Bucket List : Singular Beer Experiences

   Last week I was able to check another bucket list beer off and it spurred a lot of conversation around not only Pliny the Elder and our perception of it as being a much sought after OG whale of a pint up here in Canada, but also of other seemingly important, often difficult to obtain beers that we aspire to acquire with desire.

  For me, it all began with places like Bellwoods, a mystical place that was making stuff no one else in Ontario was able to. I would visit their Ossington Avenue location on special occasions, almost like making a pilgrimage to a holy place and each offering I would dutifully return home with to try and make out what special thing was going in inside my glass. Of course, as I spun further down into the world of beers, I became enamoured with yearly releases, special one-offs and collaborations, stuff like Nickel Brook's Bourbon Barrel aged Kentucky Bastard, Twin Pines from Sawdust City, Double Tempest from Amsterdam and Apocalypse Later Imperial Black IPA from Great Lakes are but 3 of the truly must not miss pints that would appear from the mists of the brew tanks once a year to mark the passage of time and the joyous reckoning of their fans. But at this point, I feel that these are not really Bucket List beers anymore, although one could make the argument for the 2016 NB Kentucky, as even my last bottle, consumed in December of 2023, was still a sublime masterpiece, never to be repeated again. The specialness of these much loved yearly returnees isn't diminished because I can get them every year, rather it has become something I eagerly anticipate and look forward to being able to purchase and enjoy. But to us who can get them with ease, much like people in California with Pliny, they are something just a little below that kind of truly unique and singular experience beers that hard to come things like Heady Topper, Cantillion or Westvleteren 12. It isn't that they are not amazing, but the lack of access certainly makes for part of the charm of these beers we seek.

  Having said all of that, I have no doubt that some of the beers we regularly consume here in this part of Ontario, either local craft beer or the amazing European selections at the LCBO, which has never ceased to please me, that people in other parts of this country and others would consider Whales that they would love to try. I often wonder what truly makes that kind of Bucket List experience so special and for me it has been a combination of the rarity, history and quality over that time that drives my imagination. I have been able to enjoy many of what I would consider those Singular beer pours and even though there are some I have been able to try again, at the time, thinking I would only ever get to sip and savour it once, only enhanced what I was drinking. To be able to consume something you have dreamed about for a decade or more is not easy to describe, especially when it is the benchmark of the style, the genesis of a revolution or a revered bottle that has stood the test of time and defied all challenges to its supremacy.

  I seek out these beers when I can, I have a sense of what I wish to see materialize in my glass for a special occasion and often they seem to find their way to me through the generous hands of strangers become friends from afar. Heady Topper and Focal Banger up from Vermont via beer friends, a bottle of Cantillion sitting in my cellar now, delivered across the ocean by a lovely pal and two times I was able to experience Pliny, once in my early years and the second time just a week ago, a cousin and a new friend giving the immaculate West Coast IPA to me with joy and thoughtfulness. 

  There have been others, perhaps not as well known, but Singular Beer Experiences that rocked my core, left me often smiling for days afterword as I pondered the existence of such wonderful people and liquid art hat filled my senses. These are not the beers of yore, progenitors of styles or even well known sometimes, but they stick out in my mind for a variety of reasons that still can bring me joy at a fleeting reminder they existed. But these are not really Bucket List in the fullest sense because part of that designation is about the yearning and anticipation of one day, somehow, obtaining and then consuming their glorious contents.

   I think we live in a pretty damn good time when it comes to access to very good, even great beer, of every conceivable style. I can find almost everything I could desire within an hour of my home when it comes to this and still, there exist things, that in my mind could still be worthy of much more than I could ever know. Drinking a Pilsner Urquell on a patio at the brewery in Czechia, seeking wisdom in the Belgian countryside whilst consuming Monk beers at or near the source and raising a very large mug of German Lager as Oktoberfest swirls around me. These 3 things are what wander into my mind as the very be all, end all Bucket List trip in beer. More so than being able to check off a single bottle or can of a much sought after pint, it is these three places and the liquid gold associated with them that are at the basis for every wild fantasy I have left in my imagination. I seek no surf or sand, no beach or cabana, I want only for the simplest, purest and most joyous ways to know that where it started, where it all began, found a way into my glass as I raise it and tip back history and the future at the same time.

  I wish you well, my friends, in your own pursuit of your Bucket List beers.

Polk

Sunday April 28th, 2024