Barleywine, Best Bitter and a Barrel of ESB.

This is a Woolly Bugger.

So is this.

And so is this, Howe Sound Brewing's Woolly Bugger Barleywine.

For those of you not aware, Barleywine is a style of beer that's usually high-alcohol, high-intensity, and with a specific gravity resembling that of the core of a gas giant. For many beerthusiasts, it's the Holy Grail of beer because you can cellar it much like you would a fine wine, thus giving you ammunition against sniffy oenophiles who might look down their nose at you when you bump into them at the till.

But then, we beerthusiasts have many Holy Grails. Honestly, it's like Crazy Pope Benedict IX's holy relic fire sale around here. You've got your fresh harvest ales, your sour ales, your giant biblically named bottles (jeroboam and up), your double and triple IPAs and then there's the scramble to touch your cup to any cask that gets tapped like it was the pierced side of Jeebus.

Anyways, lets leave the Woolly Bugger for a mo' and talk about the re-jigging of Moon Under Water's excellent beers.

Moon Under Water is a nice place to visit. That may sound like a bit of a low-powered compliment, but it's true: it's a nice, warm pub without the cacophonic clatter you normally find at your usual happenin' joint. I'm pleased to report that whatever fiddling they did with the Blue Moon Best Bitter enhanced the malts a bit, but left it still a comforting, companion-like beer that's the perfect partner to a heaping helping of toad-in-the-hole. I hope this doesn't offend the brewer in any way, but he's basically created beer slippers.

And you can now take it home. Unlike hoppier, punchier beers like Driftwood's Fat Tug IPA, Blue Moon loses little (if anything) in the bottle, and it should quickly become a fridge staple.

Speaking of Driftwood, I very nearly missed their Naughty Hildegard cask at the Beagle yesterday. The usual work-related SNAFUs saw me race in, grab a pint and then scurry out.

Driftwood does nothing to their casks other than just take them off the main tank, but there is a subtle difference when compared to their bottles, so I was curious to see if Hilde's character was any different fresh out of the convent, so to speak. If anything, she's a bit milder, but I have to say, I miss last year's floral nose-bomb a bit. On cask, I bet it'd rival Sartori.

But anyway, back to the Woolly Bugger. It's a tiny bottle, just big enough to share, the perfect ending to a day no fish would die.

A Word About Light Beer

First, let's mollify a few people. Fancy a popsicle?

Delicious. Everybody else, try a bite of this penis. I mean sausage.

Now that we're all comfortably settled with our Freudian slippers on, let me get out the ol' soapbox.

I'm all for the idea of session beers. They make perfect sense to me, as best exemplified by Moon Under Water where the pub is a buzzing social hub, rather than the place where everybody forgets your name because they're on their eighth IPA. Being able to pop in for a weekday pint without worrying overmuch about the residual effects of dissolving a large portion of your frontal cortex come next morning is a delight.

But good session beers are not supposed as thin and characterless and forgettable as Paris Hilton. They're supposed to be rich and tan and have around a 4% alcohol-by-volume content. Like Paris Hilton.

Here's my quantum theory of lite: "Whereas any product is available in regular or light formats, be it determined that the descriptor 'light' is interchangeable with 'crappy'."

Thus, mayonnaise-type dressing is an affront to mankind, diet soft-drinks taste like pH balancer for the hot-tub, and "light-beer" is the biggest oxymoron since "BC Liberals". I find the cutesy "lite" appellation particularly offensive, as though cartoonizing the spelling makes it any less galling to swallow preservative-laden, artificially-engineered, hyper-chemical pseudo-food.

It's kind of like what McDonald's has done with their oatmeal; it should just be oats, milk and fruit, and somehow they've managed to create the worst oats-related thing since "Private Eyes".

Drink better. Drink less. Run More.

Damn Good: Moon Under Water

Note: This is not a stock picture. Katie took this shot just outside our door after we came home from the pub. Eerie.

It's not often that I can come home after a few pints and feel clear-headed enough to attempt a posting. My usual routine is to stagger up to the keyboard, full of muzzy ideas and high-test IPA and then collapse into darkness, waking to find my laptop coated with viscous drool, as if recently rescued from the lower intestine of a whale, and its screen filled with strings of gibberish like I've been typing with my elbows.

Not so tonight, as I've just returned from an excellent meal and a couple of session bevvies at Moon Under Water, the newest brewpub in Victoria.

I love the idea of a lower-alcohol session ale (in this case, a rich-tasting English Bitter). Don't get me wrong, I'm as much about monster IPAs as the next individual with a failing liver, but it's kind of hard to root for the 'Nucks in the third when you're lying on the floor, comatose. Not a problem at Moon Under Water though, where you can get a proper pint, brimmed expertly to a bulging meniscus (I hate being cheated out of beer by getting served three inches of foam), and the beer is as comforting as an episode of your favourite TV show, rather than akin to being round-house kicked in the face by Chuck Norris wearing cowboy boots doused in hop resin.

Also, there's proper pub food.

Now, admittedly, Moon Under Water's proprietors have been unable to resist the temptation to put something on the menu that involves aioli (it's mayonnaise, people) but the rest of the bill of fare is simple and hearty.

The above-pictured Toad-In-the-Hole was just the right pairing for the Bitter, being that it contained a full day's recommended serving of Brown, and was chock-full of warm mushy gooey gravyish deliciousness. If you listen carefully, you can hear the faint sounds of a vitamin crying softly to itself because it is all alone and has no friends. Dave says the burger is pretty good too.

I'm miffed to be missing the Sunday night roast and the launch of their Tranquility IPA. Don't you miss it too.

On the other hand, I was pleased to see a stack of labels behind the bar: bottles are on their way!