Month: June 2008

The Session #17 announced: Bucking the season

The SessionRob DeNunzio has picked the theme for the 17th gathering of The Session: Drinking anti-seasonally.

He writes: “Think of this as the unorthodox cousin of such topics as ‘beer and food’ and ‘beer and music.’ Beer and weather, perhaps? More like beer despite the weather, I guess. Cracking open a Guinness on the beach, finishing a day of yardwork with a Speedway Stout, or whatever else you do that raises an eyebrow (again, beer-related, please), do us all a favor an take a few moments to share your non-conformist tale.”

I’m drinking Alaskan Stout as I type this which give the temperature (50F or so), constant clouds and occasional rains seems spot on for the season as it occurs in Juneau. On July 4, when The Session next arrives, we’ll be somewhere between Calgary and Winnipeg (a bit of space in there). So I’ll be drinking something we pick up between now and then. Don’t expect there will be any Alaskan Stout left.

Monday musing: Which beer is the oddball?

Perhaps you saw this kind of problem when taking tests in your youth. Pick the one of each four that is least like the others.

– Geary’s Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Magic Hat #9, Fuller’s London Pride.

– New Belgium Blue Paddle Pilsener, Victory Prima Pils, Alaskan Stout, Miller High Life.

– Blue Moon White, Allagash White, Hoegaarden, Weihenstephan Weiss.

– Guinness Draft, Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Rogue Chocolate Porter, Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter. Added June 13 – Oops, that should be Rogue Chocolate Stout.

What did you base your decisions on? Style? Color? Price? Size of the brewery? Something in what you taste? Something else all together? There are no right or wrong answers, unlike the home school problems Sierra was working on while I composed this post.

Written Monday, June 9, on the ferry Taku en route to Sitka, Alaska.

The Session #16 roundup posted

The SessionThomas Vincent has posted the roundup for The Session #16, and as someone who couldn’t follow it “live” as I do most Fridays it turned out to be full of surprises.

I expected plenty of words celebrating festivals — which they deserve, because they’ve been a key element in the craft beer renaissance for twenty-plus years — and sure enough you could find them. However, the category Thomas labeled “Changing Relationships and How to Improve Them” was just as big.

Us beer bloggers, we don’t let anybody off easy.

The Session #16: Festivals to look forward to

The SessionThis is my contribution the The Session, hosted this month by Thomas Vincent of Geistbear Brewing Blog. The theme is beer festivals, and he’ll have the complete roundup, so start there and click on over to what everybody is writing.

Our travels this summer will take us by many spots where you’ll find lovely beer festivals, just not when we’ll be there.

Instead we can look forward to two September events on back-to-back weekends in Belgium.

The first is the Bruxellensis Festival in Brussels. As you can read, this is my kind of gathering:

“There will thus be present brewers producing beers, the majority of which, if not all, have well-defined characteristics. The aim is to support and defend those who have made the decision to turn their back on easy commercial gain but rather have adopted a fighting stance against beers with little flavour. They are thus brewers who wander off the well-trodden path. They work in breweries on a human, rather than an industrial scale, using traditional and natural methods, and are guided by higher motives than an unbridled pursuit of profit. They are small in size, but their contribution to our brewing heritage is enormous: they are the ultimate guarantors of the preservation of centuries old tradition and produce beers with a genuine diversity of flavours.”

The second is the triennial Hop and Beer Festival in Poperinge. Make sure you scroll down to the photos of kids with hop cones on their heads.

See you at the parade.

Drinking local: Next up, beers from Alaska

Our next local beer will be from Alaska. Good deal.

We’ve been seeing beer from Alaskan Brewing since we hit Idaho, but it wasn’t the local beer then. Instead we bought an Idaho Riesling (instead of Alaskan Amber) in a gas station — an idea that turned out to be about as good as we expected when we did it. We saw lots of Alaskan in Washington . . . but still not the local beer.

Tonight we drank wine, Piety Flats Mercantile Red that we picked up in Yakima Valley. Fruit forward and pretty oaky, so very new American, but enjoyable. The winery is located across the road from an abandoned hop kiln (here’s a picture), and the plan was to call it the Hop Kiln winery until the owners discovered there was already a Sonoma County winery (situated in old hop kilns) using that name. We think the “hop kiln” wine in Yakima is better.

The Slow Travelers currently are bunking just west of Smithers, B.C., with an Internet connection that feels painfully dialup. Where’s Smithers? A long way from home and a long way from the northern “top” of our trip. Tomorrow we head for Prince Rupert, to catch a ferry that heads up the Inside Passage.

The government liquor store in town has plenty of beer, including mainstream, imports and craft (however you want to define the last). Unibroue costs the same as at home ($5.95 for a 750ml), but hardly qualifies as local since it is produced at the other end of the world’s second largest country. Most six-packs are in the $11 to $12 range, including those from B.C. breweries such as Granville Island, Phillips and Tree.

And just in case you were wondering, Stella sells for $22 a 12-pack. Wouldn’t be tempting even if it were local.