A Beer Good Enough for Prince George

I mentioned the other day that John and I went to an Organic Festival. One of the first signs that greeted us was for lemonade and we smiled and nodded and murmured, "Oh, what a nice pretty sign, it's so pretty, (sigh) so cute. Oooh. Ahhh."

And then angels started singing and THE CLOUDS PARTED AND OUR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED BECAUSE WE WEREN'T GOING TO BE ASKED TO GET THROUGH THE ENTIRE DAY ON LEMONADE ALONE - IT WAS DECREED!!!

That's right. This wicked Organic Fest had a Green Drinkery. Yessireebob. We were at a dang good festival.

My first "taste" was the Lotusland 2002 Pinot Noir (above). I liked it. I was a happy camper. Granted, I was sitting in the sun, downing a generous glass of wine and everyone was practically BEGGING me to feel all high and mighty as I was supporting the organic wine industry... but still, I think that Pinot did it's part to brighten my day.

The discerning wine drinker will note that the picture above is not of a glass of red wine and a glass of white wine. No, no. The glass on the right is a glass full of BEER. Beer? Beer! There is a good reason for the departure from the pure "Wino" side of "Fido & Wino" however as this is a very special glass of beer. Oh yes.

Drum roll please.

Let me introduce you to... NATURELAND!!!

John tasted NatureLand's Organic Lager and said it rocked. This is all lovely and good but the real kicker in all of this is that the Pacific Western Brewing Company- which brews NatureLand- is based in PRINCE GEORGE!!! I grew up in Prince George! This is amazing because Prince George has also voted, year after year, to keep a giant wooden man (Mr. PG if you will) as the mascot for the city (I'm not kidding, google it). Who knew good 'ol PG had it in 'er to whip up some tasty organic brew?

Pacific Western: If you're reading this, call me! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Tastes Like the Smell of Mr. Clean

Same lovely French restaurant that I was telling you about last week- different wine altogether (no, we aren't total lushes. We're lushes, sans the "total").

In actual fact we didn't want dessert wine. What we wanted was limoncello. That's right, limoncello. Do you know how many times I have had to defend limoncello's honour? Countless. And guys, come on! It's good! No, limoncello does not "taste like the smell of Mr. Clean." And no, it doesn't taste like lemon juice on steroids. It just doesn't.

I have a giant bottle of the stuff in my wine rack (yes, I realize wine should be in a wine rack, I've got limited space and a limited budget... I'm not storing socks in there yet, so we're still ok), and I just discovered it is a giant bottle of total crap. We made the mistake of ordered one glass of high quality limoncello and one glass of "in the paper bag" quality so we could compare. Turns out we've been drinking crap all this while. Good to know. It would have been BETTER to know this BEFORE I bought 4 litres of crap. It would have even been better to know AFTER we downed the giant bottle of Mr. Clean and forced the majority of it on our guests all the while demanding that they agree how great the taste was. That way we could have downed and forced in ignorant bliss. But knowing now is good too. I'll think of something. I'm sure there's a birthday or wedding coming up somewhere...

Anyway- what we ended up having was Blackberry Wine by Starling Lane Winery. It was very, very good. That is my professional review: Very, very good. There is no way this stuff would ever make it into the Kitchen Wine Bottle, for sure.

And here is another poster because the last one was such a hit.


Overall Review: Very, very good (Thumbs Up)