beer bloggers – Page 4 – Beer Search Party

July 2, 2010September 12, 2018

Session # 41

The chosen topic: Craft Beers Inspired By Homebrewing. How has homebrewing had an affect on the commercial beer we have all come to love? Feel free to take the topic in any direction your imagination leads you.

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.

With this opportunity, I would like to rant about an imbalance that I feel needs to be focused on to keep the craft beer world lively and engaging and most importantly, growing.

We need more female home brewers. Alot more. I know most homebrew clubs have female members, maybe even sub-groups comprised solely of women. That’s great. Keep it up. But this industry is tilted far to the male side and we need to get the percentages rising on the female side of the ledger.

I have my personal reasons why the craft beer community needs to embrace this idea and it stems from a theory of mine.

My theory is that home brewing is the minor leagues for the craft beer world. That means the more women brewing at home means the better the chance that they might go pro. If your club has 20 active members and only two or three are women, the chances that one might start a brewery are not good. But if there is a large and active female membership then the odds become better. And there is no better time than now, there is mentoring available through the Pink Boots Society, there is publicity available through great writers like the Beer Wench, Lisa Morrison and Christina Perozzi, there is even a documentary in the works about female brewers.

I say all this in enlightened self-interest. I love craft beer. Spend way too much money on it. Spend way too much time writing and reading about it. But if we don’t expand our horizons to recipes from a new perspective, new styles or re-imaginings of current favorites then the world of craft beer will crash into the reef of Double IPA’s and Russian Imperial Stouts and not be able to extricate our way out. We might end up, god forbid, stagnating. Not only as an industry as a whole but in individual beers.

We as bloggers need to push, cajole, entreaty as much as possible for more women in home brewing and more women drinking and creating a big craft beer tent as big as a Munich beer Hall in September.

P.S. I just know the best beer of 2011, 2012 and beyond are out there so keep it up homebrewers!

P.S.S. Click HERE to see the Session hosts posting on the topic.

June 4, 2010September 12, 2018

Session # 40 – Session beer

Session Beer is the topic for June.

There are a thousand ways to approach this. What is your definition of a session beer? Is it, as Dr. Lewis suggested at the Craft Brewers Conference this year, “a pint of British wallop” or is your idea of a session beer a crisp Eastern European lager, a light smoky porter, a dry witbier, or even a dry Flemish sour?

Is it merely enough for a beer to be low alcohol to be considered a session beer, or is there some other ineffable quality that a beer must hold in order to merit the term? And if so, what is that quality? Is it “drinkability”? Or something else?

What about the place of session beer in the craft beer industry? Does session beer risk being washed away in the deluge of extreme beers, special releases, and country-wide collaborations? Or is it the future of the industry, the inevitable palate-saving backlash against a shelf full of Imperial Imperials?

What are some of your favorite session beers? When and where do you drink them? If you’d like, drink one and review it.

I am generally a positive craft beer guy. There is too much good stuff out in the craft beer universe to drink for me to rant and/or rave about a real or perceived slight.

But, (and you knew that was coming), I keep waiting for the Session beer train to pull into the station but it is the little engine that just can’t quite make it. The trend just can’t get enough momentum. And as much as I would like to blame the “Imperial Imperials”, I think it is another pair of reasons that stall this category.

First is the puritanical streak our country holds onto with a firm grip and that is inadvertently supported by mainstream water lager advertising. Our culture looks down on massive excess in drinking or eating as much as we can’t stop massively eating and drinking.

Sitting around and having not just a beer but multiple beers while watching the big game or for no reason other than friendship on a Saturday afternoon is considered the realm of the frat boy, the obnoxious lout or the falling down drunk.

There will always be a push for moderation and anything that talks about multiple beers will run afoul of the more extreme forces of “anti”. Major advertising reinforces that with sometimes funny but always wild and crazy party life that is enjoyed by people who buy cases and cases of their low ABV, low flavor near beer. Half the country wants to get their drink on while the other half wants them to shut up and behave like adults. Session beer gets tarred with the brush of excess.

This leads me to my second wild theory. The image of the beer guzzling becomes linked to a certain neanderthal beer drinker. Just as cans were considered gauche and too tied to the image of industrial beer, session beers are considered too macro and not craft or artisan.

Maybe this stems from not wanting to compete against such a massive marketing machine and entrenched consumer buying patterns but I think some brewers and beer geeks have tried to distance themselves from session to avoid seeming too mainstream. It’s easier to have one or two hoppy IPA’s and maintain street cred then it is to drink a few rounds of a session beer that has the appearance of big business due to it’s ABV.

To end on a more positive note, cans are well into becoming cool again. So maybe there is still hope for the humble session beer. Maybe the session itself needs to be separated from the session beer to fully blossom. But I am not going to hold my breath, I am heading to the store to get a case of Full Sail Session in the stubbie bottles.

May 28, 2010September 12, 2018

One week until Session # 40

Here is the summary of what the session is about:
The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry.

Find the full details HERE of this month’s topic: Session Beer

April 5, 2010September 12, 2018

Session # 38 – The Beer Bloggers speak….

As promised, here is the round-up for Session # 38. Thanks again to Jay and to Stan for allowing me to host and to all of you in the beer blogosphere who contributed your thoughts!

I have read Mario’s posts on RateBeer, so I know he has a way with words. But I was especially taken by the last paragraph of his addition to the session, “In the end, whether you get in line or skip it, do one thing, enjoy the beer that is available when you get there. If you wait in line and end up empty handed, don’t throw a fit or make a big display of your frustration. Anywhere that pours these incredibly rare beers is sure to have something else worth your money and time on tap. If nothing else you have a story. Think of the free beer someone may buy you when you break out this tale of woe.”

The Wallace Brothers took a different tack and talked about their favorite “fictional” beers. Check out the labels HERE

The Bay Area Beer Runner shined a spotlight on not just one beer or a style but the not widely known brewery El Toro “I have to believe if El Toro was in San Francisco, everyone would be talking about it. But being way down in Morgan Hill, not too many people venture out to it.”

The Beer Nut from Dublin made a strong point in his rant that I think all beer hunters can relate to, “HaandBryggeriet Norwegian Wood. Because I knew the name and reputation, I picked up a bottle when I saw one on sale in Bier Koning: that’s the sort of cult-beer-seeking I like. Serendipity beats standing in line every damn time.”

The great Jay Brooks compiled a list of worthy beers. I was surprised how many I had tasted!
* Black Albert (De Struise)
* Black Tuesday (The Bruery)
* Cable Car (Lost Abbey)
* Cuvee de Tomme (Lost Abbey)
* Dark Lord (Three Floyds)
* Exponential Hoppiness (Alpine beer)
* Kate the Great (Portsmouth Brewery)
* Leviathan Barleywine (Fish Brewing)
* Local 1 (Brooklyn Brewery)
* O.B.A. (Anchor Brewery)
* 120 Minute IPA (Dogfish Head)
* Pliny the Elder (Russian River Brewing)
* Pliny the Younger (Russian River Brewing)
* Poseidon Imperial Stout (Fish Brewing)
* Raspberry Tart (New Glarus)
* Sink the Bismarck! (BrewDog)
* Speedway Stout (AleSmith)
* Tactical Nuclear Penguin (BrewDog)
* Toronado 20th Anniversary Ale (Russian River Brewing)
* Westvleteren Blond, 8 and 12 (Westvleteren)
* Wisconsin Belgian Red (New Glarus)

The Brew Site gave a shout out to Tonya Cornett and Sean Paxton for their collaborative Desert Rose. One of my goals in life is to be at a Paxton beer dinner and I know that the American brewing scene is going to hear alot of Cornett and Bend Brewing.

Lastly, my fellow beer traveler Richard sent a contribution on his birthday when he should have been drinking his favored St. Bernardus.

March 26, 2010September 12, 2018

Session # 38 REMINDER

Just a reminder that the next first Friday Session is coming up the day after the April Foolishness.

To refresh your memory, here is the topic:

With Kate the Great Day a recent memory and the day of the Dark Lord fast approaching, I started thinking about what beer or beers that I would get up at 4:00 in the morning, drive across state lines, stand in a long unmoving line in the cold and rain for the chance to taste with a crowd the size of Woodstock.

So here is my question to you (with a couple addendums).

What beer have you tasted recently (say, the last six months or so) that is worthy of their own day in the media sun?

And to add a little extra to it, how does “great” expectations affect your beer drinking enjoyment?

AND If you have attended one of these release parties, stories and anecdotes of your experience will be welcomed too.

To join in:
1) Publish your blog post by Friday, April 2, 2010.
2) Leave a link to your blog in the comment section of this post or put your response in the comment section or email me your link to beersearchparty@gmail.com.
3)On Monday, I will post a round-up with comments and links to all entries.

Thanks to Stan and Jay for starting this fun communication and for giving me the opportunity to host.

January 21, 2010September 12, 2018

Who’s with me?

As I was browsing through the interwebs, I saw this posting.
I know there are food blogger conferences out there so beer really should have it’s own too. Portland aka Beervana has been floated as a possible location and as much as I love that idea, I would like to see it in a city that needs to be written about or has a craft beer culture that is at the tipping point. Florida or Michigan would fit that bill in my mind. I will post any updates that occur.