Easter Bunny Ale

by Kaya

With Easter upon us, my thoughts turn to the colorful traditions that go along with this pastel and chocolate day. While my family doesn’t focus much attention on the religious side of Easter (the resurrection of the Easter Bunny), we’ve always enjoyed spending part of the day outside, embracing the arrival of Spring and the thrill of the hunt that only happens on Easter day.

I think of my family running around the yard, our baskets filled with plastic, green ‘grass’, eagerly trying to uncover hidden treasures in the lawn, behind rocks and within the bushes. The joy felt when first discovering a concealed treat is quickly pushed aside to focus on getting the next awaiting morsel. Scurrying past other smiling faces to find what few out of sight delights are left. Stealing a glance at my Dad’s loot to see if he had more Easter delicacies than me. Wondering where the other Heineken Dark may be stored or if anyone will trade me for this wine cooler. My brother has two New Castle Brown Ales...how did I miss them? The feel of the warm sun on my face and the soft, lush ground beneath my feet as a Fosters Lager is exchanged for a Sam Adams during the post-hunt trading.

Ah, such is the joy of the Easter Beer Hunt.

Several years ago, my Mom began to notice the low excitement level surrounding the annual Easter Egg Hunt. Once we were in college, scouring the yard for brightly colored plastic eggs filled with small, melting chocolates had lost its interest. Even the big prizes, the large pantyhose eggs (do they still sell pantyhose in plastic eggs?) containing quarters or even a dollar, had little appeal to my brother and me.

My Mom recognized that it was time to adapt the house traditions for Easter. “How can I best appeal to my college-aged kids and my husband?” she must have thought while pushing her shopping cart through the local Liquor Barn. The answer is shockingly simple: Revolve the activity around acquiring beer. It was a genius revelation and something the Christian Church may want to take notice of.

Imagine our surprise when we first received our cardboard six-pack holder/basket filled with fake Easter grass. We were told that bottles of good beer had been hidden around the yard and we were to fill our ‘baskets’ with whatever we could find. With no hesitation I ran off so fast that I pulled my hamstring. Getting to the Pete’s Wicked Ale first made any injury worth it – especially at a time when I was too cheap to buy myself quality beer. Not to knock the appreciated affordability of Natural Light or Keystone -- but those beers taste like the bottled urine from someone drinking real beer.

Even the non-beer drinkers in the family get involved. There are wine coolers scattered about and the occasional Ensure (adult nutritional drink) for my grandparents. My mother doesn’t drink so we...I mean the Easter Bunny, hides fun, non-alcoholic drinks (flavored iced teas, fruit drinks, etc) that are all-too-easily skipped over by the beer drinkers during the hunt. If anything, you’d find my Dad rapidly pulling his hand away and dropping an accidentally picked up iced tea like he’d picked up a rattlesnake or an electric eel.

While I generally make it my personal quest to leave no beer behind (possibly President Bush’s college motto and predecessor to ‘leave no child behind’?), there have been a few LEBs (Lost Easter Beers) in the past. They’re often found in the next beer hunt, with their labels weathered from a year or more of sprinklers and months of facing the harsh seasons of San Diego (fall and spring).

The rumors of years of accumulated LEBs have circulated throughout the neighborhood and urban legend has the number of beers high enough to get seven teenagers drunk. Occasionally, when the moon is full, you’ll see high school students scampering around the front lawn of my parent’s house with their flashlights darting across the yard, furiously searching for an elusive, aging Heineken.

The Easter Bunny would be proud.