Kokanee beer

by Trevor Prosser
(Beer Delegate, AB)

Kokanee beer. It's the girl at high school you wonder why nobody asked out...

Every time I head into the liquor store these days ("Hey, it's the guy who thinks he's a beer reviewer" says the gal at the cash), I try to find new and exotic local beers to sample and write about. Who wants to drink Canadian when there's some fancy new microbrew that no one outside of Alberta will ever see? Why down another Big Rock when you can gamble with the unknown?

But when I go out for an evening with friends, most of the establishments I haunt don't have a huge selection of odd beers. In fact, at most places, your choices are limited to Molson, Big Rock, or Kokanee beer. And to butcher Robert Frost, these beers converge in a corner tavern, and I chose Kokanee - and that has made all the difference.

Kokanee beer is like that girl in high school who everybody liked. She wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, but she was pretty enough to make you wonder why one of your friends didn't ask her out. She was kind, she was friendly, and she was always there. She was everyone's pal. That's our glacier-spring ale, all right.

Kokanee is the beer you drink without thinking about it. The beer you grab a pitcher of at the sports bar when no one knows what they want to drink, but everyone agrees it shouldn't be Budweiser. And yet, in its simplicity is beauty.

It's a smooth beer, not a heavy drink by any means. Its golden hue and small head are very similar to the other big-brand beers, but it comes off with a bit more corn-bread flavour than the other contenders. It's slightly sweet, easy to chug, and like most of its ilk, is much better when served ice cold.

Really, the only thing that really separates Kokanee from the others is the quality of their ads. Who hasn't seen the Ranger, the Sasquatch, and the Ski Bunnies on television? And now, with their "Ranger - Live or Die?" campaign (I voted Live - heck, I even bought the tee shirt!), they're really pushing the brand.

Will that encourage more people to give Kokanee beer a try? I doubt it - because I don't know a single person who drinks beer who hasn't already had at least one pint of it - and declared it "pretty good". Not the most earth-shaking endorsement, I know - but hey, it's Kokanee.