The Session: Quarantine edition

Being There

I like to watch.

Daria and I spent much of July 3, 1995, at Seaside Heights, N.J., on the beach and on the boardwalk. On the way back to Daria’s mom’s house we stopped at Antones in Cranford. It was (was being the operative term, because it was sold in 2008 and converted into an Irish theme pub) a tavern with a wide range of beer and frequented by people who lived and worked nearby.

The regulars played NTN (trivia) and we once saw a couple in a booth picking out wedding invitations. On this pre-holiday Monday these regulars filled almost every stool at the horseshoe bar. They were watching the 6 o’clock news and the weatherman was warning viewers of the danger of sunburn under clear Fourth of July skies.

“What’s UV-9?” one drinker asked.

“It means I have to wear my sunglasses in here tomorrow,” another answered.

Three years ago, I spent a couple of hours in Riley’s Pub, a St. Louis neighborhood establishment, taking notes for a gathering of The Session hosted by Boak & Bailey, scribbling down observations, speaking nary a word other than to order beer.

It’s what I do. I miss it.

The SessionWe said goodbye to The Session a year ago December, but Alistair Reece has summoned us for a special Quarantine Edition. He poses several questions, including “what has become your new drinking normal?”

Normal, what a concept. We live in Atlanta, Georgia — Georgia undoubtedly being the seven letters your eyes focus on. Things are not going to end well for many people in this state. That doesn’t mean everybody has to act stupidly. Most restaurants and brewery taprooms in Atlanta chose not to reopen at this time. Monday Night Brewing shared the results of a poll that indicated that three quarters of beer drinkers would not consider heading to a taproom before June.

Shadows on a wallFor Daria and I, the old normal on a Friday was to eat and drink at a locally owned restaurant, quite possibly a brewpub or taproom. The last time we did that eight weeks ago we had dinner and beer at Best End Brewing, then stopped at nearby ASW Distillery for an after dinner drink.

The windows there look out on the fire pits at Monday Night Garage, one of two brewery taprooms flanking the distillery. We watched people come and go, some with children who dashed happily about outdoors. We saw animated conversations, although we couldn’t hear what was being said (eavesdropping makes observing better). It was a good normal.

This Friday, as we have every Friday since, we’ll continue to eat local and drink local. I will walk to Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q to pick up dinner and on to Wrecking Bar Brewpub, which recently canned a pilsner made with hops from the Seitz Farm in Germany. We’ll dine on our back deck, listen to music (as well as the occasional train rumbling by, though MARTA is running less often now) and watch the shadows track across the bricks on a neighbor’s house.

The new normal is also a good normal, but I’m ready for another normal. One that looks more like the old normal.

Session #142 roundup: Last call

The SessionSo that’s it. Last call sounded for The Session. Yards Brawler was poured, and 21st Amendment’s El Sully, and Guinness, and many other beers.

Music and memories were shared.

Nobody blamed the millennials.

Thanks to those who provided final contributions.

Jon Abernathy, The Brew Site
Regardless, it (Black Butte Porter) is my “ending” beer, my one more for the road, that I’m seeing The Session (and more) off with. It’s a bittersweet ending, perhaps not unlike the flavor of the beer, but in the end I know it’s also the beer I will always come back to, a foundational beer to commemorate endings and celebrate new beginnings.

Tom Bedell, The A Position
If I feel the earth starting to move under my feet, however, I’ll try to make it down to my beer cellar (i.e., the garage), where I’ve been aging a few bottles of the Sierra Nevada Our Brewers Reserve Grand Cru. The Grand Cru is a strong beer lover’s dream at 9.2% ABV, but with all the depth and complexity one can hope for in a beer. It’s actually a blend of three beers–Sierra Nevada’s flagship Pale Ale; its annual holiday hopfest, Celebration Ale, and its lid-lifting Bigfoot Barleywine-Style Ale. An added fillip is that the Bigfoot was aged in oak before the blending.

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Session #142: One more, because The Road

The road goes on forever and the party never endsWelcome to the 142nd, and best anybody can tell last, gathering of The Session. I am the host and because this is the last decided to call it “One more for the road” — but if you prefer “Last Beers” that is fine. Per usual, any suggestion from the host is strictly optional, but here is mine: Pick a beer for the end of a life, an end of a meal, an end of a day, an end of a relationship. So happy or sad, or something between. Write about the beer. Write about the aroma, the flavor, and write about what you feel when it is gone.

Fact is, since I wrote that, I’ve been thinking more about the road part of “one more for the road” than beer, and Butch Hancock started showing up on my playlists more than Frank Sinatra. I think the first time I heard “If You Were a Bluebird” Joe Ely was singing, although you might know the Emmylou Harris version better. A bit:

If I was a highway,
I’d stretch alongside you
I’d help you pass by ways
That had dissatisfied you
If I was a highway,
Well I’d be stretchin’
I’d be fetchin’ you home

But as convincing as Jimmie Dale Gilmore (like Ely and Hancock a member of The Flatlanders) sounds explaining why he takes some credit for the song, it belongs to Hancock, who wrote it more than 40 years ago. Gilmore lays claim to the song because he says it come to Hancock in a dream in which Gilmore was singing it. Years after we heard Gilmore tell that story, I happened to end up standing next to Hancock while our children were hula hooping at a music festival. I asked him about Gilmore’s tail. Yes, he said, it came to him in a dream, but he was singing it himself. He sings the lead on “Thank God for the Road,” which he wrote in the aughts. Again a bit:

There’s the sky, here’s the earth
This is the road for all it’s worth
It’s a ribbon, it’s a river, it’s a wave
It’s an arrow and it’s a snake
It’s asleep and it’s awake
And it stretches from the cradle to the grave

Thank God for the road
And the stars that shine above it
No matter what you once thought of it
You always knew you’d come to love it

Thank God for the road
And those old telephone poles
A cup of coffee and a sweet roll
When you’re trying to save your own soul
Thank God for the road

Four years ago the topic for The Session was “Beer Travel.” Daria and I used to self-publish a newsletter called Beer Travelers that turned into a column for All About Beer. That was typically more about destinations, but the road is what got us there. For instance, this was first written for All About Beer in 2010 and repeated for Session #93.

Pivovar Eggenberg

The day before touring Pilsner Urquell we visited the town of Ceský Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage site and second only after Prague in our list of places to see in the Czech Republic. A couple of months before a friend told us to be sure to tour Pivovar Eggneberg, but not until we’d been walking through the narrow cobblestone streets for several hours did we discover the only tour of the day had already gone.

Before settling in at the brewery’s restaurant, located above the lagering cellars as it turns out, for a late lunch we headed over to peak through a closed gate into the brewery yard. What might best be described as a snack shack sat not far from the entry. A man inside waved and signaled us to come around the back, where he held the door open.

Two men greeted us in Czech. They spoke no English. We speak no Czech. The man obviously in charge pointed toward the beer taps and made it clear there would be only one draft choice, because like the food menus on the wall the other tap handles were for busier days. The beer turned out to be a slightly cloudy unfiltered pale lager. A dark beer was available in bottles. We had one of each, sitting on a narrow bench in the storage room. We continued to speak English, smile and gesture. He spoke Czech, smiled and gestured. Occasionally the second man, wearing a leather cowboy hat, mumbled a few words (he apparently had been drinking a while and eventually wandered off).

We somehow discovered the first had Eggenberg T-shirts for sale (fortunately we’d be able to do laundry soon, because like everything else in the small shack the shirt smelled like the inside of an ashtray) and when it came time to pay he pointed to numbers on the menu to let us know how much we owed. The beers cost about $2 for two half liters, the T-shirt $3.

We had more beer with lunch, but it didn’t taste as good as in that shack, a place we never would have ended up had we planned more carefully.

Sometimes the best tour is the tour not taken.”

Pardon one more song lyric (this from James McMurtry):

The hurricane party’s windin’ down
and we’re all waitin’ for the end
And I don’t won’t another drink,
I only want that last one again

I’d be happy to have that Eggenberg beer as this party winds down, but it isn’t an option. Instead an old friend produced for the season seems like a good choice. We were happy the other day to spot Great Divide Hibernation on the store shelves. Almost missed it because now it is packaged in a colorful can. This is a beer we used to save a bottle or two of for the next year because it ages gracefully (and once medaled at the Great American Beer Festival in the “aged” category). It might cellar just as well in cans, but I don’t expect to find out.

Hibernation pours a reddish mahogany, with a thick tan head and web-like lacing. Put on the right Christmas music and you might think nuts were roasting somewhere hearby. There is abudant chocolate on the nose, caramel and dark fruit adding complexity. Christmas-cake rich in the mouth with all the flavor promised by the aroma. Slightly boozy, with a long finish, lingering like the road ahead disappearing into the horizon.

So that’s a wrap for The Session. There’s always another road waiting. Always more beer. I’ll get to the last drops of Hibernation after typing this sentence, listening to the Flatlanders and seeing how many shared roads I can identify.

Session #142 announcement: One more for the road

The SessionFour thousand, two hundred and ninety nine days after I hosted the first Session one March 2, 2007 it comes to me to host what presumably will be the last on Dec. 7.

There was no exit strategy when I suggested this monthly gathering, but it was hard impossible to imagine it would still be going more than 11 years after 29 of us blogged about stout. Or, even using the Great American Beer Festival style guidelines, that there would be new styles to write about. But, a) we will depart without considering Brut IPA, and b) the topic each month turned away from specific styles long ago (only sometimes turning back).

Frank Sinatra: When Jay Brooks and I exchanged emails about the topic this month I flippantly suggested “Funeral Beers” seemed appropriate. You can call it “Last Beers” if you’d rather not think about how your friends might toast you when you no longer are participating. Or “One more for the road”* because that has a soundtrack.

Pick a beer for the end of a life, an end of a meal, an end of a day, an end of a relationship. So happy or sad, or something between. Write about the beer. Write about the aroma, the flavor, and write about what you feel when it is gone.

Add a link to your post Dec. 7 in the comments here, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever. I’ll give stragglers a couple of days and post a roundup Dec. 12.

*Yes, I know, the song’s title is “One For My Baby.”