Beer Review: Southern Tier Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale

It's almost curtains on October, so it would be only fitting to review some pumpkin beers. Up until last month I had never tried this behemoth of a beer.  Just bringing the bottle to your nose tells you this is not messing around, and probably not for everyone.  It is very smooth to drink and has a rich malty flavour followed by a pumpkin spice kick.  You do taste the alcohol as it checks in at 8.8% - but it works, it really works.  It's definitely one of my favorite pumpkin beers to date.  Rating A

407ETR - Highway Robbery

Yesterday I made the mistake of looking at my bill from the resident evil over at the offices of Highway 407ETR.  Up until that point, I was actually in a pretty decent mood.  I came to the realization that I am paying these greedy pricks almost $9.00 per day if I decide to use their precious road.  I am now thinking twice, or dare I say, thrice about using the 407.  It is true - the highway is very convenient - but... really?  They are charging me an average of $.021 a kilometer and I travel 40km per day if I take it to and from work. 

Here is a quick math breakdown of my 407 expenses:

40km X $0.21 = $8.40

Approximately 19 work days per month = $159.60

12 months per year = $1,915.20

What's that?  There should be some kind of reward for traveling the highway this frequently?  Well, here it is.  I usually qualify for Tier 3 of their rewards program, which is the equivalent of a giant middle finger gouging out one of my eyes.  I qualify for 55km of FREE highway use on Sundays as well as $0.03 per litre off on gasoline (up to 120 litres), but only if I want to use Petro Canada (which I don't).  The other problem with this is I don't work on Sundays and I rarely have the occasion to "take advantage" of my FREE kilometers.

Now that I have actually broken this down monetarily, I see a lot of back roads and side streets in my future.