Harp's Lager 5%

This morning while at the grocery store I picked up a few packs of Irish beer recently arrived and marketed for St-Patrick's day. After a Jameson coffee I walked with my brother to some middle eastern butcher shop in order to buy lamb for an Irish stew. I am now ready to enjoy. This is a nice lager from the makers of Guiness. Its brewed in Dundalk Ireland so it can be considered a genuine import. Sometime the imports we get here are brewed here following the recipe. Tasted like the actual beer you can drink at a real brew pub. Nothing really overwhelms you while tasting it witch is good but also makes it hard to comment on. You either like it or you don't! Its a generic lager from a country that doesn't brew alot of lagers. Seems harder at first than it actually is. Goes down like a charm. There is a light bitterness to it at the end that can be quite enjoyable. Nice yellowish color. Coppery?

2.25$ for a 500ml in Québec

7.8/10

Navigator of Holland

Since 1275 strong 8.4% beer. 1275, that's a really long time ago, the first documented time they cited Amsterdam instead of Amstelland. Beers are often better when packaged in a can. This strong beer is typical, a smooth beginning bitter in the middle with a sweet flavorful citrus like ending that doesn't linger. It seems to have a feminine side to it. Light,fresh smelling with a syrupy texture and golden color. Not very carbonated obviously therefore the collar quickly goes down. Excellent match with my spicy chili con carne. Sort of, rather than specially, recommended for strong beer ''connaisseurs'' might scare away a few Coors Light aficionados. Looks good, cool can but easy to bash, because you gotta be in the mood to enjoy fully! In its category I would give it a 6/10. At least it doesn't smell like sewer water and tastes like skunk ass! I remember seeing it in 10% also, I wonder if they still make it.

500ml for 2.69$ in Québec

Wernesgrüner

German pilsener, I find that pilseners are a type of beer that don't varie very much in taste. They are a sure shot. A little heavier in content and taste than blonde ales but they have a powerful and distinctive kick. Their bitterness is subtle and stays in the back of the pallet. This one was fairly old, I bought it a few months ago when I went up to the cottage to work with the chainsaw. It obviously kept well because its in a can and also because its a pilsener. The smell is surprisingly fresh almost fruity, but hard to identify. I might have to retake the taste test since I just shovelled the whole driveway and got pretty, thirsty pretty fast. Very generic large batch beer just like I love. I do recommend! 4.9% Brewed according to the German Purity Law*.

*This law was created in 1516 and dictated that the only ingredients used to brew beer must be barley, hops and water and only of premium quality in order to prevent people from drinking poor standard and potentially lethal beverages. Remember that the water supplys back then where often tainted.

www.wernesgruener.com

Let's get this thing back on track!

I realise I haven't written at all in the last year or so but i'm back and i'm here to stay I hope. I'm going to transform this blog into a beer blog but will keep on posting on physical activity. A little contradictory you might think but to my eyes complementary. I've recently bought the new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger to enhance my training. Recently I have been doing a 3x a week full body regiment to get back into it accompanied by 2-3x a week yoga. For extra motivation I subscribed myself and 18 of my friends to the Spartan Sprint in Mont Tremblant in june. Not that i'm going to run it as fast as I can, but just to make it easier on me. A few fine brews before start time will probably make my run more enjoyable! Alot has happened since i've written on here, a senior football season with no victorys, an undefeated season and championship in the arena football league, a concussion, a half marathon under two hours, new fishing spots, a well accomplished Movember fundraiser, a bachelors degree and many more events have kept me occupied. Enough said lets keep in touch from now on!

Mahalo!

Mr. Hyde 6.7%

A few weeks ago on a sunny allstar sunday with nothing to do, I decided to go to Vankleek Hill Ontario with my brother, my girlfriend and one of my attorneys and his wife. We sped down the highway with only one highwayside bathroom break (snowbank) to finally arrive in a small town where people nod at you at the gas station. We bursted in to the brewry, unexpected out of towners, an hour or so before closing time. After two tiny samplers, we started to hoard the counter with our order. Next thing you know we find 2$ underfills of lug thread (their blond beer) so we crack a few open for the 3 minute tour of the factory only to learn shortly after that it wasn't allowed to do so. After an evening @the Winsor Tavern and supper @the Blueberry pub we went back home with a few litres of beer. This morning as I woke up I had in mind of buying a rye bread for some toast and what better way to accompany it but with rye beer? Mr. Hyde is a very bitter organic rye beer (30%). The best compliment I can give it is its creaminess, or maybe its label or even its bottle witch is very typical of the Beau's brewerie. Tastes are very individual, but personally this wasn't my favourite. Damn beautiful bottles tough but the redemption on them range from 0.80$ to 4.00$ and you can't sell em anywhere. Its so hard to recycle and bring back your emptys nowadays even if its the law, but lets not get me started on that! Back to Mr. Hyde, this bronze or copper colored beer has a very long lasting aftertaste that stays with you like the pain of a punch in the mouth, its almost chocking. The alcohol content is 6.7% witch is rare in a beer. Anyways I'll be back there someday to bring back my bottles and probably will try the Dr. Jekyll.

BEAU'S ALL NATURAL BREWING CO.

10 TERRY FOX DR.

VANKLEEK HILL, ONTARIO, CANADA

Arena League 2010

I love football, after my years in St-Leonard I tought my carrer was over... Luckily i found this great league. We play on a 60 yard field in Laprairie,Qc. Beautiful interior turf. The referres are very normal but excellent ones are hard to come by! We lost the first game of the season against The Primes and last night beat the undefeated Predators 28-6. At the beginning I was sceptic about my role on the team because I was to be the center, with the many injurys we suffered at the first game and absences at the second my opportunities to play on defense where numerous wich made me very happy. This league is a great football get togheter with 3 games every saturday night and a total of 8 teams on the circuit. From current and present CIS (canadian inter-university sports) players junior and Cegep players to people who havent played since highschool are hitting the gridiron on saturday nights. We need to take this picture again because people are missing on it and it is also out of focus. We are also looking into having team jerseys made for us. In the mean time Polyvalente d'Anjou are lending us their old jerseys! LIGHTS OUT! Oh yeah thats our team name! It rocks doesn't it?

First time fishing in 2009!

This year Spring Break wasn't very exciting but very enjoyable! Instead of leaving the country for non-stop partying, I stayed in Montreal. Other than studying, I went ice fishing with one of my buddys! I bought this manual ice drill witch makes 8 inch holes for less than 50$. I than grabbed a package of smelts and a case of beer at the supermarket. Using regular fishing rods with last years 8 pound test fishing line, and an old soup laddle we headed to the waterfront. Obviousely we didnt know anything about ice fishing, good thing we were dressed like profesionnals because even tough it was nice and hot in the city, it was pretty windy on the water. There was about 2 feet of ice, with that manual drill we managed to make 8 wholes before giving up! Thats around 16 feet of ice! Thats when fishing becomes a real sport, we managed to work a little sweat! Our lines got full of ice and would of probably snapped if we would of caught something big enough. Luckily I had brought a cooler to keep the beer hot because when we took one out it would freeze pretty quickly so we had to drink them fast. At the begining we started to drill holes about 20 feet from the beach because we were afraid of breaking the ice, later we realized there was no danger and discovered hundreds of frozen over holes and other fishing teams with 4x4's on the ice! We then decided to drill our next 6 holes in a more strategic area. There is no more ice left now so I guess next year we will have learnt from our first experience and be more efficient. None the less it was a beautiful, fun and relaxing day in the sun! Not to mention alot cheaper than going to an outfitter on Lac St-Louis!