4@ - Wednesday, May 20, 1992 - North Shere News

Moosehead: A truly Canadian experience

THE FIRST time I ever drank Moosehead beer was in a
gritty pub in a wind-whipped bore-dry half-abandoned
mining town called Iron Knob on the western edge of
Australia’s Nullabor Desert, which I'd been driving across,
with a group of crazed Aussies, for days, having to survive
mechanical breakdowns, nervous breakdowns, and warm

tinned brew.

At one of the low points, the
engine of our truck had burst into
flame, forcing us off the road,
and nobody could find the fire ex-
tinguisher.

Just then, a big rig roared out
of the shimmering heat waves and
screeched to a stop. A grizzled
truckie hopped out, extinguisher
in hand, snuffed our fire, and
without so much as a “‘G’day,”’
remounted the driver’s seat and
rumbled away down the road.

At another Iow point, I'd
decided, for kicks, to drive on the
desert itself, since it was just as
flat as the highway. It was great
fun, like a road warrior movie,
spewing out a tremendous cloud
of dust. Alas, I hit a pothole or
two and wrecked the axle.

You try fixing a oroken axle in
the middle of a 2,000-mile-wide
desert.

A cold Moosehead beer!

Needless to say, it was probably
the best several gulps of beer I
have ever experienced. | will
always remember it.

I give you the context to make
it clear that, for me, there on the
bleak edge of the Great Treeless
Plain, Moosehead beer became a
symbol of the mystical essence of
Australia.

’ _ As the long-suffering familiar
reader will know, I don’t usuatiy
do beer commercials in this space,
nor would the practice be toler-
ated for long, should I write
about nothing else.

The point here is that for years
afterwards, I thought Moosehead
beer came from Australia,
specifically Western Australia.

i would describe it to people as
‘*a fantastic brew you can buy in
Australia that has this really Ca-
nadian-sounding name.”’

Of course, Moosehead is pro-
duced in Saint John, New
Brunswick.

Now, when you think about it,
isn’t that a quintessentially Cana-
dian story? :

You go to another country,
have a religious experience with a
brew you take to be local, but
which turns out to actually to be a
Canadian beer brewed in New
Brunswick that can’t be enjoyed

Bob
Hunter

STRICTLY PERSONAL

in the rest of Canada because of
inter-provincial trade barriers, but
can be quaffed all over the world.

I think it's fair to speculate that
had my heat- and angst-fried
eyeballs spotted any other beer at
that formative moment as I stag-
gered crack-lipped and sand-
caked into the pub in Iron Knob
so many years ago, that particular
brand of beer today would enjoy
the status of a fondly-remembered
Peak Experience which I ascribe,
thanks to the luck of the draw, to
Moosehead.

I should add that I’ve tried
Moosehead many times since that
first encounter, and, good as it

was, it was never quite the saine
thrill. But that can be said of a lot
of things, eh?

Still, F take it as an extremely
good omen for Canadian unity
that my favorite **Aussie’” brew
— Moosehead —- can now be en-
joyed in B.C. and Ontario and
will soon be available across the
rest of Canada, even, by the cnd
of the year, in ~ get this! ~
Quebec.

It’s part of a plan to open the
beer trade across Canada by July
1. Free trade in brew between
provinces. My gawd, what an
idea!

The idea that booze should be
regulated goes back, probably, to
the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516,
which stipulated that only hops,
water, malt and yeast could be
used in beer.

That perfectly-sensible law
managed to stay in place until the
advent of the European Economic
Community, which finally forced
Gesmans to accept competition
from chemically tainted foreien
brews — a backware step, if :7ou
ask me, from the esthetic and
health points of view, but a neces-
sary evil if the great god of global
free trade is ever to be properly
worshipped.

I’m not innocent or stupid
enough to imagine for a minute
that beer isn’t political. Always
has been. Again, an image from
German history comes to mind,
that of Bavarian monks brewing
beer from the abundant local hops
to ease the hunger pains during
Lent.

A suspicious Pope ordered some
of this brew brought down to
Rome to be sampled. Wisely, the
monks sent along their flattest,
weakest batch.

WV appointments made

TWO WEST Vancouver resi-
dents have been appointed to
the board of directors of the
Insurance Corp. of B.C.
(ICBC).

Herschel Hardin is ar
author, public policy consul-
tant, broadcaster and journal-
ist.

Glen Wong is vice-president
of marketing for Nabob Foods
Ltd.

The pair are part of the new
16-member ICBC beard of

AsO aRt ater eet oe

BEEF BLADE
CHUCK STEAK

Canada Grade A 3.26 hg

EXPIRES MAY 23/92

directors, which was appointed
May 15 by Labor Minister Moe
Sihota, the minister responsible
for ICBC.

Sihota also appointed
Whistler resident Norman
Olsen to the new 14-member
B.C. Hydro and Power
Authority board of directors.

Olsen is the former general
manager and president of B.C.
Hydro and is the current
chairman of the Health Labor
Relations Association.

STORE HOURS
CUNBAR & DOLLARTON
Mon-Fr 9am-9pm
Sat Bam-7pm, Sun 9am-6pm
DUNDARAVE
WEST VAN.
Mon-Wed Jam 7pm
Thut-Fr Sam-9pm
Sat-Sun 9am 6pm
LYNN VALLEY
NORTH VANCOUVER
Mon-Sat 8am-9pm
Sun 9am-6om

The Pope spat the stuff out,
concluding that the boys in the
former Frankish realms had mere-
iy found a new way of doing
penance.

Just so that no one can accuse
me of being a running-dog lackey
of the Tory-Republican-
multinational-corporate-bankers
conspiracy to enslave the masses
of consumers through the
sabotaging of inter-provincial
trade barriers, I hasten to add
that, mainly, I find Canadian
beers to be boring at best, raw
chemicals at worst.

So 1am not in favor of inter-
Canadian free brew trade because
I think it’s going to bestow any
blessing on me or my fellow
Canucks by way of making some
of the world’s great brews avail-
able.

This is not to say that there
aren't any number of totally
drinkable and quite honorable
organic Upper Canada Lager kind
of brewskis around. But they
don't tinger indelibly in my mem-
ory.

The only upbeat comparative
thing that can be said for Cana-
dian beers, in my dour but real-
istic view, is that they aren't as
bad as American beers.

This, of course, is not saying
much.

Out there in the real beer world,
in places like Dublin and London
and Munich, where bubbly is
milked out of taps at just the right
temperature, with just the right
amount of head, where ein Krug
(a gigantic stein) is the basic
drinking unit, Canadian beers are
not a major recurring subject of
heated debate.

The fact that Moosehead has an
international market niche at all is

+ something of a miracle. If it can

sell in Australia, it’ll sell in Alber-
ta.

And surely Albertans should
have an inherent right to drink
New Brunswick beer, just as lucky
British Columbians and Ontarians
now can.

Cheers!

THE CORPORATION OF THE

DISTRICT OF

NORTH VANCOUVER
PARKS DEPARTMENT

lant

Presents the

Bulb Sale!

SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1992

9:00 a.m. -

12:00 noon

2045 SEYMOUR RIVER PLACE - HERITAGE PARK
(Behind Maplewood Farm - Follow the Signs)

Lovely mabé pearl
and diamord ring

hand-made in
18K yellow gold