Boak and Bailey have posted the roundup for The Session #15, writing “there are many roads to good beer.” Their recap includes 43 participants.
Perhaps some host will ask us to explore the detours as well. Just kidding, Alan.
Thomas at Geistbear Brewing Blog will host the June session. Look for his announcement soon. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it June 6 (yes, D-Day). We’ll be en route to Prince Rupert, B.C., that day and a date with a ferry to take us up the Inside Passage.
A press release from the Hop Growers Union of the Czech Republic indicates the European protected designation of origin “Zatecky Chmel” (Saaz hops) was used for the first time in the processing the 2007-2008 hop products of from Zatec.
Hops from 138 villages in the Czech Republic were labeled with the Zatecky mark. The majority of those were shipped to Japan. The label was first shown to the public last Sept. 1 during the Zatec hop festival.
The Hop Growers Unions submitted the application for the designation in 2004.
“The protected designation of origin ‘Zatecky Chmel’ is the first and still the only designation for hops within the EU and also one of the first such designations given to Czech agricultural or food product,” Hop Growers Union representative Mr. Zdenek Rosa said for a press release. “This also confirms the uniqueness and tradition of these hops.”
Added May 5: Evan Rail adds historical background. There was already a push for the use of “Žatecký chmel” as the correct term for Saaz hops way back in 1922, a move which caused quite a bit of controversy at the time.
Writing about beer certainly changed my relationship with beer, and made what might look like a simple question next to impossible to answer.
I got to thinking about this because for The Session #15 Boak and Bailey asked those of us in the beer blogosphere to answer this question: How did it all start for you? And going further, “We’d like you to write about the moment when you saw the light.”
Looking over the early posts I’ve been startled that people can single out a beer or a where, because there is no single moment or beer I can point to. From the time going on 40 (gulp) years ago I thought “Hey, there’s something different about this Stroh’s from the the basic what’s-in-the-pitcher beer we’ve been drinking in campus bars” my relationship beer has been evolving. Still is. So across a few decades . . .
1980s, Central Illinois. Schlösser Alt. German bars in the Midwest moved enough beer that we told ourselves it was probably fresh. Dortmunder Union sure had more flavor than American lagers, but then we discovered this alt and bitterness.
1993, a lookout tower north of Mancos, Colorado. New Belgium Abbey Grand Cru. We were still Illinois flatlanders, enjoying a view of four states at 10,000 feet. The beer was brewed with yeast acquired from a Chimay bottle, but it was made nearby.
1994, Lyme Regis (south of England). Five days before a pint of Royal Oak (Eldridge Pope) in Sherbourne had been simply spectacular. This totally living Bass buried it. Bass. A lifeless beer not worth drinking in the States.
All of those experiences occurred separately from writing about beer. But we’ve also trooped into hundreds of brewpubs in the last 20 years, I’ve visited monastery breweries, only scratched the surface with American small-batch brewers and then there are hops . . .
Anyway, I also wouldn’t have been at the last 15 Great American Beer Festivals if I didn’t write about beer. So in October I wouldn’t have had either Cable Car or Toronado 20th Anniversary, brewed and blended by Lost Abbey and Russian River respectively to celebrate Toronado’s anniversary. (Yes, an option would have been to go to Toronado’s party.) One-offs that proved for the hundreth (or is that thousandth?) time that a beer can reveal something no other beer has before.
And no, it doesn’t have to be a new-fangled creation — later this year we’ll be sampling beers in the south of Germany and not much later in the north of Italy, which should be a pretty fun compare and contrast. And no, a beer doesn’t have do that to be great. And yes, perhaps I’m a little dense, but that beer can still surprise me is a joy.
For more Session posts, and perhaps even epiphanies, be sure to see Boak and Bailey’s roundup.
Funny T-shirt today at Shirts on Sale (no affiliation deal; just a link), but the fact is that beer costs a lot more than gas. A gallon of gas around here — $3.35 to $3.45 in these parts this morning — will set you back less than half what a half-gallon growler of beer costs at a local brewery.
So don’t wimp out. Oppose suggestions we need a gas tax holiday.
Fact is our family would almost surely benefit more than yours (since our summer is full of diesel-powered travel), and we’re not biting on this short-term fix.
And now we step outside the beer blogosphere — where it might seem there is nothing new to say about “extreme beers” — to recognize that to normal people they are still a topic of discussion.
Peter Rowe, whose work in the San Diego Union-Tribune I’ve pointed to many times, used the occasion of the Craft Brewers Conference to revisit the subject: The art of crafts: Extreme or balanced? The great beer debate continues.
Much from the the usual suspects, such as Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery saying, “If a chef tells you this is the saltiest stew you’ve ever tasted, that’s not what I want to hear. Anybody can put more hops in a brew kettle. That’s not a skill.”
And Greg Koch of Stone Brewing countering: “There may be a brewer somewhere that is just shoving more hops in. But the ones that really shine are the big beers that are artfully made.”
Certainly worth your time.
Rowe also has a six-pack of beer trends.