the session

For the 42nd gathering of The Session Derrick Peterman asks we write about “A Special Place, A Special Beer.” Visit his blog for a recap of all the posts.

I told this story in Brew Like a Monk. This is the condensed version.

Inside the brewery café at the monastery of the Saint Benedictus Abbey of Achel, only a single food server and one monk putting items on his cafeteria tray remained when Marc Beirens opened the door and stepped into a chilly December evening.

Beirens, a businessman who has been visiting monasteries since he was a child, took a few strides into a terrace area that was once the abbey’s courtyard. As the sky above turned from dark blue to black, he nodded back toward the brewery, located in a space that once housed the monastery dairy, then to a new gallery and gift shop to his right. Those buildings held pigs and more cattle, before it became obvious agriculture would not sustain the community.

“You should have seen this all a few years ago,” he said, his voice bouncing lightly about an otherwise silent courtyard.

*****

During the next few hours Beirens and Brother Benedict, the monk in charge of marketing when I visited in December of 2004 gave me a complete tour of the monastery and its small brewery. Always a good host, Brother Benedict insisted I try the beers.

Staring with Extra, a substantial 9.5% beauty served from a 750ml bottle. He didn’t drink himself, talking a little business with Beirens, answering my questions about the monastery, and excusing himself after his cell phone rang. He returned a little later. “This is the same bottle?” he asked, knowing the answer was yes. “You don’t like the beer.” He laughed mightily.

He ordered we have another, then headed off again. Both Beirens and I ordered the Achel 5, a blonde beer of 5.3% abv, and compared it to the 5% abv Westmalle Extra. When Brother Benedict returned, he looked at our blonde beers, working on a scowl. He took a sip of one. “Water,” he said, once again laughing.

*****

Beirens appreciates the importance of commerce to the monasteries, and that the six Trappist breweries are part of a larger family. He distributes a range of monastic products ? beer is the best selling, but they include cookies, soap, vegetables, wine, and other goods ? throughout Belgium and France. His father did the same. “I’ve been visiting monasteries since I was this high,” he said earlier, holding his hand below his waist. That’s why he understands something else about monasteries.

It was dark now, and the courtyard empty.

“I love the silence,” Beirens said. “I used to have a friend who was a monk. He’s gone now.”

We walked along in silence.

“When he was 80 or so, I’d still call him. If I had a problem I could go see him. He didn’t have to say anything and I’d feel better.

“All it took was silence.”

The Wallace Brothers have posted the recap for Session #41: Craft Beer Inpsired by Homebrewing.

And Derrick Peterman, who these days is calling his blog “Ramblings of a Beer Runner,” has issued marching orders for #42: “A Special Place, A Special Beer.”

I ask that you write about a special place in your life, and a beer or brewery that connects you to that place. It can be the beer from the childhood home, your current hometown, a memorable vacation you once took, or a place you’ve always wanted to go to but never had the chance. Please take a few moments to think about the how the beer connects you to this place, and share this with us. Of course, the definition of “place” is rather open ended, and in some cases, highly debatable, so it will be interesting to see the responses on what constitutes a place.

Seems one of the reason I started this blog is to discuss just that. As well as considering how a beer connects us to a place I’ll likely be writing about ways in which that beer and that place are themselves connected.

What place? What beer? I’ll try to make up my mind before Aug. 6.

In the words of the immortal Alan McLeod, “Holy Frig – it’s already time for the 41st edition of The Session.” The topic for discussion is “Craft Beers Inspired By Homebrewing,” Lug Wrench Brewing is hosting and it appears a coyote (we don’t have a dog; coyotes live nearby) ate my homework.

But I can tell you a little something you might not have noticed. The champion Scotch & Barley Wines at the 2010 Australian International Beer Awards was the Samuel Adams LongShot Barley Wine released earlier this year as “Mile High Barley Wine Ale.”

Quick background, in case you aren’t familiar with the LongShot contest. Boston Beer, brewer of the Samuel Adams beers, holds a national contest each year for homebrewers. Regional winners send their beers to Boston, where they are judged by a panel that includes Boston Beer founder Jim Koch.

Two winners are chosen, and the brewers at Boston Beer turn those recipes into beers distributed nationally in a six-pack that also includes a recipe from the Boston Beer employee contest. Two beers from each winner, six beers total.

“Mile High Barley Wine” is called that because the recipe comes from Rio Rancho, just up the hill from us (we’re at about 5,100 feet). So I’ve had the homebrewed version, the batch that Boston Beer brought to the Great American Beer Festival when it was announced Ben Miller’s recipe was one of the two winners, right when it was released in April and just the other day. Never quite the same, but that’s an aside.

So I’ve heard the story more than once about how when Ben brewed the beer the yeast he used pooped out, and he had to add more (so the beer wasn’t sickly sweet). Thus it was interesting last fall to talk to Koch about the beer.

“It had a lot of fermentation complexity . . . that consumed the alcohol,” he said.

He also discussed his own approach to the judging process (he gets but one vote).

“I drink it, I think, I close my eyes. I see a number and I write the number down.”

Erik 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.

Have 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.