holey holiday hellhole (laphroaig quarter cask scotch)

i’m so glad the holidays are over. all i ever said was, ‘i’m rotund’ or ‘hey i feel rotund’ and ‘oh man i had too much food last night and i’m rotund’. the rotund shit got so deep in my brain i started saying rotund when i met people. i met some strangers over the holidays and i used rotund in casual conversation. i left them feeling weird or thinking what a moron that guy is. it was embarrassing. i also drank very little beer over the holidays on account of receiving whiskey and wine as gifts.

this is pretty much what i look like right now. shiny, huh?

anyways.

the other day a man came over. he brought popcorn, chocolate, salsa and a bottle of laphroaig’s quarter cask scotch. i was glad he came over. he told me about his new years party plans and meeting friends and how much he danced. he has long limbs and i enjoyed visualizing him on a dancefloor, thrusting about. i force fed him a beer/whiskey cocktail, which he didn’t enjoy. feeling like i’d lost the tussle, i sat down. we started watching a movie and he cracked open the laphroaig.

in the ole days, when fat shit capitalist fat shits didn’t run everything, whiskey aged in tiny barrels. the tiny barrels were good because mules could carry them over the land and take them to wherever whiskey was had. nobody uses mules anymore because the fucking airplane and ups truck took over and similarly no whiskey maker uses little casks anymore.

because of the use of large casks, whiskey tastes different. i haven’t been in a physics class in years but this makes sense to me. if whiskey gets in contact with more wood, it should have more flavour.

nosing this thing was intense. it smelled like grade six, where i spent a lot of my time nose in grass because i tripped over everything including people’s feet and cats. it’s bottle at 48% abv so i do not recommend intense sniffing. you’ll burn your brain. apart from grade six, it smelled like latakia tobacco, which you should smoke if you have never because it’s cured over camel dung and tastes great.

this is a picture of a man that isn’t me or my friend. i envy him though because of his beard hairs and generally masculine disposition.

the taste of the scotch was intense, lasting and searing. don’t drink this too quickly. it principally tastes of charcoal, which i like to taste. do you not like grilled meat? the taste builds on your palate over time. even a drop will completely overpower your mouth. this was a desert-ish drink. i couldn’t even think of having more than one. you’d need courage or lunacy for that.

 

this is islay. where the whiskey comes from. i wish i was scottish.

i swear i’ll do a beer next week. it’s just that i have a few lined up and choosing is oh so hard when you’re rotund. thanks to friend that brought the laphroaig over. come have a drink right now.

happy wednesday.

xoxo

s.

an old man sang frank sinatra (sam adams lager)

i’ve enjoyed my holidays, a little. i’ve managed to eat half a pizza every two days and take long walks in the cold when it isn’t romantic or pleasant. yesterday i went to lauren’s workplace christmas wham bam thing. it was at a crappy bar (i hate crappy bars) with a fox for a logo.

i tried looking for a picture of pizza but found this instead. enjoy.

we walked in and my glasses fogged up, because weather makes it hard for eyeball impaired people like me. lauren walked up to her work friends (she calls them coworkers, i’m being nicer). she didn’t introduce me to anyone so i floated trying to hard behind her, which is hard because she is half a foot shorter than myself. eventually she introduced me to some girl who had brought a tripod to the bar.

why would anyone bring a tripod to a bar if you’re there to have a ‘good time’

sorry

smiles and handshakes later, we walked to the massive bar with a lady behind it. they setup the taps so i couldn’t see her if i stood. i had to sort of fit my head in between the bar bench and the taps. this meant i refused to order and got nervous and asked lauren to do the commanding things.

i ended up with a samuel adams lager. i looked it up now and apparently it’s a boston lager. i did not know this last night, but i knew it was american because i’d seen it in a duane reade in new york which i went to a long time ago when i did fun things.

taste

it was dark, as is usually the case with places with foxes for mascots, so the colours were off. it looked kinda amber. the lady behind the bar left me an inch of head and i enjoyed that first. it tasted frothy and yeasty and got me in the mood for ice cream. i sipped the thing for a while and liked what i got. it was tangy, orangey and left a bitter thing in my mouth at the end. i’ve come to like that. do try samuel adams sometime soon.

drinking the thing made me envious of the americans. they have this stuff in grocery stores. i wish we had that here.

this is samuel adams. wish men’d wear coats that red nowadays.

anyways.

a few hours later, and a few more orange glasses later, all of lauren’s coworkers looked drunk. she told me they were occasional drinkers, which i found funny because her boss sang the backstreet boys (and added the word “BITCHES” after every line). one of her bosses looked pervy and one of them looked like a little boy from one of those movies where you feel bad for the kid because he lives in the mountains.

eventually an old man sang frank sinatra on the karaoke and when he finished i walked up to him and said great job. he looked over my shoulder and said something gruff, something i couldn’t understand. i felt weird hanging out with adults celebrating stuff. i wanted to leave and then lauren persuaded me to get pizza and here i am feeling fat and full and holy shit i just realized how much my holidays have sucked.

this is the worst story ever. i swear it won’t happen again. are you enjoying your holidays?

 

holy shit (xoxo)

it’s been a month and since the last time we spoke, i gained ten pounds. my goal for the holidays was to land around that area and i feel certain i’ll get there. i had another goal too, which was to buy a homebrew kit thing and not poison those around me. i’ve been too lazy to leave the apartment, so that hasn’t happened yet (as a result, nobody has died).

i bought a bunch of stuff i want to review. soon, soon.

 

i bought a new computer (stonecutter scotch ale)- 6b

i’m fat

hey fatsos. is seasonal affective disorder (SAD) kicking in for you guys yet? i’ve been eating a 170g bag of chips everyday for the past three days. you know what that’s done? i gained six pounds in less than a week. i feel like mariah carey. boobs and flopped singles.

you’ll make a great gammy one day, girl

i had a bad saturday

so last saturday i cried a lot because

a) i drank a lot

b) we didn’t go to some karaoke thing where only the cure songs were played

c) lauren went crazy

d) i drank a lot

e) i didn’t steal useless shit

i bought a computer

as a result of the tears i was very sad the next day. you know when you get sad you buy things? i went on the apple website and bought a computer. i didn’t even have the money. i can’t believe they’re irresponsible enough to let someone like me buy a fancy computer. haha installments. i’m fucked and irresponsible.

lcbo to introduce customer credit program

all this easy to pay over the course of five years stuff got me thinking. the lcbo should have this. booze is the most important thing. if i could have a credit limit at the boozer, let’s say $2000 dollars, and it accrued interest at 1.99% per month, i’d be pretty happy. that would mean i could buy whatever i wanted and pay a minimum of $25 a month. the rest, obviously, would gather interest and by god i’ll have a bed credit rating as long as it’s for booze i shouldn’t have bought in the first place.

someone ought to petition this stuff. i’m too lazy to. but hey, if we joined forces who know what and all that camaraderie.

this would be us. the suits and all. but a banner reading, “give credit for alcohol”

stonecutter scotch ale

stone cutters are cool. they spend hundreds of hours chipping away at stone to make a lasting mark on history. that’s commendable. i guess that’s why this company named themselves ‘renaissance stonecutter’. maybe they think they’re denting beer history. who knows, they might. i picked up the scotch ale because

1. it was a scotch ale

2. it was a strong ale (7.0% abv). i like strong ales.

3. the bottle read the brewery’s address and email on the back.

4. label said this beer is their flagship, feels ‘hearty’, is brewed with ‘nine malts’ and tastes like caramel, toffee, liquorice, chocolate and roasty flavours (whatever that may mean)

5. has the brewmaster’s signature on the label. that’s pride on a serious scale.

here’s a video of me, alone at home, trying to pour the thing.

problems

they claim this ale was best in class 2007. i don’t really care about that. stop bragging about things that happened four years ago. i had my first weird moment at a party four years ago. don’t see me braggin’ bout spilling red on the host’s carpet.

nosing it

smells like a standard ale. nothing special here.

taste

the taste popped my tongue. it’s like having no salt for two months and then having bacon and eggs with salt sprinkled on top. you realize you’ve been missing something. stuff’s good. malty, hoppy, very malty. i can taste the alcohol quite a bit. i like that. i don’t like the strong beers that try to hide the alcohol flavour. embrace it ya kiwis.

i saw dark amber colour. there was little head retention. lotsa lace.

it’s a little bitter. don’t let this thing warm up. it’s too much when warm. too much everything, it overpowers. don’t have this if you’ve skipped dinner. it’ll get you a little boozed. it’s full bodied but not as thick as a stout nor as light as a light ale. they must have a team that just works on balance because they’ve found a nice spot.

why i’m home alone

my roomate is at bruce peninsula and lauren just got home with a piece of cake for me and  she showed me a dress she wants for her birth day and where’s the money money.

anyways.

i love this stuff. it’s like the first time i had tankhouse. i know i’ll want this. the new zealanders have something amazing here. go australasia.

have you ever been to new zealand or had anything from that part of the world?

have a pleasant thursday. i’m off to burger king for a double stacker.

-sufian

it’s my birthday

and i feel really old. this time last year i could legally drink in the america. today i can drink legally i think just about everywhere. anyways. do you like the national? i’m forcing that band on everyone all of tonight as long as i stay conscious.

last week i wrote about you can be my pal if you get a bag of beer. well, my room mate got me a bag of beer but he’s got class til later, much later, and he’s been up for two days so that’s out. i’ll grab him on the weekend. he likes frog eyes.

this is what i can’t have tonight.

hope you are well and getting along with the world.

sufian

 

 

grand theft auto trailer (celt bronze ale review) – 5c

i grow old next week

today is wednesday november the second. it’s seven days before my birthday. i’m going to be twenty two. i wish someone would gift me a big bag of all kinds of beer and i would share it with them and we’d both get boozed and then we’d hug and make a frozen pizza and talk about our dads and how lucky we are to be friends. be that person. be my pal.

violence returns to the television

as a sneak birthday present, rockstar games released this trailer of grand theft auto five. boy was i excited. my whole grade seven, i spent  it shooting hookers with a gun in grand theft auto three. i didn’t get the satire and all that brainy stuff when i was younger and fatter. i get it now. so i got the trailer for this new thing. have you seen it yet? go watch it. you’re going to have to read newspaper articles about moms and stuff misunderstanding everything when the game comes out, so enjoy yourself right now.

the only place you can drink and drive

i can’t wait to down beer and whiskey in the game and safely drunk drive (because it’s in a video game, ya madd. it’s okay but maybe not for kids because they’ll think all the wrong things) they better not bring back the calories meter. i hate that i have to look after my calories in life enough. i don’t want it in a video game.

welsh ale

anyways. so to celebrate i went to the lcbo. i didn’t have my bike so i walked to the lcbo from hart house. it was cold. i walked past popeyes and resisted the $3.49 chicken sandwich surprise. i was surprised by the lack of crazy people outside. i went in and thought about which beer to buy. i debated some fancy nine grain stout or this welsh ale. i get paid on thursday, i’m in $100 overdraft and so i thought i’d get the cheaper ale.

i checked out with the Celt bronze ale and a bottle of spiced rum (remember it’s my birthday next week? precelebration). i walked home and nobody was home so i ate a lot of pringles in secret.

taste test

i had some rum before the beer to sooth my nerves. i popped open the cap. i sniffed the bottle. i couldn’t smell much because the bottle opening was only half an inch apart.

why don’t beer makers have bigger bottle spouts? people would appreciate smells more if the spouts were bigger. physicists have found that surface area and smell are positively correlated. yay. i don’t think a lot of people pour beers at home. they drink them out of the bottle. if coors lite can market an easy drinking pop tab then someone should market wide mouthed bottles.

i sniffed this thing a lot because i liked the subtle smell. you know how concentrated air wick smells pungent and like an old woman’s panties? this beer doesn’t smell anything like that. words to describe the smell:

-mild

-burnt sugar

-bits of ethanol.

i was surprised by the lack of fruit in the smell, however. i had an ontario beer earlier today, which will remain unnamed, and it had more fruit in it that this welsh ale. times are a changin’. ontario craft brewers smell more welsh than the welsh (have i said welsh enough?)

the taste disappoints. this is a heavily drinkable ale. the label calls it full bodied but it’s pretty light (come on, the welsh). it does have the ‘rich bronze colour’ as described. i have no idea what “crystal maltiness” means but i’ll go ahead and say the beer is moderately sweet. i expected less sweet and more hop outta this thing. at least they got some kind of balance right. i guess they delegated the label writing to the wrong guy.

my friend’s listening to bonnie prince billy now and it’s fucking sad so i don’t know anymore. how does will oldham manage this? effortless.

back to beer

it’s brewed in caerphilly, wales. the label says “bracis curmi” (malted beer) traces back to the ancient Celtic language of proto-celtic, an age where celts were some of the first beer producers in europe. i don’t know why this is important on labelling. i suppose it appeals to the inner old man in me.

what i did like about the packaging is the european manner of labelling bottles. they have the units of alcohol labelled on the back. this is good for pregnant ladies and alcoholics, both. this particular 500ml bottle was 2.3 UK units of alcohol. the bottle also reads 2.1 a day is healthy for males. why isn’t our culture like this? comeone canada.

what’s your favourite kind of packaging? or do you hate advertising? leave a comment.

see you soon. have a happy thursday.

yours,

sufian

don’t make out if you’re both gross and around people in a bar (Creemore Springs lager review) – 4b

cold water kills tropical fish

i woke up in my long johns last saturday. i don’t know if long johns are okay anymore, fashion wise, but our landlord hadn’t turned the heat on until then. i only complain because i have tropical fish and if it’s too cold they die. lauren sent me a message. it forced me to buy wine. i walked to the boozer and back home.

i felt bad it wasn’t beer but heck i bought a three litre football filled with wine.

we were supposed to go meet some physicists at some bar later in the night. i drank wine without making trouble about not having beer.

eventually, after listening to this this and this, we walked through black alleys sipping stuff. we ended up at a tennis court. it was empty and we danced a little in it. i found a wooden spoon in the grass and kept it. i thought i’d show it to the physicists.

finding physicists in a bar is difficult

we got to the place they were at. i didn’t like it. it looked like the picture below but instead of cars and blue sky, picture bros and dark sky. lauren kept saying, “i really gotta poo.” i felt embarrassed. i had a wooden spoon sticking out of my coat and lauren talked about poo. they carded us and let us in. i couldn’t believe my physicist friend would hang out here.

it was a maze and i kept boning people with my elbows and we were lost. lauren went to poo. i stood outside the bathroom knocking my knuckles together. i tried calling my physicist friend but he wouldn’t pick up.

he sent me a message. it said, ‘hey call me when you get here. this place is a maze’.

i tried calling again to no answer.

i get nervous in public places standing alone

lauren came out of the bathroom. we walked around the connected victorian houses. i ordered a couple of beers from the bar. they poured one. they poured the second and stopped halfway.

“uh, the beer’s run out. you want another one?”

“sure”

beers from blue taps

i pointed to a blue handled tap and he poured me something i didn’t really want. i didn’t know what it was either but it seemed better than labatt 50. i walked around and found my physicist friend. he introduced me to his other physicist friends and we talked about space jam and william burroughs.

i thought oh man this is a pretty sweet beer. i can’t remember the smell because there were men around our seats by the window and i can’t remember the colour accurately because bars tend to be dimly lit (or that’s just my head).

it looked amber and had no head. i yelled ‘EW’ at two people making out at a booth across from us. this wasn’t very good reviewing environment but it’s all i had this week. i swirled it around to

i) possible spill on someone

ii) agitate the thing

this made the unknown beer bubble. i sipped it and it tasted better. it was smooth and didn’t feel like drinking hard water. it was lightly hopped but tangy. i can’t describe the taste much further than that because i took a break from the beer. when i came back to it, it had gone warm and held too much flavour. i downed the fruit show down and got another.

i found out what it was called

the barkeep told me it was creemore. i realized i had never drank creemore before. sitting here now i feel lacking. how could i have never had creemore before? shameful. i hadn’t drank creemore before but i’m glad i did. it’s great if you’re out meeting physicists at a victorian house turned into a bar where people make out in booths and everyone’s got three layers of face on and all the other beers are either molson or run out while they’re pouring your pint.

it’s not the typical borefest lager. it’s very amber and rewarding. plug some into your mouth sometime soon.

-sufian