the session

Host Dave S has announced the topic for The Session #136 is Farmhouse Brewing.

He’s left options pretty wide open, among other this suggesting this:

You could talk about how the word “farmhouse” is used in modern craft breweries, or about historic brewing traditions. You might want to think about how, if at all, the two are related.

And this:

Conversely, if you think that the modern idea of a farmhouse brewery is largely just about marketing and aesthetics then you could have a go at dissecting and deconstructing it. Where did it originate and what are its roots? Who popularized it? How is it constructed and signalled? Most importantly, why are people so keen to buy into it?

Or you could write about the 200-plus operations in New York the state officially recognized as “farm breweries.”

Host Tom Cizauskas has a rather sad tale to offer for the The Session #134, concluding:

“To us, a beer garden has a mythical ethos, like a German outdoor sibling to the coziness of a British pub. But there, that day, the fable seemed extirpated, the expectation denied. Had we been so wrong? Is a beer garden simply a place for beer drinking minus any trappings except for an outdoor setting?

“So, today, we’re enlisting the aid of others. Help vivify our myth.”

Boak & Bailey do just that in a delightful way.

I know there’s nothing mythical about places such as Augustiner Braustubl, the top two photos (in the second customers are rinsing out their mugs before having then filled). There’s something more than nostalgia that draws regular customers to them. They aren’t only tourist attractions.

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Host Gareth Pettman has announced the topic for The Session #133 is Hometown Glories.

Which means? He suggests several staring points:

– Describing the types of bars/pubs you have in your hometown, how popular are they? Has craft beer culture made much of a splash?
– Are there any well-known breweries? Is there a particular beer or style that is synonymous with your hometown?
– History of the town and how that can be reflected in its drinking culture.
– Tales of your youth, early drinking stories.
– Ruminations on what once was and what is now? Have you moved away and been pleasantly surprised or disappointed on return visits?

Am I the only one who thought almost immediately this is a mashup of two Bruce Springsteen songs — “My Hometown” and “Glory Day” — from the same album, “Born in the U.S.A.”?

The Session #133 meets March 2.

In the first two contributions to The Session #132 (Homebrewing Conversations) I read Boak & Bailey explained why their homebrewing kit remains in the attic and Alan McLeod wrote it was “no hobby for this old man.”

And I thought about Fred Eckhardt (longtime “dean of American beer writers” until his death in 2015), talking about the first beer he brewed and why he quit. The stories are deep within this longer collection of paragraphs, so here are quick extracts.

Eckhardt’s experience with his stepfather’s homebrew in the 1940s was pretty common. The recipe for 10 gallons included a 3-pound can of Blue Ribbon Hop Flavored Malt Extract, 10 pounds of sugar, water and a cube of Fleischmann’s Yeast. “It was hideous beer, but it had alcohol and it did sustain me and my friends in college,” he said.

He began learning about winemaking in the 1960s, but had no interest in recreating his stepfather’s homebrew. During a trip to San Francisco in 1968, just a few years after Fritz Maytag had rescued Anchor Brewing Co. and its unique steam beer from extinction, Eckhardt enjoyed an Anchor Steam with a friend.

“He said, ‘This tastes just like homebrew’ and I thought, ‘You don’t know what homebrew tastes like,'” Eckhardt said. “Then I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could make beer like this?”

Given the amount of information available to homebrewers today — in print, on the internet, from other brewers — it’s hard to imagine now what a formidable task that seemed to be 30 years ago.

Eckhardt ended up writing a booklet called “A Treatise on Lager Beer” because there was nothing like it, and various editions sold 120,000 copies in the next 11 years.

And why he quit.

I was on national TV as the last person in the country to brew illegally,” he said. NBC sent a cameraman to his house the night before homebrewing was legalized (in 1978) to shoot video of boiling wort through a window.

“I made the beer (a barley wine) and I never bottled it — I just forgot about it for years,” Eckhardt said. “That’s one of the reasons I quit homebrewing, the bottling. I used to bottle four or five bottles from a batch to get the information (for articles he was writing about brewing) and leave the rest.”

. . . he has spoken to scores of homebrew clubs across the country. “The crazier the group, the more successful,” he said. The Foam Rangers in Houston invited him back every year to lead a beer tasting during the Dixie Cup, a homebrew competition and celebration unlike any other. They produce a new “Fred T-shirt” every year with Eckhardt’s likeness on it.

Winemakers do nothing comparable. “Winemakers are so serious. Beermakers are frivolous,” he said.

Here’s to frivolous.

The Session, which was not conceived as something that would be around 11 years, wraps up 11 years on Friday. Host Jon Abernathy asks contributors to write about “homebrewing—the good, the bad, your experiences, ideas, (mis)conceptions, or whatever else suits you, as long as it starts the conversation!”*

The topic is timely, even if you didn’t realize it. Last week the Brewers Association and Charlie Papazian announced that next January he will be stepping down from the BA. Papazian and Charlie Matzen, both school teachers at the time, founded the American Homebrewers Association in Boulder, Colo., in 1978. Papazian started the Great American Beer Festival four years later. And the following year, the Association of Brewers was organized to include the AHA and the Institute for Brewing and Fermentation Studies to assist the growing number of new breweries.

And here we are today. Where might we be otherwise?

*****

* Those unfamiliar with The Session can find details about how to participate in Abernathy’s post.