The Session #118: Who you gonna invite?

The SessionIt has come to my attention I am hosting the 118th gathering of The Session in a few weeks. I obviously had not thought things through back in March of 2007 when I suggested we do this once a month. I didn’t have an exit strategy, but I certainly did not anticipate The Session would still be going more than nine years later. So here I am hosting for a third time and looking for a theme unlike the 117 that came before.

How about this?

If you could invite four people dead or alive to a beer dinner who would they be? What four beers would you serve?

If the questions look familiar it might be because we played the game here nine years ago. It was fun, so let’s take the show on the road. To participate, answer these questions Dec. 2 in a blog post (or, what the heck, in a series of tweets). Post the url in the comments here or email me a link. I’ll post a roundup with links some time the following week.

Session #117 roundup posted

The SessionHost Csaba Babak has posted the roundup for The Session #117, during which he asked contributors to take a look at the future of beer and what we’ll see more off.

He has a proper summary, but here is the short version: diversity of ingredients, historic styles, diversity of people, less, indigenous brewing styles, stress on freshness, unfined, “schtick”, small & local, fake.

Monday beer links return, and context still matters

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 11.07.16

The crawl is on.
Curiosity and the skunk.
The concept — “the crawl is on” — should be enough to suck you in. If you follow John Duffy on Twitter you know he was knocking about the US recently. Last Monday he began chronicling those travels. As always, excellent drinking notes paired with telling cultural commentary. [Via The Beer Nut]

Data Says Women Driving Craft Beer Growth.
A lot here, including that sales data from the big stores are going to overvalue the hard sodas and undervalue the North East IPAs. Leading us to . . . [Via BeerGraphs]

Read more

Session #117: More of less, please

The SessionOur marching orders for The Session No. 117 are pretty straightforward, to consider the future of beer and “capture ONE thing you think we will see MORE of with an explanation of the idea.”

I’m not all that great at making predictions, so I’m going with something I hope we see more of, and that is less. I’m pretty sure this will happen, but I’m just as certain that we going to see more in-your-face-big-flavor beers as well, full of plenty of hops or plenty of alcohol, or both.

Read more

It’s the new beer – how could it get old?

What did I miss? (Other than the spiffy paint job at and new address for A Good Beer Blog?)

As promised, there was no blogging here in October after the 3rd. Daria and I traveled to and around Australia. It was not a beerless trip — I went at the invitation of the Australian homebrewers (meaning they paid my way) to speak at their biannual conference — but it was not a beer trip. No visiting hop fields, no taking notes in and around stainless steel tanks. We were in Sydney for a portion of Sydney Craft Beer Week, but we didn’t attend a single event. In fact, we saw a Time Out “Hop-Up Craft Beer Bar” (a pop-up, obviously) and did not sample a beer.

What's coming at Mrs. Parma's in MelbourneBut a couple of observations. First, for those who would like to get rid of the term “craft beer.” Sorry, ain’t happening. That boat has sailed. Second, because discussion about Carlos Brito’s suggestion that consumers “get a bit tired of choice” has cluttered my Twitter feed I got to thinking about this blackboard I saw at Mrs. Parma’s in Melbourne. The place specializes in parmas and serves only beers brewed in Victoria; highly recommended.

As you can see, this board lists what’s coming on tap. It feels as if we’ve been looking at blackboards like it for more than 25 years. We went from zero small, local breweries in America to more than 4,000 because drinkers want something different.

I remember talking with the late Greg Noonan about the first years after he opened Vermont Pub & Brewery in 1988. “The styles were amber, golden, porter and stout,” he said. That’s changed. The interest in the new has not.