the session

Greetings from Banff, where it is raining on Canada Day. Good enough weather this morning for pancakes in the park — two tasty pancakes (real maple syrup), a muffin, sausage and fruit juice for $3, perhaps the best food deal of our trip.

There will be no musing this week, but I wanted to remind everybody Friday marks the 17th gathering of The Session. Rob DeNunzio is hosting and the theme is “Drinking anti-seasonally.”

I don’t know if our travels will permit me to participate. (Aside to Mark: If it works to stop in Regina we will — not sure if I will be able to give you a heads up.) Anyway, The Session is open to any bloggers who want to participate. Just post to the theme and drop Rob a note.

Rob DeNunzio has picked the theme for the 17th gathering of The Session: Drinking anti-seasonally.

He writes: “Think of this as the unorthodox cousin of such topics as ‘beer and food’ and ‘beer and music.’ Beer and weather, perhaps? More like beer despite the weather, I guess. Cracking open a Guinness on the beach, finishing a day of yardwork with a Speedway Stout, or whatever else you do that raises an eyebrow (again, beer-related, please), do us all a favor an take a few moments to share your non-conformist tale.”

I’m drinking Alaskan Stout as I type this which give the temperature (50F or so), constant clouds and occasional rains seems spot on for the season as it occurs in Juneau. On July 4, when The Session next arrives, we’ll be somewhere between Calgary and Winnipeg (a bit of space in there). So I’ll be drinking something we pick up between now and then. Don’t expect there will be any Alaskan Stout left.

Thomas Vincent has posted the roundup for The Session #16, and as someone who couldn’t follow it “live” as I do most Fridays it turned out to be full of surprises.

I expected plenty of words celebrating festivals — which they deserve, because they’ve been a key element in the craft beer renaissance for twenty-plus years — and sure enough you could find them. However, the category Thomas labeled “Changing Relationships and How to Improve Them” was just as big.

Us beer bloggers, we don’t let anybody off easy.

This is my contribution the The Session, hosted this month by Thomas Vincent of Geistbear Brewing Blog. The theme is beer festivals, and he’ll have the complete roundup, so start there and click on over to what everybody is writing.

Our travels this summer will take us by many spots where you’ll find lovely beer festivals, just not when we’ll be there.

Instead we can look forward to two September events on back-to-back weekends in Belgium.

The first is the Bruxellensis Festival in Brussels. As you can read, this is my kind of gathering:

“There will thus be present brewers producing beers, the majority of which, if not all, have well-defined characteristics. The aim is to support and defend those who have made the decision to turn their back on easy commercial gain but rather have adopted a fighting stance against beers with little flavour. They are thus brewers who wander off the well-trodden path. They work in breweries on a human, rather than an industrial scale, using traditional and natural methods, and are guided by higher motives than an unbridled pursuit of profit. They are small in size, but their contribution to our brewing heritage is enormous: they are the ultimate guarantors of the preservation of centuries old tradition and produce beers with a genuine diversity of flavours.”

The second is the triennial Hop and Beer Festival in Poperinge. Make sure you scroll down to the photos of kids with hop cones on their heads.

See you at the parade.