Lucky Catch

Even if you don’t believe in luck you have to admit it’s pretty lucky to find a full beer wash up on shore. This can of Lucky Lager made landfall on Wolfe Island, Ontario recently —slightly dented and tarnished but brimming with 355ml (Canada, remember?) of golden goodness.

Lucky Lager seems to be Ontario’s answer to Milwaukee’s Best or Pabst Blue Ribbon: a working man’s brew for folks with few airs and fewer dollars. Fewer Canadian dollars.

You can’t help but wonder how it ended up in the water, eh? Maybe it fell off a fishing boat or drifted away from a vacation cottage. And where are it’s five brethren, anyway? Maybe this can of beer was involved in some sort of Great Lakes maritime tragedy —a small scale Edmund Fitzgerald involving cheap beer, a little boat, and a terrible lapse in judgment.

One thing is clear: you don’t find a can of beer labeled Lucky Lager and not drink it. So drink it I did.

I’m happy to report that the Lucky Lager held up well to its indeterminate time spent floating in Lake Ontario —and had a taste as good as you might expect in an inexpensive canned beer.  Never found the other five. And believe me I spent all week looking.

The Beer Report

Do a Google News search of  the words beer assault. You will find that my favorite recreational beverage is often involved in trouble. Who knew? This is not to say that good things don’t happen when beer is involved —it’s just that they don’t make the news. A few notable stories:

EASTON – An 18-year-old Easton man was arrested Sunday after stabbing his father during an argument over his father’s refusal to pay him back for the beer he’d confiscated, State Police said. Police say Adam Wilson was apparently upset that his father, 48-year-old Thomas Wilson, would not pay him back for a 30-pack of beer he’d confiscated after finding it in his son’s possession a few days earlier. WRGB-TV

GLENS FALLS – A Queensbury man who was upset a convenience store clerk would not sell him beer early Sunday was arrested after he hit the clerk with the two 12-packs he sought to buy, police said.  Glens Falls Post Star

HILTON HEAD ISLAND – A 30-year-old Hilton Head Island man was punched in the face after he refused to go on a beer run, a Beaufort County sheriff’s report released Monday said. The man told deputies he and two friends had been drinking beer when they ran out and wanted more. When the man told his friends he had no money and couldn’t buy more beer, he was punched in the face and threatened with a screwdriver, the report said.  The Island Packet

LILLINGTON – A Lillington woman was arrested by the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office after she allegedly stabbed an acquaintance twice in the head in an argument over beer. Shemeka Nicole Moore, 28, of McCoy Lane in Lillington was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. The Daily Record