Beer! Glorious Beer!

Well hello world! Iv'e had a busy few weeks. I have finished my jobs at Gull Lake, and have returned to the "CommPomFarm Trailer and R.V. resort park". As I was wrapping up at "the lake", I heard on the radio about the international beer festival being held a few minutes drive from there, soooo...I decide to come back! First let me just say, when I found out it could be done, I was as excited as Ren with the Happy Helmet on!(just look at the pure joy in his little eyes!) Even with weeks of work here to be done before the snow flies, I pack up my Mom, and friend(who has asked to be nameless, must have read my stuff,)into the Blaze, and headed out for the 2+hour drive back to where I just was before!
So the name itself cojours up images of pure delite! Inernational,(from all over the world!) Beer,(holy water, mothers milk, lifes blood!) Festival,(brining together of, reason for being, PARTY!) and in my sleeping mind the night before, the rainbow of barmaids from the world over were lining up to entice me with their liquid treasures!

After the uneventful trip,(back to the lake,)we had diecided on some lunch,(good idea to NOT go to a beerfest on an empty stomach!) and as I was backing out, we hear a crunch/snap sort of thing. This was when my brakes broke! Now there had been some previous grindings and gripings, so the broke brakes was not a total shock,(the repair bill, and the fact that my mom was willing to drive with me through a major city, with brakes that may not, was a bit of a shock!) After fixing about half of the sugessted estimite,(and working out a deal with my Mom, her magic card,(gotta love them airmiles!)and me being the yard slave for about the next 4 years), the Blaze was in the air, and under the gun.

Now we have at least 4 hours to kill, and I have a repair bill to forget,(temperarly, of course, to quote Homer,"ah alcohol, the cause of, and sulotion, to all lifes problems!") so into a cab, an to the fest we go!
After the $20per head, at the main gate, there was a ticket purchase booth,(the tickets were $0.50 each, and each 4oz. cup was between 2-4 tickets!) also at this booth were little(cute even)beer mugs that where at least 5.5oz,(may be even 6oz!) for an extra $5, now I may not have been a math wizz, but to me, all I had to do was drink enough extra beer in my mug, and it would be free!(and I swear the beer tasted better!)Plus at the end of it all, I would have a charished keepsake,(family airloom!) Heres a shot from last night,(yeah, I'm still using it,) with a tiny Homer trying to steal my beer,(Bad Homer!)

I could have just went and had a great time, but this was an oppertunity to expand my knowledge of beers, and my plan was to be taking notes of each beer, along with pictures of my faverites! I had brought a great note pad/pen combo, witch I had left in the truck, now 6ft. in the air,(and 2miles away!) so was just enjoying the differnt beer, trying to take mental notes,(like carving into granite with a bent spoon!) when my Mom, grabs me a old shopping list,(I think,) and a pen, so like the true professinal I obviously am, I had to re-try the ones, I had just tried!(if a jobs worth doing, its worth over doing!) So armed with this shoping list note pad, I set forth to try the untryable, drink the unknowen, and some how live to tell you all about it! This will be a mix, I'll try to match up the notes with the pictures, and decifer the code,(some where along the night, it appears I started using some kind of a code, maybe a cross between a long lost Axis powers ww-2 code and some form of ancient sandscript,) must have been for security! I'll write the acual notes, then a discription of what I acually remember.

Suyturys-Ekstra, 5.2% "Ukrainian brewed, smooth taste, clean finish, cheeky little number, nice bottle." This was one of the first of the re-tastes, and I remember liking it quite a bit, think I was there, again,(and again!)


1488 Whisky Beer! 7%"Whisky tainted beer! Strong whisky aftertaste, smooth start, not more than one, poor finisher!" I had tried a whisky beer in Kelowna once last may, and had enjoyed it alot! a whisky beer, is a beer that has been aged in a old whisky barrel, and absorbs the whisky flaver, this one had been aged in a scotch whisky barrel, and this whould explain the reason, I didn't like it much, I don't like scotch, maybe form the time I accidently mixed some with linseed oil, that had been stored in a ginger ale bottel(?) Aparently, at first the beer was thrown out because of the whisky taint, but now they sell it for like $8 a bottle!

Drummond preimum lager 5%"Drumund beer, Smooth, cheap, Red Deer brewed!" I had gone to the Drummond booth to try both the lager draft, and the gold draft, but the gold tap was nothing but foam, so they refilled my mighty mug for free from the lager side, and aked me to come back latter for the gold.(and I did!) Now some where along the line, my friend bought a shooter of chocolate vodka, and tells me, its the worsed thing ever, I don't like the taste of vodka, and am not a chocoholic, but drank it anyways.(why is it when some one tells you some thing is bad, the first thing we do is try it, its like the stinky fart thing, you say"oh thats a smelly one," and the first thing, some one sniffs and will say,"yea, your right, that dose stink!" like I'd lie about that or something!) Oh and by the way, the chocolate vodka, did suck!


Coney Island-Human Blockhead, tough as nails lager 10.5%"Smooth but STRONG aftertaste, like hit in face with dirty sock! stay away from this one!" One of the few American entrys, small brewer with lots of humor!(check out the Re'jewvenator-HeBrew,(the chosen beer!) on the left, this was a doubled brewed, extra strong version of the Human blockhead beer, and appeartly not as smooth, and as rough as the blockhead was, I opted out of the HeBrew beer!(I'm a professinal, not an idiot! the thought I had was like choosing between sandpaper, or a pinecone, as a toilotpaper subsitute, when the next stall over had 2 ply!)(I, moved to the next stall, by the way,)

Somewhere in here I had a jumbo japalano-cheddar smokey dog, from Fat Franks, and boy it was good!(have to clear the pallet, for more true flavour to soak through!) By now I had worked my way over to the German section, I've always enjoyed the clean, clear, taste of a good german beer, so was really looking forward to this section.


Zeitgeist ?% "Black like satans seaman!" This one I liked for the lable alone!(the beer was like a Guinness stout, very dark, and thick, with a wood aftertaste,) the very stylelish sheep in peoples clothing! This was a beer for the cold winter evenings, next to a fire, a good stout beer!

Yellow Hammer-golden ale 4.2%"Light fruity taste. Smooth finish! Melts from back of tougne(?)great with food, clean aftertaste, cloudy colour, one o my faves!" This one was a great beer! Even my mom/disegnated driver, had a few sips of this one,(she is not a big beer drinker, at all! a six pack could die of neglectic in her fridge, untill I showed up at least!) This one I would hunt down!(hope they don't read this and raise the price!)


Gosser ?%(although I do know the cans worth $0.20 in Qubec!)"Very German, very clean! Yummy!" I now notice it said Austria's finist beer, on the can, but at the time, and being right next to the german booth, I can understand the mistake. I also notice the desriptions are getting shorter, bigger, and somewhat harder to read! Around this time, somewhere, my Mom takes off to retrive the now fixed Blaze, and knowing my time is getting short, the "reviewing" shifts to hight gear!Saku-Originaal(thats the way they spelt it,) 4.6% "German, very clean, dissapears from tounge! Smooth! I like!" Theres that dissapears from tounge thing again, I think I'm refering to the zero aftertaste, the no gunk left in the back of your throught feeling.

Pumpkin Pi-Spiced Ale 5.4%"..................!"(?) Sorry for the lack of intel on this one, not much to say, don't remember the pumkin flavour overwhelming me or any thing like that, decided to check my ph. and found like 7 missed calls, and then it rang(?)(I some how had put it on mute durning the night,)in my hands, my ride way almost there, time to run and hide? no, saddly that might blow any cool I had build up, if my mom had to come get me from the beerfest! So drained the mighty mug, once again, and dive feaverishly back into the fray!



About this time, I headed back over to the Drummond Draft booth, to get my sample of the Gold, so as to make a careful comparisen of the lager that I had tasted over 2 hrs. ago. The girl remembers me,(not many,(any)other greybeards about!)so insisted I take one on the house!

Drummond Gold Draft 5%"FREE! Cold! Smooth! Good!" Well, I have nothing to add to that, so moving right along.

Ricard's Red 5.5%?(code might be starting to break into the sandscript portion here!)
"My fave, nice with meal, red or white meat!"(?) To the best of my knowlage the smoky dog was the only meal I had there, and I'm pretty sure it had no white meat,(or maybe even no meat!) so not sure where that came from. The Ricard's booth was the first stop I made,(and the last by the way, it was close to the door!)

Ricard's White 5.5%? "very smooth heppervisen(?) fruity taste, gose well with orange slice!" I do remember the orange slice chunks, but will have to check that heppervisen(?)thing, just hang on. O.K. it dose exciste, but its spelt Heffenveisen, and refures to a cloudy, citrus-y, summertime beer, who knew DrunkKev was so smart? So now I'm almost on my way out, and stop for one more Ricard's Red, and to grab a shot of the two Ricard's together. I say to the lady,(in as clear as way as I can,)"Do you mind pushing them together for a picture?" and she didn't, then she pushes the bottles together aswell, so I think I missed the picture, she thought I wanted to take! Where was her mind? I'm a true blog pro, and was only intresseted in the beer!(I must really be slipping!)

So drain the mug again, and head for the door. On the way out, a group of young guys stop me for beard info, like how long is it, how long did it take to grow, if I do devil horns with it, stuff like that, and as I'm leaving, the one said. "Thats cool, I'm goin grow one just like it, when I get old!" And for some reason, that made me laugh for about 10 min. I get out side just in time to avoid the "mother come to get me" senario, then went back to the lake,(for a few beers, of course!)before sleeping in my new birdie station,(RV)for the first time. All in all, a very informitive time! I hope you had fun learning about beer from around the world with me! And don't be afraid to experiment the next time your thirsty, you'll never know, your'e new faverite beer may be just the next sip away!

Have a great week, Latter Duffer(Beer experimentor)Kev.