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.

A beer blogging conference and other links

There’s no chance I will ever catch up but meanwhile . . .

Zephyr Adventures, which already runs the Wine Bloggers Conference, has announced the long anticipated Beer Bloggers Conference, to be held Nov. 5-7 in Boulder, Colorado. No real agenda yet, just a plan for “150 bloggers and others involved in the world of online media in the beer industry (to) gather together to meet each other, learn about blogging and social media, taste a bunch of beer, and have a great time.”

Boulder Beer Company and Oskar Blues Brewery are already committed to provide dinners and expect more breweries to offer tours, tastings, etc. The price for “citizen bloggers” is $95, which seems fair for two dinners (so far), beer, and three days of conference content.

Of course you’ve got t get to Boulder and there’s a matter of a hotel.

Anyway, the details so far.

  • Tasting blind. The subject is eggs, but give it a read. We’ll get back to the subject (of blind tastings) soon.
  • Honest blogging. Jeff Alworth, inventor of the Honest Pint, and his readers discuss the quality of beer from a newish brewpub with unusual candor.
  • The return of Produce Row. A piece of history in America’s best beer city.
  • How to be a beer historian in just 10 books. A UK historian, that is.
  • What is it about scores that makes some people so CRAZEEE!?!? “I will guarantee you that the younger generation is going to be making their wine-buying decisions by scores, same way the older generation does.”

    • 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.

    In search of a bigger, maybe hoppier, high

    Today’s Wall Street Journal explains the “current flavor boom.”

    “The more you taste something, the more you need to taste it,” says Mitchell Davis, vice president of the James Beard Foundation, a New York-based non-profit that works to preserve American culinary heritage. “You always need something spicier, something more, a bigger high.”

    What does this tell us about bigger, bolder, more intense, hoppier beers?

    Go read the story about how “bold is replacing boring.” Connect the dots. I’d love to join the conversation but we’re boarding a plane. Tomorrow I’ll be visiting a hop yard.