must bring alcohol to make the visit tolerable. (Come to think of it…well, it’s kind of a wash. If my parents were more interesting they would get more visitors, but the visitors wouldn’t need to get hammered to endure their company.) But still, last night was pretty cool.

First out of the canvas bag was HARVIESTOUN OLA DUBH SPECIAL RESERVE (18). Translated as “black oil,” OLA DUBH is so named for its “gloopy and viscous” mouthfeel. It is “the first ale to be aged in malt whisky casks from a named distillery and, with traceable casks and numbered bottles, the first with genuine provenance.” Christine found this 8% brew at a specialty liquor store in Olympic Village where it commanded $8 for its Highland Park–cask aging. Short glasses seemed fitting, so the humans poured it three ways (I gadded about between the three glasses, ending up with the lion’s share).

“Black oil” is not a misnomer. In the glass OLA DUBH is thick, oily, and darker than Coca Cola. Harviestoun compares its appearance to that of “used motor oil,” but I don’t know of any automotive waste that exudes such symphonic waves of dark chocolate, espresso, sherry, and peat. This breathtaking aroma is but a prelude to an exquisite cascade of malty, smoky, leathery toffee-tinged gloriousness—enveloping the palate and winding up with a soulfully bitter cocoa finish. Prickling the tongue with gentle carbonation, OLA DUBH is a rhapsodic hybrid of whisky and beer, warming and mellow yet curiously tingly on the palate. Sweeter than a stout and infinitely more complex, OLA DUBH wrenches a forbidden word from even the most hardened and obdurate taster—the taster who has sworn never to utter the word—yes, against his will and without resistance, my dad said it: OLA DUBH is sessionable.

Because if you could—if you possibly could—you would want to draw your experience with OLA DUBH out over several hours. With its glass-clinging, massive body and absolutely subjugating intensity, this beer takes over your mind; it controls you; it OWNS you.

After everyone drank their two fingers of OLA DUBH, there was no way we could immediately sample another beer. It wouldn’t have been fair. So everyone sipped Carmenere while my mother concocted one of her meals seemingly designed to bother and disconcert everyone’s palate, and together those incongruous new tastes helped arrest everyone’s pining for the OLA DUBH.

In all honesty—although this may be the sort of creeping determinism my furry head cooked up to cope with the emptiness of the OLA DUBH bottle—I doubt you could drink such a viscous beer all evening. At least humans probably wouldn’t want to. But we bears have some crazy stomach enzymes. 😉

INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER—Mass quantities wanted

My Fellow Inebriates,

Our whole family sucks at bookkeeping, so tax time is a real slog. Just recently my dad collapsed his decade-old business to go over to the corporate dark side, which is great for predictability and creating a beer budget, but leaves him with the task of tying off loose ends. We have a jumble of paperwork to organize if we truly want to give all the nuttiness of self-employment the heave-ho. As we go through our business-related assets we’re flipping a bunch of them face-down like Monopoly properties, which is depressing yet liberating.

At least for my parents. For me there’s a bottom line hanging at the end of all this nasty mathematics. What’s our booze budget going to be?

Based on 2008 figures, the average Canadian household spends 1.8% of its income on alcohol (in the U.S.it’s 1% because prices are lower and there’s less excise tax).

THIS DOESN’T SEEM LIKE VERY MUCH!

Consider this breakdown for Canadian and U.S.households:

Source: Statistics Canada

Wow! There must be some areas we can trim and/or reallocate to the alcohol category.

  • I can’t do anything about housing or the car, but maybe we can choose our food more carefully. Arguably Guinness is a food. Let’s commit to having Guinness at every meal and thereby reallocate 4%.
  • What about recreation/entertainment? What do they consider alcohol if not that? We should lump alcohol with recreation/entertainment. It’s not like we do anything entertaining anyway. We don’t even go to the movies. Let’s borrow 5% or so from recreation/entertainment for alcohol. That puts us up to 10.8%.
  • As for clothing, I’m happy to remain naked, but the thought of my parents strolling around the house with their gear showing is…beyond the pale flabbiness…
  • No getting around health care, but what is personal care? Correct me if I’m wrong, but a proper drunk doesn’t go in for personal hygiene and such. Let’s take 2% of that for alcohol. Ahhh, we’re getting somewhere: 12.8%.
  • Too bad about education. While my parents won’t be dipping into this fund again, with their hodgepodge educational attainments just sufficient to make them obnoxious at bookstores, the kids will be hitting the family up for university in a dozen years. Yikes…would it be so wrong to take a tiny bit of that for…sigh.
  • But look! Miscellaneous is my kind of category. The best kind of miscellany occurs at the liquor store. Adding 2.6%, which gives us 15.4%…looking better.
  • And here’s another useful category for our purposes: tobacco. It’s useful because we don’t use it—I’d love to take on another vice but I’m afraid of catching fire. Score another 1.2%, bringing us to 16.6%.
  • Lastly, reading. I mentioned my parents are obnoxious at bookstores. They ask for weird books and special orders. They hate borrowing books; they like to fondle their own for an unlimited time, dog-earing and coffee-ringing the pages. Plus there’s my dad’s Audible account—with a two-hour daily commute it takes him no time to burn through a narrated book.

So that’s that, my fellow inebriates. Budgeting carefully, we should be able to elevate the standard Canadian liquor expenditure of 1.8% to a more reasonable 16.6% at LBHQ.

If you ask me (and nobody has) our first purchase should be INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER. Billed as a smooth Scottish beer with hints of toffee, vanilla, and oak, this fine product leapt off our local booze shop’s shelf when my dad went on his recent onesie spree. Of the miscellany he brought home it was the most delightful brew—the sort of ale we could all have fought to the death for if we had a bit more energy, and a lovely contrast to some of the weird things my dad bought that day.

Brownish amber with a finger (for those of you who have them) of off-white foam and some feisty carbonation, INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER sidles up to your olfactory centre like it’s known you all its life. Psssst, it urges—caramel…toffee…early-morning bakery…oak…Scotch malt—and blammo! It has you by the short fur, caressing your senses with its whisky redolence. This beer has stunning complexity. The notes aren’t unplaceable; instead they conjure up scented memories of highlands, lowlands, peat and damp. INNIS & GUNN has you at smell, but wait until you sip, because that’s when it really grabs you under the kilt.

Yes, those toffee hints pay off in a complicated, balanced, malty, buttery symphony and an achingly beautiful oak-tinged finish. It was a crime that we had only one INNIS & GUNN bottle, people, and that my parents shared it between them. And the alcohol? Damn fine at 6.6%.

Following my new financial plan I’m recommending we earmark funds for at least 10 cases of this fine Scottish ale and I suggest all my fellow inebriates do the same—as long as you don’t clean out my liquor store.