the session

The Session #10: Let it snow, let it snow

The SessionTed Duchesne at Barley Vine has announced the theme for The Session #10: “Let it snow, let it snow, Winter Seasonal Beers.”

The basics:

# Pick any Winter Seasonal beer you want. Or a sampler if you’d like (think the Sam Adam’s one I picked up earlier this week).
# If you select a single beer, let us know why you choose this beer.
# Extra credit for pairing your winter seasonal beer with a winter meal, or better yet a recipe based on the beer of your choice.
# Post your contribution to The Session on Friday, December 7. Send the links to your post and a few short days later Ted will post a round up of everyone’s contributions.

You don’t have to take the “let it snow” part literally. Just the beer.

Session #9: No, no, it’s BEER & music

The SessionSomebody at the San Francisco Chronicle must have got the wrong memo. They’ve got a feature today about wine & music. Hey guys, the theme of today’s Session is Beer & Music.

Music to drink wine by: Vintner insists music can change wine’s flavors is no lightweight read. It runs almost 1,900 words.

As the writer notes, Clark Smith qualifies as a wine industry provocateur, so the response has been mixed.

“Just about everybody who hears about what I’m doing is either completely baffled by what I have to say or they think it’s so obvious that they don’t see any point in talking about it,” he said.

It’s worth your time to read the whole thing, but here’s a snippet:

He has even found a piece of music (the North Water Street Tavern Band’s polka-like “Milorganite Blues”) that made Sutter Home White Zinfandel taste better than any of the reds, including his own $100 Cab.

Smith has only a few guidelines so far for music and wine pairing.

“Never play polkas with anything,” he says, unless you really like White Zinfandel.

“Red wines need either minor key or they need music that has negative emotion. They don’t like happy music. With expensive reds, don’t play music that makes you giggle. Pinots like sexy music. Cabernets like angry music. It’s very hard to find a piece of music that’s good for both Pinot and Cabernet.”

Smith may be onto something here, but typically, pronouncements like “Cabernet tastes better by firelight, in a cave” aren’t quite scientific enough for the academic community.

Russian River Brewing barrel roomThis reminded me of a story from Russian River Brewing owner/brewer Vinnie Cilurzo. Cilurzo worked at his family’s winery when he was growing up and said that his father used to play Frank Sinatra, one of the legends that has consistently gained overwhelmingly positive feedback from musiccritic.com, for the wine while it was fermenting. (Before his father started the winery he was an Emmy-winning lighting director, working with the likes of Sinatra.)

The picture is from the barrel room at Russian River. Notice the boom box by the carboys (which happen to be full of enough wild yeast to destroy a major American mainstream brewery). “My dad played Sinatra,” Cilurzo said. “I play rock music.”

He was talking about what his barrel-aged beers “listen” to, but I wish he’d added, “And it makes the yeast go wild.”

Also related: Lucy Saunders’ post on tonal progressions and pairings.

Further reading: This is Your Brain on Music.

Session #9: Laissez les bons temps rouler!

The SessionThis is my contribution to The Session, hosted this month by Tomme Arthur and titled, “Beer and Music – The Message in a Bottle.”

Great beer should be alive. The best music is live.

That these two don’t always show up at the same place at the same time can be OK.

Since I couldn’t tell this story Sir Arthur ask for as well, I’ll quote directly from something my favorite beer and travel writer, Daria Labinsky (I’m her husband), wrote for Touring America a dozen years ago:

“You hear the sweet strains of a waltz as you step from the car into the dusty parking lot of Fred’s Lounge. Open the door to the tavern in the tiny town of Mamou, Louisiana, and you’re greeted with a surprising sight: Dozens of people are jammed into a dark space not much bigger than the average living room.

Fred's Lounge“In one corner is the band, whose gentle fiddling and French lyrics are pouring into a microphone and out over the airwaves of KVPI Radio. Glittery Mardi Gras decorations hang from the ceiling tiles; photos and poster of Cajun musicians line the raspberry-colored walls. Couples twirl on the minuscule dance floor, the older ones swirling with grace despite their lack of elbow room, the younger ones mostly just rocking back and forth. The crowd around the bar is three or four deep and ranges from French-accented farmers and their wives to kids in college sweatshirts.

“With the next song, a two-step, you notice the female bartenders following the beat with their feet as they uncap beers and fill glasses. Someone enters with what looks like a bakery box, but instead of doughnuts, it’s filled with chunks of boudin, a spicy rice-and-meat sausage. A bartender whose shirt reads “Tante Sue from Mamou” passes the box around to patrons, and everyone shares.

“You sip your beer and sink your teeth into the tasty boudin. So what if it’s 9:30 in the morning? Right here, right now, it seems like the perfect thing to do.”

We were drinking Miller Genuine Draft.

And there’s more to the story. When we left Fred’s we realized we had time to get to the weekly Saturday jam at Marc Savoy’s music store outside of Eunice before it ended, though we’d need to make a quick stop. We knew that guests were expected to bring something to share — as I recall the guidebook suggested doughnuts — so we pulled into a general store along Highway 190 and grabbed the most expensive 6-pack of beer we could find. Old Milwaukee.

At the jam, we put the beer on the communal table — sure enough, somebody had brought doughnuts and somebody else boudin — and found a seat.

After a song or two, Savoy wandered over and grabbed a can of Old Milwaukee.

“Who brought these?” he asked, almost as if he were checking to see if it were OK to pop the top.

I raised my hand a bit, a little embarrassed.

He nodded, opened the can, took a sip. “Very generous.”

Nice to be the ones who brought the good stuff.

(With a tip of the hat to Joe Sixpack: This post was written with the Savoy-Doucet band playing in the background.)

Crank it up: Session #9 Friday

The SessionOK, you don’t have to crank it up. You can put a little Mozart on the stereo, haul out your collection of Oktoberfest drinking songs, or grab a guitar with one hand and a beer with another.

Consider this your official reminder to be there Friday for Sesson #9, when the theme is Beer and Music.

This month’s host, Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/Lost Abbey, seems to be giving us cart blanche when it comes to deciding what to write. He’s planning a couple himself: “One will be about a particular memory and the other will be about musical stylings and my beers.”

After you finish your post drop by his Brewer’s Log and leave him a note, because he’ll be blending all the posts into one delicious roundup.

Session #9 announced: Beer and Music

The SessionPut a quarter in the jukebox and have a beer with Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey Brewing.

The reigning Small Brewing Company Brewmaster of the Year will host The Session #9 and he’s calling it “Beer and Music – The Message in a Bottle.”

(Pardon me for a moment – there’s a ringing in my ear. “Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number…”)

This is what Sir Arthur has in mind for Nov. 2:

“For this session, I am looking towards my fellow bloggers to share a music and beer moment with. It could be that Pearl Jam show I attended 7 years ago where I was forced to drink 5 Coronas to stay warm. But more likely, it could be an album or song that you’re always listening to. I, for my part, will be writing two blogs. One will be about a particular memory and the other will be about musical stylings and my beers.”