The Session #57: Beery Confessions

The SessionThis month’s Session is hosted by Steve Lamond at Beer’s I’ve Known. The topic is “beery guilty secrets.”

I am a man without a beer epiphany. At least one of the aha sort.

I don’t remember the what, when or where of my first beer. Or my first “better” beer. Or my first “craft” beer.

That’s my beer confession. I don’t feel guilty about this. Just a little embarrassed. It seems that since I’ve been around to report on much of what has happened within niche beer the last 20 years that I should recall that first xxxxxx beer in xxxxxx bar in xxxxxx city.

Instead I realize I come from a different time (before New Albion Brewing; or before CAMRA) and a different place (central Illinois). The beer options changed gradually. The quality of imported (mostly German) beer in the bottle was all over the map, but on draft it was definitely a step up from Stroh’s at $11.15 a case (inflation adjusted) and Michelob (on draft, which I only drank if somebody else was buying). And some year along the away I remembered that Sierra Nevada Celebration tasted pretty good last year and was back again.

That’s why, for me, the guilty pleasure will still be the next beer I drink.

Which beer is not like the others? 11.03.11

The goal is to identify the outlier and explain why it doesn’t belong on the list. There may be more than one answer, although I happen to have a specific one in mind. (In this case, reviewing the list because I did a lousy job of vetting the previous round I spotted a second likely answer, so Answer 1a wins the same prize as Answer 1.)

a) Blue Moon Belgian White
b) Brooklyn Winter Ale
d) Southampton Double White Ale
d) Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
e) Saranac Pumpkin Ale

In case you’ve forgotten: Round one ~ Round two ~ Round three ~ Round four ~ Round five.

Flagship beers sail gently into the night

Quick. Name three brands that have driven national awareness of craft1 beer.

Given that Boston Beer Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium Brewing emerged as the Craft Big Three credit must go to Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Belgium Fat Tire.

But these aren’t the brands leading growth for those companies now. So it hardly seems a surprise that today Shanken News Daily reported sales of Samuel Adams seasonal beers2 have surpassed the venerable Boston Lager. The seasonals are Octoberfest, Winter Lager, Noble Pils and Summer Ale (fall through summer).

So far this year, seasonal beers accounted for 25% of case sales, Boston Lager 24% and Twisted Tea Original 20%. Twisted Tea sales are up 36% for the year, with Twisted Tea Half & Half growing 52% (off a smaller base).

Previously, you’ll recall, Shanken’s Impact Databank reported that Fat Tire accounted for 70% of New Belgium sales in 2008, 67% in 2009 and 60% in 2010. And that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sales slipped from 76% of the company’s total in 2009 to 71% in 2010.

Diversity indeed.

1For the sake of simplicity, the Brewers Association definition.

2Through Oct. 2 in food, drug and convenience stores, so this doesn’t take draft sales into account.

Session #57 announced: Beer Confessions

The SessionSteve Lamond has stepped up in a late lineup change to host The Session this month. He agreed to take Pete Brown’s scheduled place because Brown is recovering from a stolen laptop. The topic for #57 will be “Beery Confessions: Guilty Secrets/Guilty Pleasure Beer.”

One of the things I most enjoy about blogs and personal writing in general is the ability to have a window into another’s life, in a semi-voyeuristic way. So I’d like to know your beery guilty secrets. Did you have a particularly embarassing first beer (in the same way that some people purchase an atrocious song as their first record) or perhaps there’s still a beer you return to even though you know you shouldn’t? Or maybe you don’t subscribe to the baloney about feeling guilty about beers and drink anything anyway?

You’re also welcome to write about bad drinking experiences you’ve had as a result of your own indulgence or times when you’ve been completely wrong about a beer but not yet confessed to anyone that you’ve changed your mind.

Its fairly wide open, take your pick. Variety is the spice of life as they say (and I hope there’s more than 57 of them…) Blogs are due this Friday (3rd November) but as its short notice I’ll accept submissions until next Friday (11th November), but as soon as your blog is uploaded post a link to it in here, or send me an email stephanos1986 AT gmail DOT com if you don’t have a blog and still want to contribute.

This might be the time for me to resuscitate the rumor I’ve thrown up in every state in the Lower 48.

Must. Take break. From OCB.

So much for my plan to get through the week without writing about The Oxford Companion to Beer so that I, you know, have time to read more of it for pleasure.

Clay Risen, who blogs at The Atlantic online and presumably immediately reaches a larger audience than all us beer-specific online trolls put together, has written in defense of the book. And he hauled out the big paint brush, the one you use for broad strokes.

• He writes: “Nevertheless, online critics have made an intramural sport of identifying the book’s omissions.” And: “It’s a shame that would-be critics have spent their entire time fact-checking the precise rules of the Royal Court’s brewing guidelines under Henry VIII (subject of one catch), because they’ve overlooked the achievement of the book as a whole — though, given their vehemence, it’s a good bet they weren’t going to give it a chance in any case.”

Because Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson both contributed to the book, it hardly seems they weren’t inclined to give it a chance. Both have written in comments several places that they’d rather not be in the position to make corrections.

• He writes: “But what I find striking is how relatively few errors have been identified in the weeks since the book has been out. The Wiki has only about 40 entries, and most of them deal with matters of interpretation. In a book that may have upwards of 100,000 factual statements in it, the presence of a few dozen errors, while regrettable, is pretty impressive.”

Not sure where that 100,000 number comes from, but if 40 errors have been spotted in 1,100 entries that already amounts to something amiss (admittedly sometimes very small) in more than 1% of the articles. More important, the measured (and very long, so set aside some time) review at I might have a glass of beer makes it clear why every single mistake makes a difference: “One can only guess how reliable the rest of the information is.” You would think, as a journalist, that Risen would appreciate this.

• He writes: “As a dedicated drinker all but ignorant of the chemistry behind brewing, I feel I’ve already learned a lot — and I’ve only read through the five entries that start with ‘acid-.'”

Hold it. He’s only on the a’s?