I love hockey and since it’s playoff time I thought I’d celebrate this occasion the way I celebrate everything: by drinking. Of course I don’t need much of a reason to drink. Honestly, I have a tough time coming up with reasons not to drink, but I thought a review of Canada’s own Labatt Blue would be a fitting tribute. When I think of hockey I think of Canada, and when I think of Canada I think of idiots getting drunk in the woods on Labatt Blue.
Canada is an interesting country (not
really.) It’s a lot like regular
America, but a foreign monarch is still legally the head of state. I’ve been there a few times, and it’s
honestly a pretty nice place despite the fact that their football field is 10
yards too long and they were gowns in court.
In genre fiction the frigid Nørthlaënds are typically the domain of
half-human barbarians, but in reality Canada is just full of dudes in flannel
shirts, like a less hip version of Seattle.
Canadians might be half-human, but they’re more like Cylons; they seem
completely normal until it’s too late. Then they’re all like, “Hey Broomhead,
how’s aboot a Tim Horton donut, ‘eh?”
In point of fact, people as normal
seeming as Sarah Chalke, Todd Macfarlane, Cobie Smulders, Shenae Grimes, Dave
Foley, Bronko Nagurski, Mike Myers, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Jennings, Michael
Ironside, William Shatner, and Dan Akroyd hail from the Great White North.
As I alluded to in the introduction, the most
popular sport in Canada is ice hockey, which is understandable. Hockey combines the grace and majesty of
figure skating with people beating the shit out of each other. Even when there aren’t any fights everyone is
knocking each other over all the time. When
you consider the fact that every player is holding a giant stick it’s actually
kind of amazing that it only comes to fisticuffs. If Ihave one criticism of the game, it would
have to be the stupid nicknames. They
just add a “Y” sound or an “-er” to the end of your surname, so if Night Train
Lane played hockey he’d be “Laner” and Christian Okoye would be “Okie” instead
of the mother fucking Nigerian Nightmare.
For their sake maybe it’s a good thing black people don’t play hockey.
Labatt actually ended up buying 1000 copies of this unofficial poster to meet consumer demand. |
Beerwise, Labatt is 5%ABV. Fucking choice. It’s a little better than most domestics, but
be warned the whole bullshit fucking metric lamewad fucking system conversion
means you only get 11.2 fl.oz. in a bottle, so you might want to stick to the 12
oz. cans. As far as flavor goes it’s
easy to see why Labatt is the number one beer in Canada. It’s got a lot of flavor; crisp with a slight
hint of beer flavored bitterness. A
welcome change from the sweet, sour, or just plain watery variety I often end
up drinking. In the interest of
journalistic integrity I’ve actually taken upon myself to drink a few cases of
the stuff over the last few weeks. It’s
great. I can’t recommend it enough.
I think I’m going to celebrate the end of this
review by watching a little playoff hockey, and drinking an ice-cold Labatt blue. While Canada might not be as good as the U.S.
at fighting wars or keeping French separatists
in line they do know how to make a tasty brew.
Go Blackhawks.