Session #63: The beer moment

Pete Brown charged us to write about The Beer Moment for Session #63. The announcement provoked a few questions about what the heck he expected, and this week he added a little more direction.

But I’d already decided that since I’d be surrounded by brewers and others involved in the beer industry during the Craft Brewers Conference I’d let attendees contribute.

I asked them to play a word association game. To warm up, we started with “soul of beer,” then moved on to “extreme beer,” and finished with “The beer moment.”

Chances are the results would be different if I simply walked up to people at the mall or a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game and said, “Beer moment,” or perhaps put it in question form, “Beer moment?”

What I learned and who I learned it from.

Tony Simmons, Pagosa Brewing
Soul of beer: craft beer
Extreme beer: trendy
Beer moment: epiphany

Patrick Rue, The Bruery
Yeast (which he made a three syllable word)
Different (Steven Pauwels of Boulevard Brewing provided some coaching while Rue considered this one and suggested passé.
Trying something new

Jean-Francois Gravel, Dieu du Ciel!
Yeast (no, really, he didn’t hear Rue’s answer)
Challenging
All the time

Carl Kins, World Beer Cup Judge from Belgium
Life’s blood
United States
24/7

Matt Van Wyk, Oakshire Brewing
Passion
Triple IPA
Experience

Melissa Cole, Let Me Tell You About Beer
Conviviality
Good when skilled
Seeing the people you love over beer

Brother Christian, Monastery of Christ in the Desert
Joy of life
Going to far
Any time

Brother Christian was at the conference because Christ in the Desert is shopping for a slightly larger pilot brewery. The monks have a small brewery on the monastery grounds. Monks’ Ales are brewed under contract nearby, and several monks travel there on brew day to lend a hand.