BetterBeerBlog

This month’s Session, hosted by Top Fermented, is all about Session beers. I hear this term a lot and despite its ubiquity, I haven’t really gotten a solid definition of what a session beer really is. Beer Advocate defines a session beer as:

Any beer that contains no higher than 5 percent ABV, featuring a balance between malt and hop characters (ingredients) and, typically, a clean finish - a combination of which creates a beer with high drinkability. The purpose of a session beer is to allow a beer drinker to have multiple beers, within a reasonable time period or session, without overwhelming the senses or reaching inappropriate levels of intoxication. (Yes, you can drink and enjoy beer without getting drunk.)

Sounds a lot like your typical American Macro lager, no? This is unfortunate as the qualities, characteristics and culture associated with American Macro lagers, which many craft beer drinkers see in a negative light, are often transferred to lower alcohol, sessionable, and tasty American craft beer. It’s guilty by association and it’s not fair.

I would suppose my very first experience with a session beer was with Newcastle Brown Ale. I was going through a phase where I was binge drinking more than session drinking but in retrospect, I think I was doing more of the latter and just didn’t know it. I’d show up to my local at around 6pm and not leave until after 12am, sometimes closer to 1am; during the entire time I’d be putting back pint after pint of Newcastle. Repeat for the next 6 consecutive days, stopping only on Sunday to rest the liver. This went on for about 2 years, or something like that.

It was during these long sessions that I gained a new “best friend”, although the term “best friend” seems limiting as it implies there can be only one; the one who rises above all others. This certainly isn’t true as I’ve found out “best friends” tend to arise as you need them. Some stay for the long haul and some leave as soon as the situation no longer warrants their support. Sounds callous but think about all the people you’ve been “tight” with and in what situations those were. Some of these relationships may have been intense and vibrant but as soon as the situation changed, the relationship changed. It’s not a good or bad thing, life happens. My buddy has since moved to another city and I am only able to see him a few times a year but the connection is always there; no one can take away the bonds created during our extended session drinking.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m no good at maintaining relationships.

But this is what I think is missing from the discussion of session beers: the social aspect. Everyone makes a big fuss about low alcohol while referencing some vague English tradition of drinking for hours on end. The reality of a session beer, or what I think the reality of what a session beer should be, is that it is low on alcohol purposely to keep the focus on the social occasion at the time. As Wikipedia puts it:

Session drinking is drinking in large quantities over a single period of time, or session, without the intention of getting heavily intoxicated. Unlike binge drinking, the focus is on the social aspects of the occasion.

Session drinking is essentially the guts of the craft beer movement; make something delicious, flavorful and interesting and share it with your friends, not to get hammered but to enjoy good beer in good company. Even if I’m not drinking a session-strength beer but one of those high alcohol “extreme” beers, I am doing so in limited quantities with my friends; it’s not a true session beer by any definition but the experience becomes sessionable.

This brings me to my next point, something that I’ve had on my mind recently and probably something I could devote an entire post to: why aren’t session beers more popular; especially with regard to “special occasion” beers? It seems to me that whenever a brewery wants to do a special beer, whether its a collaborative beer or an anniversary beer, they always make them Imperial. Take for instance this year’s SF Beer Week where the festival beer was a collaborative Imperial Common. It was a good beer but why did they have to “imperialize” it? Couldnt’ they just make a regular one really well? I mean, if all it takes to make something special is to “imperialize” it, we should all make a beeline towards our nearest Burger King and don a paper crown. King me!

I think there should be a conscious movement to swing the pendulum the other direction; brewers should start to “sessionize” their beers. After all, session beers are just lower in alcohol, not low in flavor. One of my favorite session beers is the Bitter American from 21st Amendment. Steve Donohue brewed up a session-strength English Mild he named “Cluster Fuggle” that just few out of the brewery. If made well, and flavorful, there’s no reason a session beer can’t be a fiscal, as well as critical, success.

This month’s Session, a monthly write-up from various beer bloggers around a specific theme, is about collaborations. Interestingly enough, the topic was suggested by Mario Rubio of Brewed for Thought, a frequent collaborator of mine for our semi-regular Hopinions blog posts. For more information regarding the topic, click here.

Since this Session is all about collaborations, I though I’d bring in Mrs. BetterBeerBlog into the review process. Here review is noted below.

The beer we decided to review was the Belgian-style Triple Ale, a collaborative effort between Stone, Mikkeller and AleSmith Brewing companies. The brewers who participated in this beer were Mikkler Bjergsø (Mikkeller), Peter Zien (AleSmith) and Mitch Steele (Stone). I’m not sure if there was some sort of typo when the bottles went to print as Stone’s website says this beer has an ABV of 9.5%, as opposed to the 8.7% on the bottle.

Stone-Mikkeller-AleSmith Brewing, Belgian-Style Triple Ale, 8.7% ABV

Peter: This beer pours out gold with particulate matter suspended in solution; the head is thin and off-white in color. There is a noticeable alcohol quality in the nose with a slight, yeasty spiciness similar to black pepper, and a fruity character similar to pears, with a low, earthy hop aroma. The flavor of the beer is initially malty, which quickly gives way to a medium/medium-high hop bitterness that lasts well into the finish. There’s a slight, sweet fruitiness in the flavor also. The beer has a medium-high body with a high, prickly carbonation level and slight alcohol warming in the finish.

Mrs. BetterBeerBlog: The beer poured out full bodied, golden straw color, the head is off-white in color with small bubbles and a thin good lasting head retention. There is a good amount of malty sweetness in the aroma with a noticeable alcohol nose. The flavor comes off malty, with a fruity spiciness character in the beginning but finishes with a dry alcohol character which last and lingers on your tongue. There is a noticeable bitterness and definitely a hop flavor that lingers on your tongue. Also, the beer has an alcohol finish. The beer is warm but not harsh, it is smooth in texture and full bodied.

The “typical” Belgian tripels I’ve tried tend to be sweeter (or less bitter) than this example but that’s what makes collaborations fun. Stone has a well-deserved reputation as a company that brews hop forward beer. And seeing as this beer was brewed and bottled at Stone’s facilities in Escondido, I can see why this beer is more bitter than other examples that I’ve had. Does the assertive bitterness make this beer out of style? Possibly. Does this matter? Not really. I find this to be an interesting beer; an American take on a Belgian classic, full-flavored and unexpected all at the same time.

In the weeks leading up to SF Beer Week, I was helping to plan several events for the South Bay. One of the events was a beer dinner. Several of us converged upon the home of Michael and Diane, one of the principle organizers of the event, for a dry run of the planned menu. Not have visited their home before, I was surprised to see the beers they had on their display shelves. In fact, display shelves is putting things mildly as they have several bookcases worth of beer. Many of the beers were rare for our area if not unavailable altogether. In some instances, there were multiple vintages of the same beer lined up. I thought I was a beer hunter but these two put me to shame.

This month’s edition of the Session is being hosted by The Ferm who brings to light the topic: The Display Shelf – When to Drink the Good Stuff? In their own words:

The topic is open ended and the rules of The Session are close to nil. You can use your post to be persuasive or therapeutic. You may choose to tell a story of a great bottle you once opened or boast of your own beer collection.

Relatively speaking, I am but a babe in the craft beer world. I really didn’t get into craft beer until I started writing BetterBeerBlog about 3 years ago. Just like any other craft beer fan, the more I got into the scene, the more beers I tried. The more beers I tried, the more aware I became of the myriad number of “special” beers out there. I would read on other blogs about So-and-So Brewing Company’s special release or how Bloggie McBloggerton beer blogger was able to get their hands on a limited release XYZ beer. The more I read, the more I got sucked in. I took both mental and physical notes of these special beers in the hopes that one day, when I came across them; I could either taste them or squirrel a bottle away for later.

I would come to find I was not the only one. There are many others like me and, if you’re reading this blog, chances are good that you are a beer hunter as well. My personal collection of bottles initially filled a small chest freezer modified with a temperature control unit to keep the beers cold, not frozen. In the years since, my collection has now spanned not only that chest freezer but what little spare room there was in my kegerator, the bottom shelf of our refrigerator; the rest spread out amongst several boxes stashed in my office, a closet and in the garage. Many of the beers I’ve collected were supposed to be fodder for the  blog. If I did nothing else but drink and review a beer a day, I’d have enough content to last me several months.

Despite having a gallons of beers at my disposal, the vast majority of the beers I have are nothing special. They are all good beers in their own right but nothing you wouldn’t be able to pick up readily. That being said, I do have a few bottles in my possession that I consider head and shoulders above the rest. These beers are special for a myriad number of reasons: they are from out of my immediate area, they are able to age well, they are exclusive, limited release beers I was able to get my hands on or they are part of a larger series I am looking to complete. In just about every case, I have but a single bottle of each. Every time I look at one of them, I wonder when would be a good time to crack one open?

Unlike wine, the majority of these beers were not meant for the aging process. There are exceptions, of course, and those exceptions I can table for another day. The rest probably have a window of opportunity that is quickly coming to a close with each passing day.

There are some beers that absolutely require a “special occasion” to open them. The very first time I tried a Samuel Adams Utopia was when BJCP judge John Watson cracked open his vintage 2005 Utopia in honor of his 50th birthday. Were I to wait for a similar moment, I’d have a 15 year wait ahead of me. Would it be worth it? Dunno. Would the beer still be good? Perhaps, but chances are high that I won’t wait that long to find out.

In other instances, trying to find a good time to open up your special beers is like waiting for the stars to align in a Dark Crystal-esque manner. Firehouse brewer Steve Donohue has a stash of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot that spans a decade. We’ve talked on and off for as long as I’ve known him about putting on a horizontal tasting but settling on a time and date is proving elusive. With something as epic as a decade’s worth of Bigfoot, is there ever a “right time”?

The dry-run for the beer dinner was delicious. Unfortunately taste alone does not make a beer dinner and the event was canceled several days later. After dinner, the conversation eventually steered back to beer as it is often wont to do. While not another bottle was opened up for the remainder of the afternoon, the four of us spoke about when a good time would be to open up special beers. Regardless of time or place, the one thing we all agreed was that who you were having your beers with seemed to trump just about every other concern.

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

The last Hopinions I hosted I got all sentimental with Thanksgiving and Christmas so with New Year’s Eve literally hours away, I’d thought I’d go all New Year’s resolution on Hopinions. But then I remembered how this month’s Session is called New Beers Resolution and I came up with the bright idea of “killing two birds with one stone” by combining Hopinions with the Session. This month’s Session is being hosted by Beer for Chicks and, as I’ve already stated, is called New Beers Resolution. Here’s what they’d like us to write about:

So we want to know what was your best and worst of beer for 2009? What beer mistakes did you make? What beer resolutions do you have for 2010? What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments? What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?

To start us off, the worst beer I had in 2009 by a landslide is Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR as it’s more commonly known. My review of the beer can be found here. I have no idea what people see in this beer. Other than being cheap, I really don’t know what people see in this beer. Unlike all the other macro lagers out there, PBR has bucked current economic trends and grew by an amazing 25% this year. Much of this growth is directly attributed to the adoption of PBR as the hipster beverage of choice but if this is what people drink to be counter-culture, to be anti-mainstream, I’ll stick to my craft beers.

As dominant as PBR was for “Worst Beer of 2009″, my best beer is equally as dominant in the “Best Beer of 2009″ category. Hands down, the best beer of 2009 goes to Samuel Adams Utopia. I can’t say enough good things about this beer. It is the most complex food product I have ever had the pleasure to put into my mouth. The flavors are layered and the beer seemed to change character every few minutes as it warmed up. Some may balk at the steep price tag for this beer, anywhere between $170 - $200 for a current release, but you just can’t put a value on this beer until you’ve tried it. On a related tangent, BetterBeerBlog friends Michael & Diane have recently pointed out to me that they found a bottle of 2007 Utopia going for $300/bottle. I am looking forward to trying future releases of this beer, assuming I can afford to purchase any, ha!

Probably the biggest beer mistake I made in 2009 was related to one of my homebrews. I had wanted to brew up a beer using apricots, not that I’m over enamored by the fruit I just happened to have a big can of it leftover from another homebrew that didn’t materialize. Anyway, I dubbed this newly experimental beer Hopricot. The idea was to brew up an American-style wheat ale with apricots and try to cram as much hop flavor and aroma into the beer as I possibly could afford. The resulting beer on bottle was fantastic. I had the right balance between the wheat nature of the beer, the fruit and the lemony/citrus character of the hops I used. A case of this beer went with my friend back to Fresno. The remaining Hopricot I had on tap was nowhere nearly as balanced, in fact it was all hops. Now, most of you would look at this as a good thing but trust me when I say that it wasn’t. Long story short, I will never dry hop any of my beers for 10 weeks every again.

Switching the questions up a little bit, my biggest beer regret would be not having judged as many homebrews as I did in 2008. I was a much more active BJCP judge in 2008 but for whatever reason, I just wasn’t feeling it in 2009. I can’t really put my finger on why. The BJCP is important to me and I respect what they’re trying to accomplish. I am genuinely surprised and touched by how eagerly the homebrewing community has received us and my lack of involvement in judging homebrew competitions is more of a personal disappointment as opposed to a true regret.

My most embarrassing moment of 2009 happened during Halloween when I switched from beer to tequila and started to headbutt my buddy’s Spanish-style Conquistador costume. He fabricated his armor from some sheet metal he purchased, so I was literally headbutting armor as opposed to a plastic facsimile. I ended up passing out on a chaise lounge they had in their backyard by a firepit. In my great history of embarrassing moments, this was isn’t so bad but it was my worst of the year.

I guess I’ll shoot this back to you, Mario, and see what your picks were for best/worst beer of 2009 were, what beer mistakes you’ve made (and are willing to admit to) as well as what your regrets and embarrasing moments were. In addition, I’d like to know what you think were our best/worst Hopinions topics of 2009 were.

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

As I was on a bit of a vacation this week, I had my Session post all written and done last week, so I will let everyone read that for themselves. So I don’t completely kill the idea of this article, I’ll respond to your contributions and go from there.

I don’t think PBR is necessarily bad as much as it is boring. When it comes to bad, I have had a few beers that I refused to finish from craft breweries. Don’t expect me to name them, but I can say there are bad beers out there and lack of imagination is not to blame.

As far as your best beer, I have yet to try the Utopias so I don’t know much more than what I’ve heard. As you said, the price tag is definitely holding me back. Maybe Once I get a job I can splurge a little and buy me a bottle…or a taste.

I think we’re on the same page when it comes to our homebrew participation. I just don’t brew anymore, and that’s a bigger problem, but homebrewing always asks for more. As for 10 weeks of dry-hopping, my God man, what were you thinking?

Your most embarrassing moment has me laughing. “The Monarch will not stand for Spanish Imperialism!”

Looking back on the Hopinions pieces, I know one stands out as the best. I won’t spoil it for the readers, I’d just like them to know it was topical and produced a lot of conversation. That’s what Hopinions is about!

The worst? Paging Dr. Greenthumb. This one came from my brain, and it was a plea for help regarding my dead hops. My hops sucked and the article wasn’t too interesting. I did like the title though.

What about you?

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

I totally agree with you regarding the best Hopinions piece. I thought the little bit of controversy/conversation we started was good. I definitely see the upper end as a place craft beer is headed, for better or for worse, but it’s good to get the conversation started. Regarding the worst, it could very well be this edition, right here. Not that I’m not trying to find new things to write about but a “year-end” recap seemed to be appropriate, if not a little cliché. Of course there could be the Hopinions piece I hosted at the beginning of the month where I got all nostalgic. There’s just something about the holidays that puts me in a contemplative mood.

I am very curious as to which craft beers you thought were awful. By enlarge, many of the craft beers I had this year were very good. At worst, they may have been considered pedestrian. I don’t think I’ve walked out a beer for being bad as much as they may have been dull.

A 10-week dry-hopping period was the result of neglect more than anything. We had been traveling a lot during that time, hosting a bunch of summer events and generally keeping busy. I’m fairly laissez faire when it comes to homebrewing to begin with but I definitely dropped the ball on this kegged version.

Getting back on track for the Session portion of this Hopinions, my beer resolutions for 2009 are ambitious. To start off, I’m hoping to get back on the horse with my homebrewing. I plan on bottling half of my homebrews moving forward and entering them in competitions just to see how they’d do and to get feedback on how to make them better. I don’t anticipate on brewing any more than I did this year, but just to bottle more. I also plan on judging more competitions to keep my skills sharp. The only way to get better at something is to keep on doing it.

A big thing that’s been on my mind has been to really go out and make connections with all my local craft brewers. I tend to frequent the same place regularly simiply because of proximity (to where I work, where I live) but I must make it a point to get to other craft brewers more frequently, at all in some instances. There’s a lot of good beer here in the South Bay that isn’t getting the press it needs/deserves so I guess I’ll raise my hand and take on the task.

Getting out and doing more beer traveling would be nice in the upcoming year. There are a lot of beer festivals and beer weeks that we’ve never been to and it’ll be good to get some of those crossed off out list. Hell, I’d be nice to travel to one of the original beer countries but that will all be determined by our work situation. Things have been tough at my day job and we’ll see if there’s a day job to be had in the coming months.

I see myself at a crossroads in my life. Before me lies two paths, one less traveled and one predictable but not necessarily safer. There are pros and cons to be had with each way, too many to be stated in this blog post, but each warranting much thought. I’ve been mulling things over in my head for months and will continue to do so but when I finally arrive at a decision, and it’s one of those milestone, life-changing decisions, I’ll share it with the world. Yes, it is beer related.

Lastly, this blog is in serious need of a redesign. Expect a new look to roll out in the next few weeks.

Swinging things back to Hopinions, what would you like to see us focus on in the future? Personal experiences? Craft beer issues at large? Single style of beers? Guest bloggers? Perhaps a transcript of a multi-person Hopinions chat? Personally I’d like to see guest bloggers join us or perhaps we use Google Wave to start a chat about a future Hopinions piece. I know this is “our” thing and that the logistics may make things difficult but I think I’d be an interesting direction to take at least once. Imagine if we had a guest participant along the lines of a Dean Bierch or a Pete Slosberg or Vinnie Cilurzo?

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

As you are with the homebrewing, I take the same stance with Hopinions. I’m more interested in writing about and discussing the things on my mind at the time, and this provides a great forum for that sort of conversation. As we both agreed, our best topic was one that grew out of a weekend in the woods with a bunch of beer drinkers. You can’t really plan on what will come from such things.

All of the ideas you pose sounds fantastic, and maybe we can do a tasting panel type discussion. That could be a lot of fun.

I know, I’m dropping the ball with my last entry for 2009, but it’s New Year’s Eve! Let’s talk about 2010 tomorrow. Happy New Year!

The host for this edition of The Session, is James Davoli of Two Parts Rye. This month, James wants us to write about our favorite watering holes, our drinking buddies and of course, how we stumbled home. Although he does have some limitations: no drinking and driving, must be within walking and/or biking distance, or be public transportation/taxi friendly. Here it is in his own words:

It’s time to give a shout out to your favorite watering hole.  How good are the beers?  Any interesting cast of characters?  What are your drinking buddies like?  They probably need to be embarassed on the internet.  Now’s the time.

You don’t have to limit yourself to one.  Feel free to reminisce about the good old days if you like.  Maybe you are a shut-in like this guy, and don’t get out that much, talk about the home bar.

There is a catch.  This booze stuff has interesting side effects.  That means, you can’t get behind the wheel.  You gotta walk, take public transportation, or be a regular supporter of your favorite taxi company.  Bicycles are acceptable but you still need to be careful.  I have the cracked helmet and scars to prove it.  Gotta love the 5 mph one man crash.

To set the record straight, I have never stumbled home. Never. I have been carried back home. I have passed out in backyards and in front of fireplaces. I have crawled up stairs and have been cradled in the arms of a woman I have known for all of 10 minutes, if even that.

But I have never, ever stumbled home. In that respect, this will post will be a little difficult to write about  but I’m sure I have a story to share.

Despite living in the rich, craft ale area that is the San Francisco bay, my particular neck of the woods is somewhat of a beer desert. Yes, there’s the San Jose Gordon Biersch but at the time I’ll be referencing, I wasn’t a regular. There is also the Tied House, but their San Jose location closed down earlier this year. Lastly, there’s Rock Bottom but they consider themselves a Campbell brewery.

In the end, none of this matters as I wasn’t into craft beer as I am today. At the time, I had just graduated from college. I was earning a decent salary at my first “big boy” job. Unfortunately the girl I had been dating at the time decided to end our relationship of nearly 5 years. I did not take this very well. What I did take to well was the bottle. Took to it like a newborn baby to a teat. I drank a lot, excessively, really. One could argue that most college graduates making a decent salary partied hard. Did their parties start on Monday night and last until Saturday night? Mine did.

To say we frequented the local bars in downtown would’ve been an understatement. So I’ll just focus on a single place: San Jose Bar & Grill. At SJBG, the doormen no longer asked us for our IDs while select waitresses would buy us our first round with no expectation we would ever stay. Of course we would. At its heart, SJBG was a sport bar. They served sports bar food and had crappy sports bar beer. This was homebase for us and Newcastle was my go-to beer.

In the middle of this maelström of self-destruction I had my good friend Raul watching my back. He was my designated driver. We were acquaintances in high school and eventually roommates in Phoenix where we attended a trade school together. We lost touch for several years before reconnecting in the driveway of my parent’s house. At the time, and unknown to me, he lived a block down the street. Even more serendipitous, the company he worked for was right next door to mine. Despite this, we never carpooled.

One Wednesday, I called up a bunch of my friends to hang out with Raul and I over at SJBG. There was no real good reason to call the entire gang out to play other than it was Wednesday and there was nothing else better to do. Plus it was 50-cent tater tot night at SJBG. There’s very little in the world more satisfying than deep-fried, greasy potatoes when you’re drunk as funk. I bought a round, rounds were bought for me, life was good.

At one point in the evening, Raul, myself and a buxom friend of mine were engaged in conversation. Somewhere along the way, Raul stopped paying attention to what we were saying and was focused intently on her breasts. This fixation was not lost on her. “Hello?!” my friend would say while waving unsuccessfully at him to get his attention. It wasn’t until she waved her hand directly in front of her lovely lady lumps did he finally snap out of his trance. To his chagrin, Raul eventually looked up to see us laughing at him. Blushing, he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed it off.

I look back at SJBG with a mixture of nostalgia and melancholy. On one hand, many good memories were made there. SJBG was my Cheers. And while not “everyone knew my name” it was a place of comfort for me, a place to escape my troubles. Of course I never did escape my troubles, did I? That’s the other side of the coin. I was foolish to think I could just drink my problems away. I was just postponing the inevitable. Once I confronted my issues, I drank less and things began to turn around for me.

It would be a good two years before that happened.

Way back in the 15th century, a crazy Italian had the idea that if he sailed far enough west, he would eventually end up east. The crazy Italian, of course, was Christopher Columbus and the whole reason he wanted to go west was to get to the spice routes of the east. This was especially ballsy since people at the time thought the world was still flat.

For this month’s Session, I’m taking a page out of Columbus’ book, but instead of traveling west to head east, I am traveling east to head… east? The two beers I am reviewing for this month’s session are from the “Land of the Rising Sun”, better known as Japan. It would be easier for me, living here in California, to just head west to reach Japan. But Girl Likes Beer specifically wanted us to head east to find our beers. So east is where I headed and the far east is where I ended up.

In her own words, here are the details of this month’s topic:

So to sum up I would like you to pick your favorite beer made east form your hometown but east enough that it is already in a different country. It can be from the closest country or from the furthest. Explain why do you like this beer. What is the coolest stereotype associated with the country the beer comes from (of course according to you)? And one more thing. If you do a video or picture of the beer (not obligatory of course) try to include the flag of the country.

So set your compass to east and enjoy that Eastern Beer.

Hitachino Nest Espesso Stout, Kiuchi Brewery, 7.5% ABV

Very dark brown in color, clear as a dark brown beer can get, with cola highlights and a thin, brown head. The coffee aroma has a very phenolic character reminiscent of unripe (green) hot pepper with deep roast, almost burnt malt undertones and slight dark chocolate character. Kinda reminds me of Folgers instant coffee. The beer tastes much better than the aroma to me. There’s a rich, dark chocolate flavor, black coffee notes, deep roasted malt flavor with a slight, green pepper undertone. The hop bitterness is medium-low/medium and is enough for balance. The beer is medium bodied with a medium level of carbonation.

Not my favorite beer. Coffee based beers tend to be hit or miss with me and this is more on the miss side of the spectrum. I know it’s an attribute of coffee but the unripe, hot pepper note is not my favorite characteristic. I like my coffee black, and this Espresso Stout is reminiscent of black coffee, but bad, black coffee.

Eikoku-Koshu 2002, Yo-Ho Brewing Company, 8.5% ABV

This beer is a reddish-brown in color, clear with almost no head. The beer has a rich, savory, roasty malt aroma with a slightly sweet, molasses-like character. There is a slight, cherry-like oxidative quality. The flavor is reminiscent of the aroma: rich and savory malt sweetness, slight cherry-like flavors, with a medium-high, lasting hop bitterness that doesn’t taste nearly as bitter as it is because it’s in balance. Eikoku-Koshu is a full bodied beer, low carbonated with a hint of alcohol warming and character.

For a 5 year old beer, this is pretty tasty. The flavor profile is that of a classic, English barleywine with just enough oxidative character to show its age. I actually enjoy when barleywine developes cherry-like oxidative qualities and would appreciate if this bottle was aged a few more years. I am kicking myself in the ass for not purchasing additional bottles of this.

I’d like to thank everyone for participating in this month’s Session. As the Summer is giving way to the Fall, I thought it’s be nice if we could all recount the “Best Summer Beer” we had. You can read my own contribution here, but it’s always more fun to read what everyone else has written to say. Without further ado, here’s the Session Round up:

• After a beer filled weekend in the Sun, Jesse from York Beer Blog gives it up to the local guys.
• Derrick from Bay Area Beer Runner gives a comprehensive list of summer favorites from “Favorite Summer Beer to Witness Another Disappointing Chicago Cubs Baseball Season” to “Favorite Summer Beer That I Couldn’t Come Up with a Category For, But Wanted to Mention Anyway” before narrowing it down to his pen-ultimate Summer Beer favorite.
• Enjoying their time at the Hilden Festival, the Beer Nut tried many blondes but it was Mrs. Beer Nut that coined the term JAGA.
• An avid fan of porters and stouts, The Barley Blog has changed things up and a canned IPA from a favorite Bay Area brewery makes the top of the list.
• A first time contributor to the Session, Twin Beer not only drank their favorite summer beer but met the brewer behind it!
• The Beer Dork’s memorable summer beer doubles as a time machine that sent him back to his softball smashing past at a bar with a criminally bad beer list.
• Unseasonably warm weather has Beers, Beers, Beers grabbing for cold and wet beers. To my surprise, he choose beers from a brewery available to me at a local pub.
• Our neighbors to the north, BeerTaster, picked a pair of beers from local craft breweries as their favorite summer beers… as long as you ignore “Bud Lite Lime”.
• Disappointed by the French Eurolagers he drank this past summer, Beer Sagas takes but back in time and back to the Czech Republic for some of his favorite beers.
• Mario from Brewed for Thought quenches his bike induced thirst with a cool, crisp Kellerbier.
• Brian from Red, White and Brew found his favorite summer beer in the commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
• Summer sun and fun equals hoppy times for the Reluctant Scooper.
• A Good Beer blog goes against the grain and throws back “drinks that clink” on those hot, summer days. Can’t say I blame him as I’ve recently discovered Gin and Tonics this summer.
• With the Houston heat reaching, “Holy Shit, It’s Hot!” status, The Pint Log held a mini-summer beer fest of his own and the winner, by a small margin, is the local favorite…
• Although torn on the idea of “favorite”, The Brew Site manages to pick one out.
• David from Beer47 doesn’t have just one favorite but six! OF course, if I was in Belgium I’d probably have just as many.
• Thomas from Yours for Good Fermentables has a bittersweet favorite this season. I need to call around and see if I can find his favorite before it’s long gone.
• Captain Hops’ has three haikus that succinctly wrap up his summer experience at Hilton Head Island.
• Finally, Jay Brooks from Brookston Beer Bulletin recalls a summer of drinking cask-conditioned ales in London.

If I forgot to list your post, please shoot me another email and I’ll gladly add you to the roundup! Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this month’s Session. I appreciate all your posts and stories! Next month’s Session is hosted by Girl Likes Beer. She is currently on holiday and I hope she has fun and returns to us invigorated as she hasn’t submitted what next month’s Session will be.

Girl Likes Beer has just recently contacted me with next months topic: head east my friends!

I initially suggested the topic of Summer Beers because no one else had, which surprised me. I thought this would be a fairly straightforward topic to write about but it wasn’t. Summer has kept us pretty busy here at BetterBeerBlog with all the festivals, events and good times. We’ve been so busy that I didn’t even get the chance to hit up the BevMo and pick up the Summer seasonals that were in stock. So, for this topic, I remedied that situation and headed over to BevMo to pick up what Summer Seasonals were left. I invited a couple of friends over for dinner and we had a mini-Summer Beer Fest to determine which beer would be the “Best Summer Beer”. Here are the beers we had with some of my notes.

Alaskan Summer Ale, Alaskan Brewing Company, 5.3% ABV

An American interpretation of the German Kölsch style of beer, this is as close as an ale can get to a lager without being a lager. While it misses to capture the true essence of an authentic Kölsch, it doesn’t miss by much. This beer is ridiculously easy drinking, is flavorful without loosing the subtleties and refreshing.

Festina Péche, Dogfish Head, 4.5% ABV

Branded by Dogfish Head as a “neo-Berliner Weiss”, Festina Péche is what happens when you tell brewmaster/owner Sam Calagione he can’t do something. At a session-level 4.5% ABV, this thirst quenching beer has a pleasant level of malt sweetness to counter balance its mouth-puckering tartness. The peaches present undertones more than an overt character which allows the beer’s Berliner Weiss character to shine through.

Mama’s Little Yella Pils, Oskar Blues, 5.3% ABV

An example of the Pilsner style of beer, Mama’s Little Yella Pils is Oksar Blues answer to those beer drinkers who ask for a macro American lager. It has a pils malt flavor and enough hops to balance but not as much as I expected from the Pilsner style. Out of all the beers we had this evening, this was the only one that came in a can.

Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, Anderson Valley Brewing Company, 5.6% ABV

I wasn’t quite sure how to view this beer. The flavor profile is unlike most beers I’ve tried. A quick look at the BJCP style guidelines lists Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema as an example of the Cream Ale style. I found this beer to be malt-forward in flavor with a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. More than one person described this beer as having a flavor reminiscent of “cream soda”.

Kellerweis, Sierra Nevada, 4.8% ABV

Sierra Nevada’s newest entry into their list of beers available year-round, Kellerweis is an exceptionally balanced Hefeweizen. All the trademark characteristics of a Hefeweisen are present: fruity, banana-like esters are balanced by clove-ish like phenols and balanced out by a moderately sweet, wheat character. The mouthfeel feels thicker than it really is and, for added complexity, pour out a two-thirds of the beer into your glass, swirl, and reintroduce all that yeasty goodness in the bottom of the bottle. What further separates Kelleweis from other Hefeweizens is that it was brewed using the traditional Bavarian methods of open fermentation.

Blackberry Witbier, Samuel Adams, 5.5% ABV

The one thing about Samuel Adams that I absolutely enjoy is the freedom they give their brewers. According to their website, they have 30 beers they brew regularly. Chosen by tens of thousands of beer lovers in over a thousand taste screenings, Blackberry Witbier beer is their most recent addition to their ever-growing portfolio of beers. Because this beer is brewed with Oregon Marion blackberries, this beer is much darker than your basic witbier. The berries contribute a large part to the character of the beer and are noticeable in both the aroma and flavor.

By the end of the evening, there was no clear cut favorite. A lot of people liked a lot of the beers for different reasons. Alaskan Summer ale was a favorite of a lot of people and seemed to embody the spirit of summer. The Festian Péche, my personal favorite of the bunch, ended up being a love it/hate it kind of beer. The one beer I thought that would’ve done better but didn’t was Mama’s Little Yella Pils. Both Sammy and I found this beer not as crisp as we would’ve thought and felt it could’ve been hoppier.

The one beer that did get a bunch of votes but wasn’t part of the “official” tasting line up was the Saison I made. It was the “reception” beer people could drink while we were setting things up still. Despite the fact that it’s a poor Saison, people thought it was a great drinking beer. Three cheers for the homebrewer!

As much as I would like to say that all the beers were great summer beers, I’m going to have to make an executive decision and say the best beer of our mini-Summer Beer Fest was… drum roll please… Saison! Yes, this is a very biased executive panel of one. If you don’t like it, hold your own mini-Summer Beer Fest!

In reality, all the beers were pretty good. It was difficult for the group to come to any clear consensus as we had a wide variety of beer styles on the table that matched the wide variety of preferences people had.

What I had hoped would happen ended up happening. I am of the opinion that part of what makes a memorable beer so memorable is what was happening at the time you drank it. Lounging in my backyard on a perfect, late summer evening with friends is what good living is about. We had good food and good beers on the table and everyone was laughing and enjoying the good conversation that accompanied the night. Hopefully as my friends drink these beers in the future, they can remember this night and the good time we all had trying these new beers.

I remember being a kid and riding my bike everywhere I went. Nothing was more satisfying to me back in the day than to come home from a long, summertime bike ride and putting back an ice cold glass of milk. It seemed to hit the spot time and time again.

Fast forward back to the present and things have changed. I still try and get a good afternoon ride in whenever I can but I’ve upgraded my old BMX wannabe for a plush touring bike. Milk and I have since had a falling out. We’re still amicable but I’ve moved on and traded up to a chill pint of beer.

Which brings me to this months Session topic: Summer Beers. With the summer coming to a close, what was your favorite beer of the summer? It doesn’t even have to be from this summer. Is it a lager or maybe a light bodied wheat ale? Maybe you’re drinking anti-seasonally and are having a barleywine or Russian Imperial Stout. Why is this beer your favorite? Is there a particular memory associated with this beer? How about a city? Maybe there was a particular dish that made this beer memorable? Spare no detail.

When you’re done with your post, leave a comment in the comments section at the bottom of this page with a link to your contribution. I will read everyone’s submission and round it all up for a post on the 5th or 6th of September complete with all the appropriate links and recaps.

The topic for this month’s Session is Beer Desserts hosted by David at Beer 47. When I first heard about this month’s topic I was pretty excited. Having done a couple of Beer & Dessert Pairings in the past, I was eager to share my experiences. It wasn’t until late last night though that I re-read the topic and realized that I actually had to cook a beer-based dessert. Crap. Pairing is one thing, cooking is quite another. I’m not a bad cook but I’m not superexceptionalawesome either.

The dessert I will be making is a fudge brownie baked with Old Rasputin XII Russian Imperial Stout, served with a spoonful of sorbet made from Lindemans Framboise. and drizzled from caramel made from Celebrator Doppelbock.

Caramel

To make the caramel for this dish, I’m going to boil the crap out of the doppelbock until it’s a caramel-like consistency. I ended up using about 75% of a 12oz bottle and I’m boiling it on medium-high heat. I don’t think I’ve had Celebrator before. It’s good. Rich, malty aroma, toasted bread notes with a sweet malt flavor that has a lot of savory, melanoidic qualities, toasted bread and hints of caramel. Love that decoction method of brewing!

Not sure if the caramel scorched or not but the beer flavors are greatly concentrated. I think there’s only enough “caramel” to use as a garnish in the plating. Oh well, we’ll see how it looks.

Brownies

I admit it, I used a brownie mix. I’m sure it’s not that hard to make brownies from scratch but these mix things aren’t half bad. The “recipe” calls for 2 tablespoons of water. I substituted Old Rasputin XII Russian Imperial Stout instead and doubled the amount to a whopping 4 tablespoons. Uh-huh. I am a rebel.

Sorbet

We borrowed our friend’s ice cream maker for this. The ice cream maker came with directions on how to make a sorbet that we ignored completely. Instead, we put 3 cups of the Lindemans Framboise right into the ice cream maker. We let this bad boy run for about 30 minutes. Upon completion, we put the sorbet into the freezer for about an hour to firm up. Technology rewlz!

The Dessert

The final dessert was a cube of the stout brownie and a scoop of the framboise sorbet. The caramel didn’t work out to well so we just omitted it. You really couldn’t taste the beer in brownie though. The sorbet was a little bit more tart than I thought it would be. The combination was pretty good, the sweetness contrasted against the tartness, the warm, fudge-like texture of the brownies contrasted against the cold, slushy sorbet.

If I could do this dessert over, I’d have made the caramel better, I’d have let the sorbet set a little longer as well as added a little bit of sugar to the framboise before it turned into sorbet.