Smashbombed on Craft Beer
Smashbomb. Boneshaker. Brutal. Mad Tom. Ten Bitter
Years.
If the names were meant to intimidate they failed
miserably. Instead, they intrigued and made me thirst for more.
Even the warnings from an old friend didn’t faze me.
“I think you should start slow,” said Don, who I hold responsible for my
current predicament. “Baby steps, man – all those hops will be too much for you!”
Too late now, Don. I’m hooked on
the hops and now I have to admit it: I am a craft beer addict.
Two months or so ago I was happy to
buy a few Bravas now and then and occasionally splurge on a little Gibson’s
Finest. Brava hasn’t darkened my fridge door since then and I still have half a
bottle of rye from Christmas. Craft beer, meanwhile, has crowded my fridge to
the point that I have to do some renovations.
(I don’t really need mustard, ketchup
or pickles, do I?)
It’s not as if I have embraced all
craft beers. I’ve tried a few porters and stouts, a bunch of pleasant pale ales
and even an excellent wheat beer or two.
My passion, however, is reserved
for IPAs.
IPAs, or India Pale Ales, are the
extra strong (usually six to seven per cent alcohol), extra-hoppy ales first
brewed by the English in the 1800s to ensure that beer shipped to the troops in
India would arrive fresh and the troops, overdressed for the tropical heat in
typical British fashion, would stay too drunk to revolt.
The Americans (and later we
Canadians, along with Australians, New Zealanders and a few other nations) then took that
recipe to another level in the early 1900s and now produce most of the world’s
best IPAs, with the epicenter of the craft beer explosion on the west coast,
from San Diego to Vancouver.
And I want to try them all.
I now spend more time on the LCBO
website, searching for hard-to-find IPAs in local liquor stores, than I ever
spent on … those other web sites I used to frequent. I’ve driven to every store
in Durham Region on the hunt for the latest prize, and cried like a baby when
the beer was not to be found, despite the all-mighty internet telling me it
would be.
I dream about IPAs. I plan my day
around how I get IPAs. The first thing I do some mornings – before I go on
Facebook to see if my fellow beer geeks have anything important to say – is jump
on the LCBO site to source out where I’m going after work.
Then I spend my day hoping I can
work until at least 10 so I don’t have to wait to buy my treasure.
I once drove to Brooklin to find
West Coast IPA, a San Diego ale that was pumped up as the bomb in Don’s beer
blog, and turned around and travelled east to Bowmanville when it was a
no-show. Struck out there, too.
The next day I hit up the Whitby
LCBO on the way home from work, only to be defeated once again. So I ordered
the damn thing and a week later I was seeing for myself if all that driving was
worth it.
It was. Third best beer EVER.
The real scary thing about this
addiction is my reliance on Don for advice. He’s been like my mentor on my
transformation and I can tell you that Don and mentor are rarely seen together
in the same sentence.
This excerpt from one of his Brew Ha Ha blogs, in which he tries to
offer praise for a not-quite-up-to-snuff ale, probably best describes his philosophy
on beer and beer drinking:
“It’s a decent little beer, not an
IPA but still good enough to get the job done. But I would also wanna know what
the guy on the floor had been drinking so I could try that, too.”
Yah. My mentor.
To be fair, there are other people
who have helped take me down this dark (well, a deep copper colour, usually)
path. There’s Steve, another college chum from J-School, who now calls New
Zealand home.
Steve, who is also a certified
wino, is forever raving about the craft beer scene Down Under and is forever
boring us with tales of perfect weather, perfect pubs and perfectly free accommodation
(at his pad, natch) in New Zealand’s capital.
He also writes about beer, wine and
that dreary stuff about how awesome his adopted home of Wellington is in his
blog, Five Foot 19.
There’s also the lovely Cat, who I
will meet for the first time Saturday when we invade the Bellwoods brewpub in
Toronto to sample their awesome ales.
Cat is always to quick to offer sage
advice – “why don’t you call first instead of wasting all that gas?” – was her
wisdom after I posted about my hunt for West Coast IPA. She was also quick to
offer kind words after I gushed about a Smashbomb Atomic IPA (my second
favourite beer EVER) I was enjoying in the early morning.
“You dear, sweet man.
Most of us start with coffee.”
(In my defense, I had been working
all night, so it was a before-bed nightcap, not breakfast. But if it gets me a “dear,
sweet man” comment from a woman I hadn’t yet met, we can call it breakfast. Or
whatever she wants.)
You see? Craft beer is already improving
my sex appeal.
It’s also giving me hope for the
future: I’m already making plans to visit a California brewery next February
for the annual unveiling of a Triple-IPA called Pliny the Younger - that’s right, I said triple - that
has enthusiasts lining up for up to eight hours just for a taste of what many
call the best beer in the world.
Don’s in – “buh-RING it!” was his
response, and Cat has purred her approval as well: “Oh yes …hello California!”
If we can talk Steve into taking a slow boat across the Pacific, we got us a
party.
I know, right? I got it bad.
My fridge now contains a few
Smashbombs, a couple of West Coasts, a half-dozen Hop Circle IPAs, a bottle of Brutal IPA – best beer EVER – and
two double IPAs I’m itching to try.
That should do until the weekend
visit to Bellwoods (home of Witchshark, a double IPA that scored 99 on the Rate
Beer scale), when the quest for the perfect IPA resumes.
Now there may be friends who
question my new love affair with beer, but I’m still maintaining my most
excellent parenting standards – the J Man doesn’t appear to suspect a thing –
and besides, passion is passion and I’m glad I found one.
Besides, it has got me writing
again, and that’s a great thing. This blog is my first since Shwa Stories went on hiatus in September.
I’ll drink to that.
