Enough politics for the moment, let’s move on to beer.

It’s winter in Vancouver, and that means two things:

1. People are going to go batshit over a few inches of snow, and
2. Granville Island’s going to sell their excellent Lions Winter Ale (top of the page)

Lions Winter Ale is kinda dark, kinda thick, kinda sweet, kinda strong (5.5%), and loaded with vanilla flavour. Yes, vanilla — and yes, it works. I’m not generally a big fan of flavoured beverages — I want my coffee to taste like coffee, my beer to taste like beer, and so on — but I quite enjoy this stuff. The strong vanilla flavour enhances the beer, it doesn’t mask it or overwhelm it. That wouldn’t be possible with a different kind of beer — it would be entirely out of place in a lager, for instance, or a stout. It fits perfectly with a winter ale, though.

If vanilla’s not your thing, though, you can still get Holsten Festbock, which will serve you quite well.