Election night here in Canada. So far most of the fun has been watching people get around the blackout law that bars transmission of election results until polls close across the whole country by posting from the UK or posting as rumours. The law is pre-Internet. It's actually pretty much pre-TV and pre-radio, too. Anyway, there has been much activity over at the other blog.

So what does that have to do with this barley wine? Well, it comes from Alley Kat, Alberta's most famous craft brewery. Alberta is also the home of Canada's rural-based conservative movement and tonight and this election is all about them, whether they can lift themselves out of another minority Parliament or whether we go on in the endless round about of no party getting more than 33% of the vote. So even though I probably didn't vote for them, I am popping this one either in farewell or as a salute to our new rural overlords, same as the old rural overlords.

Deep chestnut ale under a mocha head. Plenty of molasses, dried fig and date as well as a decent level of freshness for a beer five years in a twist off cap - the lightest of a pfft at the opening. Even at 10% it's a bit more like a take on Old Peculier than any other beer I have had. But a lime and apple sort of hoppiness, too, a bit like Ithaca But Brown ale.

Plenty of BAer love. Will any politician in the land of Canuck do as well?