Collective Arts Brewing Surround Sound V.7 and nostalgia

 

  I don't know man, maybe we just take a day tomorrow.

Funny, but I like to give myself hope that I just might take that personal day someday and never go back...

It's got nothing to do with what I do for a living, we all gotta get by and by all accounts I've got it pretty decent for a guy who dropped out of school in 1990 to do whatever I thought was so much better back then. Hint, it involves booze, drugs and rock and roll minus the rock and roll. But I got the house and all that jazz, made decent by some lucky breaks and a whole lotta 80 hour work weeks and here we are. 20 year old me would be pretty stoked to be hanging out down here with a full beer fridge and a liquor cabinet that bulges with excess, not to mention that weed is legal so we can pretty much live like I did all those years ago with impunity. But even while I wax nostalgic watching old flicks and finding videos on YouTube I used to have to hope to see on Friday Night Videos on NBC or Sunday on the CHUM Countdown, it all seems a little more than just a trip down memory lane. It's an escape, a refuge in a world gone mad and forced to quarantine to survive. 

Like having a couple of Pints in the middle of a 6 day, 70+ hour workweek...

Anyway, thanks for that, sometimes all it takes is the chance to write it out, let it go and wake up tomorrow feeling fine.

@collectivebrew Surround Sound Version 7 with Lotus and Mosaic came out mid July and I just had grab a few more cans when I stopped by today to see how it has held up over the summer. It still hits that vanilla, pineapple, berry and dank pine. Cheers! 4.5/5

Comfort Beer, Comfort Music

 

Comfort beer.
Comfort music.
The struggles of 2020 are not going anywhere, the life we live can often feel like it's spinning out of our grasp with every little thing adding up each time. This virus and the very unsettled political landscape south of the border are not just seen to be not only worrisome, but perhaps transformative. We seek more equality, more justice, more change because our "normal" has been exposed as a charade where the poor, the disenfranchised, people of colour, Indigenous people, LGBTQ2+ and so many more were left behind as the rich got richer and the world seemed tipped in favour of those who already had so much. We see it here in the tiny fraction of the world on line, but is it that our social media feeds reinforce our own views and we feel like change is happening when in reality we are screaming into the void and nothing is changing at all. I'd like to think we can seek dialogue but we see too many entrenching into a them versus us, right versus left and we try to prevent the cult of Me that has permeated our American cousins from changing this country for the worst. Once was a time that you did the right thing because it was just that. Even if it gave you no direct benefit, you did things because it helped society as a whole. "What's in it for me?" is a philosophy too many live by and without seeing how damaging that can be, they blindly support those who look, act and think like them. But the world isn't homogeneous, it isn't white suburbia and it isn't working for the vast majority of humanity. So as we round the corner on this, hopefully, once in a lifetime pandemic, let us not seek to return to "normal", because normal was not good enough, fair enough or right enough for everyone. Until we are all free, none of us is free.
Peace.

Duvel, Gord and Tonight

 

It's funny how music stays with you in the moments it helps capture. The Hip were for so long the soundtrack of my life, from year to year, happy to sad and back again, disaster to triumph and beyond, there was always a Hip song to bring that memory back. So catching Long Time Running tonight will no doubt lead to a YouTube Tragically Hip video marathon, including that amazing Woodstock performance, and I'll be deep into my Pints before this one ends tonight. Grief, loss, life and love in decades of music so Canadian I feel it in my damn bones. Lots of great Ontario beer in my fridge but I do love a little Belgian in my life and in a night spent contemplating what it all mean, this 8.5% @duvel_belgium Golden Strong Ale will lay a baseline for where we go tonight. I often wonder if I would be so into West Coast IPAs if I lived in Belgium or would I have gravitated to this style with its bright citrus notes, grapefruit and orange peel, banana, light fruitiness and strong finish of pepper hop spice. Well carbonated with a bit of a boozy end, its small size belies the punch it gives, much like the songs Gord Downie and the Hip gave me to live with as my years head hurtling towards 5 decades. Who knows where it all is heading, we come here the same way, do the best we can and hope to leave a little of ourselves  at the end to be remembered by. Make those thoughts that will carry you on good ones, be kind and remember to tell the people you love that you love them every chance you get.

Peace.

4.25/5