the session

Session #40 recapped, #41 a homebrew special

The SessionErik Myers has posted the recap for The Session #40: Session Beer, and it seems to have produced a lot more than a few tasting notes.

The July Session, #41, provides an opportunity to focus on specific beers. Jeff and Tom Wallace from Lugwrench Brewing ask us to write about “craft beers inspired by homebrewing.”

Write about a beer that has its roots in homebrewing. Write about a commercial beer that originated from a homebrew.

Write about a professional brewer you admire who got their start in homebrewing before they went pro. Write about a professional brewer who still homebrews in their free time.

Write about a Pro-Am beer tasted either at a festival or a brewpub. Write about an Amateur / Professional Co-op you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing (such as The Green Dragon Project).

Write about commercial brewers using “Homebrewing” as part of the marketing. Write about the Sam Adams LongShot beers, whether good or bad.

Write in the first person. Write in the third person. Have someone else write it for you.

Just write about it.

This would be a nice one to do live from the National Homebrewers Conference, don’t you think? Other than the fact that happens next week rather than next month. But I bet I can find a good story to repeat July 2.

Session #40: When is a session a Session?

The SessionHave you heard the one about an Englishman, a Belgian and a Czech who walk into a drinking establishment, whereupon the Englishman orders a round of “session” beers?

There is no punchline. Instead another question. What do you think the Czech is drinking?

The topic for the 40th gathering of The Session is Session Beer. Host Erik Myers has offered plenty of options in announcing the theme, but this is a subject that screams for context.

What we (meaning Anglo-Saxons, I guess) choose to call “session” beers are unique to the social gatherings — perhaps lasting hours, involving several beers and plenty of conversation — where they are enjoyed. Are these still “sessions” in West Flanders and Bohemia? In Berlin and Munich? What about the emerging beer cultures of Brazil, Denmark and Italy?

Probably, though not in name. Are the beers the same? Not usually. Does everybody depart a “session” in the same state of inebriation? Not likely.

For the record, I’m a big fan of The Session Beer Project. I’d much prefer pubs to coffee shops sa great good places (and not just because I don’t drink coffee). I really appreciate brewers who find ways to pack more flavor and less alcohol in a glass.

And until Erik set the theme for this round of The Session I hadn’t thought twice about calling session beers “session beers” (or do I mean “session beers” session beers?). The current All About Beer magazine has a feature using the words “session” and “session beers” and I suspect few readers will have any problem immediately understanding what Rick Lyke’s story is about.

It works, so why worry? I’m not registering a complaint so much as a concern, thinking about what the Czech beer drinker at the top would order. America’s own emerging beer culture has plenty to learn from others. The beers, whatever we call them, will follow.

12May2010: Beer linkorama

You do have to live within the Greater London area to apply for this position, but what better reason to move?

London’s historic Old Spitalfields Market has announced it’s looking for a candidate to resurrect the ancient role of Ale Taster. Entries are due by May 23. From the website:

In medieval times, ordinary citizens were appointed to oversee and inspect various aspects of everyday life, effectively doing the work of our modern Inspectors of Weights and Measures. Not surprisingly, one of the most popular offices to be held was that of the Ale Taster also known as Ale Conner. His duties involved visiting stalls and inns on market days and during the town’s fairs to ensure that the ales, beers and other produce on sale were of good quality.

“Ale Tasters would have been a familiar sight in London.” explains Malcolm Ball, chief executive of Wellington Market Company, the company responsible for Old Spitalfields Market.

He added that he felt that the ancient office would still hold its value even centuries on. “Although the attraction of such a role may seem obvious at first, the 21st Century version would incorporate many more responsibilities than the original. Our ceremonial Ale Taster would become an ambassador for the promotion of drink and food in the area. Modern tastes have evolved and become so much more sophisticated in recent times and people demand ever greater levels of quality and variety.”

The site also explains: “The candidates will really have their knowledge tested by a number of different rounds. Blind-tasting will be the order of the day and contestants will be pitted against one another in a bid to claim the ceremonial role. The final round will consist of a one minute pitch to the panel of judges to demonstrate presentation skills.”

I’m already thinking a cage match pitting the English Ale Taster and the Wynkoop Beerdrinker of the Year might be in order.

  • Tomme Arthur did a better job of explaining why collaborative brewing leads to better brewing than I last week in writing for The Session. To understand the sweet spot brewers are in right now he points to a less-good scenario: “But I do fear the day when Collaborative beers are less about imagination and more about SKU’s and push pull scenarios.”
  • Think Batch 19 from MillerCoors could turn out to be the next Blue Moon White? Me either. Right now it is being tested in four markets, and no matter how it does in the tests it doesn’t look like the brewing company would wait for the same organic growth it allowed Blue Moon (pardon the plug, but details in “Brewing with Wheat”). A mini-interview with Keith Villa — the brewer who wrote the recipe for Blue Moon White and came up with the idea of serving it with a slice of orange — is worth your time.
  • This isn’t exactly new, but Lake Placid Craft Brewing closed its brewing facility in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and F.X. Matt Brewing in Utica now produces all Lake Placid beer for distribution. Lack Placid still brews its own beer at its brewpub. I heard it suggested at the recent Craft Brewers Conference we should expect more of this. Many small-batch breweries have built up a certain following, but recognize that at their size production is be too labor intensive and inefficient to make them sustainable — that is a business that would be passed from one generation to the next. Meanwhile they can find breweries, like F.X. Matt, with excess capacity and well-run packaging plants, perfect operations to produce better quality controlled beer than they can make themselves. Nothing wrong with this. For instance, Matt has long brewed beers for Brooklyn Brewery. But let’s hope these breweries are honest telling the whole story behind their beer.
  • Speaking of the importance of where. Emerald City Beer will soon be making beer in Seattle’s old Rainier Brewery and will focus on lager. Founder Rick Hewitt plans to use Washington-grown ingredients.
  • From the New York Times: “Pairing a DVD and a Drink Takes Care.” No, no, no. Not if it’s beer. Keep it simple. A good movie. A good beer. Am I missing something?

    • Session #39 recapped, Session #40 announced

    The SessionMario Rubio has recapped The Session #39: Collaboration, and Erik Myers has issued marching orders for #40 on June 4: Session Beer.

    There are a thousand ways to approach this.

    What is your definition of a session beer? Is it, as Dr. Lewis suggested at the Craft Brewers Conference this year, “a pint of British wallop” or is your idea of a session beer a crisp Eastern European lager, a light smoky porter, a dry witbier, or even a dry Flemish sour?

    Is it merely enough for a beer to be low alcohol to be considered a session beer, or is there some other ineffable quality that a beer must hold in order to merit the term? And if so, what is that quality? Is it “drinkability”? Or something else?

    What about the place of session beer in the craft beer industry? Does session beer risk being washed away in the deluge of extreme beers, special releases, and country-wide collaborations? Or is it the future of the industry, the inevitable palate-saving backlash against a shelf full of Imperial Imperials?

    What are some of your favorite session beers? When and where do you drink them? If you’d like, drink one and review it.

    For additional preparation visit Lew Bryson’s Session Beer Project.

    The Session #39: Collaborative learning

    The Session
    Kelly Ryan spoke with a surprising sense of purpose considering this April evening had just turned into tomorrow in a Chicago hotel room, and lord knows what day it was 8,000 miles away in Auckland, New Zealand, where Epic Thornbridge Stout was still conditioning.

    “I think it needs more time in the tank,” Ryan told Luke Nicholas after tasting the beer for the first time since they brewed it in February. He liked what was in his glass, but his experience with brown malt — a key ingredient in the recipe and one Nicholas had not used before — told him it wasn’t time to bottle the beer. Nicholas reassured him that what he was tasting had been bottled weeks before so he could bring some to Chicago. The rest was still maturing.

    Luke Nicholas and Kelly RyanThat’s what’s called collaboration.

    The theme for the 39th gathering of the Session today is collaboration — Mario Rubio is this month’s host and will have the recap — and I expect various bloggers to come at it from many directions. Let’s just hope we don’t hear the story of Avery/Russian River Collaboration Not Litigation Ale too many times.

    I’ll try to keep it simple. Nicholas is founder and chief bottle washer at Epic Brewing in New Zealand. Ryan, also a native of New Zealand, is brewery manager at the Thornbridge Brewery in England. They met last year when Nicholas was in England and ended up brewing a collaboration that melded, although that might not be the right word, Epic IPA and Thornbridge Halycon.

    Since Ryan would be in New Zealand in February for his brother’s wedding they decided to brew another beer, in this case a stout, a style Nicholas had never made. This was also his first experience with brown malt and two English hop varieties, Target and Bambling Cross.

    “I woke up excited to go to the brewery,” Ryan said. “(The process) energizes you. A mass of information goes back and forth.”

    The resulting beer is plenty stout, 6.8% abv with 54 bittering units, and even at a young age in early April full of textured flavors, smooth but complex. Half the batch has been packaged and hit the market last week. Half is aging in American oak barrels that previously held Epic Armageddon IPA and likely will be released at the end of August.

    Both Nicholas and Ryan judged in the World Beer Cup in Chicago in April, and they spent plenty of time together during the following days at the Craft Brewers Conference. Information flowed freely, but not necessarily the way it would formulating a recipe or standing over a mash tun in the brewery. Nicholas calls what happens during brewing collaborations a cross pollination of ideas, and it breeds better brewing.

    Collaborations are good business, good marketing, good fun and often result in interesting beer. They also make for good stories in print and cyberspace for those who haven’t already heard them a thousand times. When they start to seem old remember the stories may be repetitive, the experiences are not.

    ******

    The photo above was taken at CBC. Luke (on the left) is mugging for one camera, Kelly for another, and that object between them is an unlabeled bottle of Epic Thornbridge Stout they are about to open. Clearly a historic moment. You might find pictures documenting the brew day more informative. Details about the beer itself are here.