review

ENGLISH BAY PALE ALE—Good for frogs, bears, and wildlife in general

My Fellow Inebriates,

The kids went to Frog Search today, where they scooped tadpoles and salamanders out of a swampy pond, inspected them under microscopes, sorted them into categories, then sang a song to them as they released them back into the water.

What you lookin’ at?

I asked the frog who lives at LBHQ what he thinks of Frog Search.

He said something unintelligible.

I asked him again.

I think he said ribbit.

The frog who lives here doesn’t have a name. Despite being cuddly and soft he’s not, er, an A-list animal; the kids haven’t bothered naming him, nor do they notice what he’s up to.

Pollywogs who haven’t learned to cuss yet

I asked him again what he thought about dozens of kids plunging empty bowls into his habitat, capturing whatever was unlucky enough to whoosh into the bowls, and then bothering the organisms for several hours before chucking them back.

I thought he said ribbit again but when I queried more closely I realized he’d said motherfuckers. I know, the two words couldn’t be more easily distinguishable, but I was hammered, my fellow inebriates, and for all I know he said antidisestablishmentarianism.

Turns out he did say motherfuckers. He took pains to clarify for me: Goddamn motherfucking nature-walk assholes pluck my tads out of our fucking habitat—what the fuck do you think I think of it, you stupid bear?

So then I felt a little bad. I’d thought maybe it was a bit of an adventure for the ’poles—like the time I woke up with that skull-shaped vodka bottle and drank it all at once.

Did he realize, I asked—the kids sang a song to the tadpoles before tossing them (mostly underhand) into the pond?

The frog told me to go and beat off. (I know, right?! Holy shit, that’s what happens to animals who don’t get loved enough.) So I decided to split a GRANVILLE ISLAND ENGLISH BAY PALE ALE with him. Don’t ask how we managed to get it open; frogs are resourceful enough creatures that they can switch gender; opening a beer must be child’s play.

We used to buy ENGLISH BAY PALE ALE all the time until my mum decided she liked SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER better. The two beers share similar characteristics; both are highly accessible mass-market-yet-purportedly-micro-style beers that give consumers a bit more than the high-pitched metallic assault of a typical macro brew. They are, if anything, transitional beers that pave the road between craft and macro styles. More expensive, higher quality, but not precious, and not odd. Very mainstream.

I thought the frog would like our beer. It pours a lovely copper-amber on the slightly translucent side, with healthy white foam that dissipates fairly quickly. The aroma is earthy yet toffee-like, following through with a lovely malty, honeyed taste with lingering but mild hoppiness. With moderate carbonation and satisfying mouthfeel, ENGLISH BAY PALE ALE is generous and appealing, although it might not be interesting enough to have a session with. I didn’t want a session and the frog sure didn’t (he said it didn’t taste at all like flies and was therefore just okay). It did make him stop cussing, so it was good for me in two senses.

ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT—As perplexing as a lightweight Ben Wa ball

Very occasionally my mum and her friends talk about interesting things, which makes me prick up my ears for tidbits that go beyond the ordinary childrearing conversational din. This happened today at the mention of Ben Wa balls, although the context and lead-up eluded me. One minute she and her two buddies were talking about some teacher-student spat; the next they were discussing marble-size balls that one might insert into oneself.

Needing to know more (while remaining deliberately blind to any context involving my mother), I hit the Internet. What on earth are these mysterious Ben Wa balls?

Turns out they have some very respectable medical uses (in which case they usually get renamed “Kegel exercisers”) as well as some hedonistic and even perplexing uses. You definitely need a cavity in which to place them, which makes my research strictly academic.

I know my fellow inebriates are very well informed about a host of subjects and therefore do not need a play-by-play description of how to thrust foreign objects into either nether region and then retrieve them. You all know how to do this, I’m sure. Unlike yours truly, you have healthy orifices that may or may not be receptive. So I can dispense with the obvious, which leaves (maybe arbitrarily) the following:

  • Insert one ball at a time; it’s not a race, people.
  • If a ball slips out in public, look around vapidly and say, “Oh look one of my kid’s bouncy balls—where did that come from? Does anyone have any jacks?” Then, if planning to surreptitiously slip it back in, give it a wash.
  • If a ball doesn’t want to slip out, try jumping around, bearing down, or forcing a sneeze. If you’re fearful they won’t ever come out, consider purchasing a retrieval cord. (Incidentally, this is a good option for rear-entry Ben Wa activity, in which—unlike front-entry Ben Wa activity—balls can go MIA indefinitely.)
  • The heavier the balls, the more likely they are to fall out. Latex ones are lighter than metal—but porous and less easy to clean. Metal ones clean up better but they do set off airport metal detectors.

If you didn’t gather it from the foregoing, or you’ve missed any previous laments about the fact, I do not have an anal cavity. Which means all this information is…a gift. If you find this gift dubious, then here’s a beer review:

ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT, a Spanish one-off purchased by my dad, comes in a slick-looking bottle. The word “inedit” means “never been done before,” an always ominous phrase, especially when the beer in question sports no more than 4.8% alcohol. Nevertheless it comes in a big honking bottle promising a wheat-lager style mix-up with citrus topnotes and coriander supporting notes. This sounded like a decent gamble to my dad when he bought it, and it was in the sense that, as soon as my mum got one taste of it, she handed her half over. Dad got twice the beer he bargained for and probably ten times as much as he wanted. And me—I got swacked out of my head, which is what happens when either of my parents lets some undesirable booze languish on the counter.

What was so objectionable about ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT? It pours hazy and straw-colored with little foam to speak of. Wafting lemon predominantly with yeast and coriander, its stated objective is to pair with “the most exquisite and challenging foods.” These include, per its marketing materials, asparagus. (Do you like “challenging” foods? Do you like foods that make your pee pungent? OMG, what effect would asparagus pee have on Ben Wa balls?)

My dad, even though he gutted it out and eventually finished the whole bottle of ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT, thought it was a pretender—light, watery, and wheaty with some weird, competing fruit notes—like a wannabe Unibroue beer, except not.

I think any beer that offers less than 5% alcohol is suspect. It’s like a lightweight Ben Wa ball that feels really odd going in, but then you forget all about it and it doesn’t have the weight to just drop out on its own, so if you don’t have a retrieval cord, eventually your doctor will find it. That’s exactly what ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT is like.

TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA (2010)—Well done, Tom

My Fellow Inebriates,

Mum and I both feel fully justified having a glass of wine (or two) every single night my dad’s away on his corporate team-building week. After all, he’s getting paid to golf. He’ll come back bronzed and well exercised, wined and dined, and, as I pointed out to my mother, no doubt there’ll be strippers and hookers and who knows what else.

Despite this last bit, my mum kiboshed any additional booze spending. LBHQ has some upcoming expenses, including a change of digs, which means we need to sock away some moving money.

When I asked how on earth I would manage without a new wine to review, my mother said, “Well, how did you manage before last October?” I said I didn’t have the same maelstrom of anxieties to contend with back then—the school hadn’t begun scaring us about lice yet, no one had shown me any handbags made of severed teddybear heads, my granny was alive, there wasn’t a haunted bear named Fluffy living in the house (he turned the alarm clock off on us with his mind yesterday and almost made us late, would you believe it?), my nana didn’t have any bionic bits yet, and we weren’t facing a change of headquarters.

“Too bad,” said my mother, “and half these things have nothing to do with you anyway.”

With that I had to scour my furry head to remember a recent tasting. Last time my nana and papa were here they brought over a 2010 Italian Valpolicella by TOMMASI VITICOLTORI, translated “TOM’S WINE.”

Left to my parents’ buying habits and almost Parkerite leanings, Valpolicella is as unlikely to enter LBHQ as, say, a Canadian Pinot Auxerrois. The style—a mixture of Corvina Veronase, Rondinella, and Molinara—is typically light and aromatic with a lower alcohol content. Nana and Papa came away from a 2011 tour of Italy with an appreciation for lighter Italian table wines that can be sipped at length without getting you plastered, and which are often dispensed from giant grocery-store wine machines for about a buck a litre.

I don’t know if TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA is the sort of wine you’d find in an Italian grocery store’s bulk section, but if so, we should pack our bags for that sunny country and stop messing around in Langley.

I suspect my dad’s parents, knowing their son’s preference for big, weighty wines, had some mischief in them when they brought it, and may well have been testing to see if he would dismiss it out of hand. Even the appearance of TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA would worry my dad, with its vibrant ruby clarity and brightness.

When swirled in the glass, it releases a sumptuous fruity bouquet dominated by fresh cherries. Fruit bursts on the palate with lovely acidity and balance. The body is light to moderate without being astringent, and at 12% alcohol TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA won’t land you on your back unless you bogart the whole bottle. For solid-food fans, it would pair nicely with sharp cheese and tomato-based dishes (I imagine).

Predictably my dad had faint praise for Tom’s wine, most likely because he hasn’t acquired a taste for the style. Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed it with dinner (or without, in my case), although—if we’re being honest—my parents and I do prefer heavier wines that get us gooned faster. But it’s always nice not to throw up after a family gathering, isn’t it?