we met up at brewsters, which is a little beer brewery and bar north of jasper ave. it would have been right by my old house. it's really far away from the new place.

the sampler tray cost $7.50, and i took the opportunity to sample their raspberry, blueberry, stout, irish, and barley wine beer offerings.

the raspberry was delicious. and served with fresh fruit.
the blueberry tasted rather muffin-y. it was a wheat beer, and because of it's light fruity flavour i think this would be an ideal breakfast beer.
the stout was lovely. megpye broke her covenant with her god to sip a half-pint of that.
the irish style beer was red, and it was remarkably delicious. refreshing, tasty, everything i want in a beer.
the barley wine was strong, and it tasted wretched. 606 bravely finished off my glass, as i couldn't face it even after drinking all the rest of the beers on my tray.

we were told the story of a viking tradition, whereby before entrance into valhalla the warriors would be put upside down into a keg of all the beer and mead they had ever wasted or spilled. anyone who drowned or failed to drink their way out of the predicament was not allowed into valhalla.
606 bravely secured his place in those hallowed halls.
that beer was truly awful.

many more stories were told, fables were spun, and all in all we had a great evening.

i posed a cultural question:
are green onion cakes a unique edmonton cultural feature?

everywhere in edmonton these fried onion pancakes are served. at all the festivals, all the bars, most of the restaurants, they are ubiquitous. i had never seen or heard of them before coming west.  i suspect they don't exist outside of alberta.

megpye recalls her mother knew of them before coming to edmonton, and that she could not recall seeing them during her time in vancouver.

606 ordered them, since he hadn't really heard of them either.

over green onion cakes and beer we discussed many of the great issues facing us in our lives, engaged in witty banter and hypothesized about how cooking and eating can be clear evidence of cultural differences and similarities.

alas, we had to part ways and go home fairly early, since megpye was driving and her and i were exhausted from the move.

i know albertahusidrinks part 3 will shape up to be legendary.
i hope you all can make it!