So I went to the beer store to grab some XX lager from mexico. Strangly I'm in a lager phase even though it's winter here. Serious winter.
So I'm browsing the goods near the XX. There's one from Italy with a hot girly pic on it and I notice there's a sticker stating it's imported by some company based here in my city.
I start wistfully thinking and I have thought about this before, I should try and see if I could be the guy that imports Cascade.
As I'm picking up a 6 of XX and memorizing the name of the guy that brought in the Italian stuff. I am continuing to browse what's on the shelves.
BAM!!!
Cascade premium lager. I go weak in the knees and nearly break into song in praise to God! I am excited like I have not been since I entered teh hallowed halls of the Steven Udvar-Hazy center.
I grasp the newfound treasure and try to recall the flavours. I can't even remember for certain which of the Cascade beers I had consumed though I know for sure there was not any that I didn't absolutly love.
Strangely I am usually an ale lover, I am extremly picky about my lagers. I can drink a less than perfect ale and generally enjoy it. Lagers I can't have one that isn't just the way I like them.
I get to the till and it rings in as $19 and change. I stop and give the puzzled look, then I see it says two items.
The person that scanned it asks "Something wrong?"
I state, "I'd actually just like the one."
"Oh it is just one, the second item is the deposit."
I'm taken back a little by the price. Most premium beers here are $12-14ish.
I think about it briefly and decide, I'll give it a try. It is after all possibly my favorite beer on the planet.
I get in the car with it and tell my wife whom is suprisingly ok about the whole thing. I'm not sure if I want it to be good or to suck so I'm not stuck buying such overpriced beer.
I get home and I'm looking forward to sampling it for the first time as I'm certain I didn't have lager in Melbourne, though I just can't remember so I may well have.
To make it even better if that were indeed possible and let me tell you it was. My wife made chicken wings for supper. I was supervising my kids the nearly five year old one was supposed to be helping the toddler have his bath. I was looking up something on the internet and the aroma was getting my attention. I had still not opened any of my little friends, still being unsure if I were in for a disapointment in the flavour department or the economic front.
Dinner was served and I had actually somehow fogot about the fluid from fairly close to as far away on the planet as is possible. Mrs. dimes asks, "What do you want to drink with dinner, water, juice or what?" I think for a moment and realise what's going on. "Oh one of my tasty beers, please!"
I take a nibble of a wing and it's pretty good, honey garlic, perhaps could have used a splash of indonesian soy sauce. It's time to find out what I've done. Wasted nearly $20 to get some skunky lager I hate or what.
It trickled down my throat in a perfect finish to one of the best lager flavours I know. It's perfect crisp, yet delicious and full, to give it a high compliment from my perspective, "like a beautifull ale."
To close I'm in love and so far my wife is ok with sharing me. She even tried to down play the cost. "If you bought one in the bar it would probably be $9." Every once in a while she's a good woman, possibly worth keeping.
Thomas Cooper was a Methodist preacher from Yorkshire, England, who emigrated to Australia in 1852 and started a brewery in Adelaide. Coopers is the last of Australia's old-established family breweries. It's Sparkling Ale (which, quite cloudy) had a bronze-red color until about 1980. Now, it has a full, golden hue. It is quenching, classic, fruity (with suggestions of apples, pears, and especially bananas), and dry, with a long finish.
