This month's Session Beer Blog on the topic of Brewers and Drinkers is hosted by John at Home Brew Manual.

And he hands over a loaded gun.

"Do you brew? If so why? If not, why not? How does that affect your enjoyment of drinking beer?"

My relationship with beer and how it's made? It's complicated.

I brew. Sort of.

I've cleaned mash tuns and added hops and connected hose A to FV B.

Sometimes it's been at commercial breweries. Sometimes it's been in Brew School.

So: I love beer. I 'brew' for the shits and giggles. And to learn. And to blag free beer. But mostly to learn stuff about kettle geometry or isomerisation or who once slept with who. Whilst connecting hose A to FV B. Eventually.

I've brewed, but I'm not a brewer.

(I got soul but I'm not a soldier)

Does that affect my enjoyment of beer?


Understanding the scientific principles of brewing enhances my enjoyment of beer. As does:

- my mood
- the weather
- the company I keep
- the place where I drink
- the time of day
- the time of the year
- whether I'm working the next day
- whether I'm sleeping soon
- whether I'm feeling like a session at George Best's best session rate
- whether I'm ready to uncork a bad boy and stare the night down til dawn

You don't need to brew to appreciate beer. Like you don't need to butcher to appreciate steak. >

This month's Session on the topic of "Don't Believe The Hype" is curated by David J Bascombe at Good Morning...

As always, no apologies for length. But many apologies to Hans Christian Andersen.



Many, many years ago lived a beer blogger who thought so much of new beers that he spent all his money in order to obtain them; his only ambition was to be always the top blogger. He did not care for his fellow topers and the pubs did not amuse him; the only thing, in fact, he thought anything of was to go on the internet and blog about a new bottle of beer. He had a bottle for every hour of the day; and as one would say of a king “He is in his cabinet,” so one could say of him, “The blogger is in his blogging-room.”

The great website where he resided was very SEOd; every day many strangers from all parts of the internets arrived. One day two swindlers came to his hovel; they made people believe that they were brewers and declared they could brew the finest beer to be imagined. Their malt and hops they said, were not only exceptionally awesome, but the beer made of these materials possessed the wonderful quality of tasting like piss to any man who was unfit to read beer blogs or was unpardonably stupid.

“That must be wonderful beer,” thought the blogger. “If I were to blog of this beer I should be able to find out which visitors to my site were unfit for their places, and I could distinguish the clever from the stupid. I must have this beer brewed for me without delay.” And he gave a large sum of money to the brewers, in advance, that they should set to brew without any loss of time.

They set up two buckets, and pretended to be very hard at work, but they did nothing whatever in the buckets apart from piss into them. They asked for the finest malt and the most precious hops; all they got they did away with on eBay, and pissed into the empty buckets till late at night.

“I should very much like to know how they are getting on with the brew,” thought the blogger. But he felt rather uneasy when he remembered that he who was not fit for his blog would think it tasted of piss. Personally, he was of opinion that he had nothing to fear, yet he thought it advisable to send somebody else first to see how matters stood. Every visitor to his site knew what a remarkable quality the beer possessed, and all were anxious to see how bad or stupid their neighbours were.

“I shall send my honest young acolyte to the brewers,” thought the blogger. “He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he is intelligent, and nobody understands his office better than he.” The good young acolyte went into the room where the brewers sat before the piss-filled buckets.

“Heaven preserve us!” he thought, and opened his eyes wide, “I cannot see anything at all, apart from lukewarm piss” but he did not say so. Both brewers requested him to come near, and asked him if he did not admire the exquisite flavour and the beautiful aroma, pointing to the piss-filled buckets. The poor young acolyte tried his very best, but he could taste nothing but piss, for there was nothing but piss to be tasted.

“Oh dear,” he thought, “can I be so stupid? I should never have thought so, and nobody must know it! Is it possible that I am not fit for my office? No, no, I cannot say that I was unable to taste anything but piss.”

“Now, have you got nothing to say?” said one of the brewers, while he pretended to be busily brewing. But was actually on Facebook.“Oh, it is very awesome, totally craft!" replied the young acolyte looking through his sunglasses. “What a beautiful flavour, what brilliant aroma! I shall tell the blogger that I like the beer very much.”

“We are pleased to hear that,” said the two brewers, and described to him the aroma and explained the curious flavour. The young acolyte listened attentively, that he might relate to the blogger what they said; and so he did.

Now the brewers asked for more money, hops and some purple steam, which they required for brewing. They kept everything for themselves, and not a cone came near the buckets, but they continued, as hitherto, to piss into the buckets.

Soon afterwards the blogger sent another honest toady to the brewers to see how they were getting on, and if the beer was nearly finished. Like the young acolyte, he sniffed and sipped but could taste nothing but piss, as there was nothing but piss to be seen.

“Is it not a beautiful beer?” asked the two brewers, describing and explaining the magnificent flavour, which, however, did not exist. “I am not stupid,” said the man. “It is therefore my good appointment for which I am not fit. It is very strange, but I must not let any one know it;” and he praised the beer, which he could not taste, and expressed his joy at the beautiful aroma and the fine flavour. “It is very awesomeballs,” he said to the blogger.

Everybody in the whole interweb talked about the precious beer. At last the blogger wished to taste it himself, while it was still in the buckets. With a number of toadys, including the two who had already been there, he went to the two finagling brewers, who now brewed as hard as they could, but without using any malt or hops.

“Is it not magnificent?” said the two suck-ups who had been there before. “You must admire the flavours and the aroma.” And then they pointed to the piss-filled buckets, for they imagined the others could see the beer.

“What is this?” thought the blogger, “I do not see any beer at all. Just cold piss. That is terrible! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be a blogger? That would indeed be the most dreadful thing that could happen to me.”

“Really,” he said, turning to the brewers, “your beer has my most gracious approval;” and nodding contentedly he looked at the piss-filled buckets, for he did not like to say that he saw nothing but widdle. All his acolytes, who were with him, looked and looked, and although they could not see anything more than the others, they said, like the blogger, “It is very craft.”

And all advised him to drink the new magnificent beer at a great festival which was soon to take place. “It is awesome, amazeballs, mahoosive,” one heard them say; everybody seemed to be delighted, and the blogger appointed the two swindlers “Officially Craftmungous Brewers.”

The whole night previous to the day on which the festival was to take place, the brewers pretended to work, and burned more than sixteen joints. People should see that they were busy to finish the blogger’s new beer. They pretended to take the beer from the bucket, and worked about with ornate bottles, and randalled with filters without hops, and said at last: “The blogger’s new beer is ready now.”

The blogger and all his followers then came to the hall; the brewers held their arms up as if the ornate bottle held something not piss-related in their hands and said: “This is the shizzle!" “This is the future of craft brewing!” and “The revolution starts here!” and so on, ad nauesum. “It is as light as a helles, and one must feel as if there is nothing at all in the body; but that is just the awesomeness of the beer.”

“Indeed!” said all the followers; but they could not see anything but piss, for there was nothing else to be seen. “Does it please your Bloggerness now to graciously pour the beer,” said the brewers, “that we may assist your Bloggerness in pouring the new beer in this large tasting-glass?”

The blogger poured, and the brewers pretended to flatter him; and the blogger looked at the liquid in the glass from every side. “How great it looks! How well it shines!” said all. “What a beautiful flavour! What fine aroma! That is a magnificent beer!”

The master of the ceremonies announced that the bearers of the ornate bottle which was to be served at the festival were ready. “I am ready,” said the blogger. “Does not my beer suit me marvellously?” Then he turned once more to the tasting glass, that people should think he admired his beer.

The followers, who were to carry the ornate bottle, stretched their hands to the ground as if they lifted up a precious thing, and pretended to hold something in their hands that was borne of skill and precision and experience; they did not like people to know that they could not see anything but old piss.

The blogger marched in the procession by the ornate bottle, and all who saw him in the street and out of the windows were given a sample and then exclaimed: “Indeed, the blogger’s new beer is incomparable! What a long barnyard finish it has! How well it suits him!” Nobody wished to let others know they tasted nothing but piss, for then they would have been unfit for their office or too stupid. Never a blogger’s beer was more admired.

“But it has no beer in at all,” said a rookie tweeter at last. "It tastes of piss".

“Good heavens! Listen to the voice of that grumpy twat,” said a hipster wearing glasses with no glass in them, and one whispered to the other what the tweeter had said.

“But it has no beer in at all,” cried at last the whole people. "We're just drinking manky old piss out of a fancy bottle!"

That made a deep impression upon the blogger, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the followers walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the beer which did not exist. >

This month's Session on the topic of 'The Perfect Beer World' is brought to us by Jorge at Brew Beer And Drink It.

Where would the world of beer blogging be without the wishlists, the if-only posts, the "if I ruled the world" attitudes? The world of beer put to rights on the back of an envelope? Like this one:

But it's a lot simpler than that. A perfect beer world is a pipedream. Yet, maybe....

... if we stopped the endless circular arguments about how to define craft beer / Black IPA, if we realised that denigrating other breweries / methods of dispense / styles of beer can only result in pyrrhic victories, if we wasted less time chasing the next great imperial gooseberry hefeweizen aged in café marron barrels just because someone tweeted that it's AWESOME!...

... if we enjoyed beer, enjoyed the fact that the next person enjoys their beer too even though it's not the beer we enjoy...

... if we enjoyed beer. If we truly believed that beer is brewed to be enjoyed. That when we lose sight of that, we lose beer's soul.

Nobody's perfect. But I'd drink to that. >

The Session this month is brought to you by DrinkDrank on the subject of designing your perfect brew: "The One Beer To Rule Them All".

Down by the lake, I had a dream.

I say dream, but after five hours of trout fishing with the sun on my back it was more like an hallucination. Bored of my ham-fisted attempts at snaring it, one massive trout split the still waters and spat a ring at me.

"This ring is destined to become part of beer history", it burbled in an overly-dramatic voice-over type way. "Wear it with pride and with honour. But be wary of the power it bestows".

And with that, it buggered off.

A dull gold ring with an un-nervingly good fit, no matter which finger I placed it on. The water's edge seemed to recede, a darkness rushed overhead. My sense of taste and smell went into overdrive. I knew exactly what to brew.

It would need the finest pale malt with just a dab of caramel malt to render a glowing orange wort. Styrian Golding, Strisselspalt and Hallertau-Hersbrucker hops to give it an almost herbal edge. A touch of candy sugar to add gravity. Dry-hopped and a bit of Brett to the finish.

A beer that would age from a dry feisty amber to something with spicy tartness. One that could be enjoyed fresh-as-you-fancy or dug-out-of-cupboard old. Served in a dazzling chalice by a roaring fireside or sank straight out the bottle by a lake full of reluctant trout...

... and then my finger felt as if it was on fire. The ring was burning. It shot off my hand of its own accord. My vision of a perfect beer began to ebb away.

Was I not the one who was to make history?

Glancing down at the burning gold, I could make out a fiery inscription upon it:

"One Beer to rule them all, One Beer to find them,
One Beer to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Orval where the Abbey lies".

Whatever. I scooped up the ring and threw it back into the water. That self-same fat trout from before lept up and caught it between its chubby lips, winked at me and then swam off.

Maybe someone else was destined to find that ring. Whoever it was, I bet it wouldn't result in a beer anywhere near as good as the one I'd dreamed of...




>

This month's Session on the topic of going to the pub alone is hosted by Brit blogger Nate Southwood over at Booze, Beats and Bites

Drinking by myself, in a pub, is one of my greatest solo pleasures. It's right up there with being the only walker at a mountain trig point and eating a whole pork pie when the rest of the table isn't watching.

Let's be clear: I don't do the staring blankly at nothing in particular, like the not-so-old-boys in my youth who gazed at cheap prints on the wall whilst apparently smoking their fingernails. They didn't even seem to drink, their beer clearly reaching into them at some molecular level.

And don't get me wrong, I still love the camaraderie of the pub: the regulars, the faces, the people you least expect to see, the outsiders, the strangers who buy you a beer and become friends until they take the piss and swiftly become strangers again. Before they're tarred, feathered and chased out the village.

But I love the solitary drink. Since I was 18, scrawling into notebooks, mucking up the Times crossword, drinking a pint of Symonds cider in the Old Wine Vaults in Eastwood (locals: "Aye up youff, writing a book? Aye it a mucky 'un like Lawrence?)

Into my polytechnic years, scrawling into textbooks, mucking up the Guardian crossword, drinking a pint of Guinness in the Shrewsbury Arms in Stafford (locals: You're a student? But you're not that much of a twat!)

Through work lunchtimes, scrawling into a laptop, mucking up the Independent crossword, drinking a pint of Brunswick Father Mikes in, uh, the Brunswick in Derby (locals: Ooh! Get you, Bill Gates!)

Arriving at lazy Sundays, scrawling into Blogger on my phone, back to mucking up the Times crossword, drinking a pint of Thornbridge Jaipur in the Sheffield Tap (locals: Mornin', Scoop. Alreet?)

In many of the pubs I visit; there's an unwritten code; stand at the bar = I'm open to banter and gossip. Sit at a table = I want to be alone with my crossword / newspaper / book / thoughts.

Sometimes, there's a place I want to go where nobody knows my name.

Although, with a smartphone, there's a paradox. Sat by myself in a corner with that pint, that bastard crossword, Twitter, Facebook and Blogger. I reach a quantum drinking state. I find the pub super-position of being alone and not alone at the same time. I can be drinking alone and sharing the experience with virtually anyone.

I wrote this down the pub. If you were there, I was the Boris Johnson lookalike in the corner who kept swearing at his phone's stupid autocorrect rather than blaming his chipolata fingers. Forking koy beard.

Cheers to Nate Dawg for hosting. If you see him, buy him a beer. Or maybe just get him one in at the bar... >

When I wor a lad, when television was sometimes black & white, when petrol cost less than a pound Sterling for an Imperial gallon, when cross-country running over the clay pits was still an option for afternoon games rather than certifiable child abuse, I knew this much.

I wanted to write.

My junior school was what is now called 'progressive'. Which is shorthand for what happens when idealistic Oxbridge graduates take on the 'challenge' of a soon-to-be-ex-mining-town new school and decide that Beatles songs sang in the round and maths taught using Cuisinaire rods would take us to places that academia could only dream of.

Well, they were right there. It took me to to a prefab classroom at North Staffordshire Polytechnic.

But in the meantime, they let me write. Lots.

One day, we had to write a short story of no more than a hundred words. I wrote a chapter. And a synopsis for the rest of the novel.

And they let me carry on. Once a week, for two terms, until I'd spilt myself and a huge dash of Ian Fleming / Alistair MacLean inspiration over my jotter.

At the same time, we also had a weekly newspaper to prepare.

Individually.

The idea was that you brought in newspapers from home, took the key stories, summarised them on pieces of lined A5, cut & pasted in bits of the paper for photos etc and presented a four-page newspaper.

My first copy ran to sixteen pages. When I was told it was cheating to cut and paste crosswords and cartoons in, I designed my own crosswords instead. And got Chris Markham to draw cartoons that I'd then narrate.

And so it goes.

The sixth form magazine - my first editorial post - which I fucked up to such a degree that I am eternally grateful that there was no such thing as the Internet to record it. The great thing about bander copy is that it burned quickly.

The poetry magazines - oh, my, the poetry. Because wearing a pastel yellow cardigan and a paisley yellow shirt was nothing without un-rhyming a shit ton of teenage angst into a fifth-rate magazine driven by whoever you were forced to study for English A level.

The fanzines. The days of sniffing glue as you cut and pasted. The mornings when you sent postcards to bands with interview questions and they posted it back to you with crayon answers. The afternoons when you bunked off to go to Selectadisc to meet a band, only to find the lead singer was fucked up on brandy somewhere else. As a teenage muso, this was infuriating. Later in life, you realised this behaviour was laudatory.

And now; this. Blogging. Where me and every other arsehole can pass an opinion.

Where so many say so little to so few followers.


So why do I write about beer?

I used to kid myself that it was all about the Reithian values of being able to educate, inform and entertain.

Probably I do. In parts. But that's after-effect, not intention.

It has its roots in sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose.

But writing for me is a baser need than all that jazz.


I write for me. For no-one else.


What drives me is the occasional compunction to spill stuff out my head and put it to bed somewhere. Sometimes, it's here.

You really want to know why it's here?

Reader, it's not for you. It's for me.

I have to write, when I need to write. If you read it, it's a bonus. If you comment... I'm sorry, I really don't care.

All I know is that I spill my occasionally splenetic frenetic heart out here. It's not in hope that you get a warm fuzzy feeling from it. It's for my release.

Anyone who wants a refund, please queue by the back door.

Something drives me. Sometimes it's beer. Sometimes it's architecture or pottery or archery or orchids or recalcitrant trout or Roger McGough.

Most times it's the beating of a heart that sounds like a fucked clock. A ticking that forgets to tock.

*I* drive me. Over the cliff singing ho-de-doo-dah-dey. I play to the wings. If you happen to be sat in the stalls and take in the full enchilada, bully for you.


1) Today's Session was brought to you by Brewpublic. Cheers and beers to them for actually making me stop and think about a Session blog.


2 What literally drives me is the Little Blue Beer Taxi, driven by Mrs Scoop. Actually, it's what picks me up when I fuck up and get lost some place. The Little Blue Beer Taxi is about to become the Little Mars Red Beer Taxi. We'll need a better name than that. Thinking caps on...










>

The question this Session is: What makes local beer better?

Let's start with defining local beer. Here in the English Midlands.

Locally brewed? Fair enough. But what if the malt comes from Germany and the hops come from New Zealand?

Locally available? OK. But what about if it's brewed in London? Aberdeen? Japan?

Locally better? Well, what if local tradition is a taste you can't stand?

Local is a marketing label which is abstract at best and downright misleading at worst.

The greatest trick local beer ever pulled is convincing the drinker that it ever existed.



Thanks to this Session host, Matt Robinson at Hoosier Beer Geek. >

Let me tell you the problem about beer.

It can never really be the Last Drink. Can it?

As the sun falls into the sea. As the DJ whips tired souls into a last dance. As the fire's embers spat their last. As the coach is about to leave. As the speeches finish. As the deed has to be done. As a lounging middle finger scratches upwards towards a wobbling ceiling, the last defiance...

It's never beer, is it? Long drinks were invented to be caroused around, shared and split and eventually cradled before cajoled into another round.

Short drinks define themselves. Another bluff eraser bump in your ledger of life.

It doesn't matter if the evening doesn't begin with beer. It has to end shortly.

Iced apfelkorn from the depths of the freezer.

A clumsy martini.

Random single malt from the miniature that you forgot you bought eight years ago.

Or Somerset Cider Brandy. For me: smells like teen spirit, burns like heaven and then whispers softly in my ear..


"Thank you for enjoying me. Now please fuck off kindly and quietly to bed".

>

For many opinionated drinkers, global brewers are a god-send. They can be pilloried from post to blog post; capitalist behemoths, industrial swill-merchants, adjunct-addicted purveyors of pap. Even better if they have the letter S in their name. So the lazy perpetuation of hackneyed myth can be combined with the liberal insertion of dollar signs into their name.

For instance: Budwei$er.

Yeah, that $tick$ it to The Man.

This month's Session is hosted by The Tales of The Ale, on what he perceives may be hard for some bloggers: giving thanks to the 'big boys'. For me, it's a gimme.

Let me tell you why every beer fan in the world ought to give eternal thanks to Anheuser Busch.

Actually, no. Let Charles Bamforth, Professor of Malting and Brewing Science at University of California Davis, explain why:

"The reality is that it is substantially more challenging to consistently make a product of more subtle tone, there being far less opportunity to disguise inconsistency and deterioration than can be the case in a more intensely flavoured beverage". 1

If you can visit anywhere in the world and a Bud tastes like a Bud... that's supreme control. I know enough brewers who produce a raft of 'specials'. All roughly similar, minor changes in ABV and recipe. For keeping the tickers happy? No. It's because they cannot brew a beer consistently to spec.

As for the brewers who disguise fuck-up beers by mixing them into darker brews and lacing them with a far-out flavour... you can't polish a turd.

You may not choose to make Budweiser your fridge beer of choice. I remember a radio interview with Bamforth where he said something along the lines that he loved cask bitter in a sidestreet pub back in England. But in 100 degree heat at a ballgame, he'd rather be drinking Bud.

So, here's an American institution with a history of fastidiousness. Of borderline-freakish quality control standards. Of absolute faith, backed by researched science, that what they do is absolutely the best they can do. That brews a consistent, popular beer whose sales fund barley and hop development programmes. And the professorship that Charlie Bamforth holds.

And, if along the way, they give the young turks and old grumps something to rail against, even if it's misguidedly, that's great.

If it makes just one brewer stop and think about how they can make better beer, that's a result.

If we see more eclectic, adventurous, flavour-forward beer - still brewed with technical perfection - then that's job done.

Adolphus Busch: this Bud's for you.


1. "Beer Is Proof God Loves Us" (2011), Charles Bamforth  >

September already? Sheesh. Time for another Session beer blog Friday, hosted this month by Curtis Taylor at HopHeadSaid on the subject of label, coaster and cap art.

You may think I ought to be more interested in beer arty. I work in marketing, after all. Truth be told, I'm firmly in the camp of stuff-art-drink-beer-and-carry-on. Usually.

I was tempted to pearoast a previous Session post as an Orval label and Chimay cork-cap comes pretty damn close to design perfection for me. But there are three beery things worth a big-up.

Saison Dupont is my summer fridge beer. It's just.... right. Satiating. Post-lawnmowing, pre-BBQ, mid-lounging-around-going-sweet-FA. And the cork cap is simply superb; bold design, distinctive colour combo. And it's got a hop on it. Job done. There's always a few of these knocking around my kitchen (and my garden, my garage, all points between). I'd go so far to say that the Saison Dupont cap is an overlooked design classic.

Beermat collecting really isn't my bag. But I've usually got one tucked inside the pocket of my Tilley LT5. Because I have other odds and sods in there like spare cash and a bottle opener. And a beermat keeps it all flat and out of the way. This one is a Thornbridge beermat; usually brewers' mission statements are a steaming pile of spent grain but these guys live by these words. For which, thirsty topers are most grateful.

And last, but my no means first, there's beer labels. Where the only ones to get me mildly excited of late have been those by Kernel. As this picture stolen from Pete Favelle shows, the killer thing about Kernel labels is they're anti-design. Plain brown paper, identical layout. Why do I love them? They let the beer do the talking. They give you a style and an ABV. Let's be honest; that's all you need.

It's just struck me. Looking back on these three... straightforward, bold, clean design.

Keeping It Simple, Stupid. But still standing out. I'll drink to that. >

It's time for The Session, the international monthly beer blogging bonanza. This month's topic thanks to Jon at The Brew Site, is sour beer.

Now, I fancy a challenge. Today I'm London and I have the technology to blog live for the first time. I'm off to find the best sour beers that the capital can throw at me. This may be ambitious but rubbish... so check back later to see what I find.

Update, 11:38. Craft Beer Company, Leather Lane. First time here; it's a beergasm with a glass ceiling. And it's got Giradin Faro on draft. And it's... amazing. Effortlessly drinkable this early in the day. Sour gums, sweet tongue. I could stay here all day - 7 Mikkellers on keg, for starters - but I need to boogie onwards.

Updated 15:20, Rake, Winchester Walk. Boon Framboise. Not sour enough? Who cares! I'm sweating like a Scouser in Dixons and, sometimes, only a fruit-based drink will do.

Update, August 12th. That didn't work too well, did it? Fell asleep on the Tube, didn't drink any more sours that night. I'll revisit sours later on next week...

>

This month's Session, "Beer Collectibles & Breweriana", is hosted by Brian Stechschulte at All Over Beer.

I squashed my collecting bug before I turned a teenager. A brief flirtation with stamps, a serious fixation with chocolate bar wrappers and a bizarre fascination with badges gave way to far healthier pursuits. Like failing miserably at cricket. And engineering socially-awkward opportunities to try and see Julie ********'s bra. Apparently, if I'd asked, she'd have shown it to me. And it turns out she knew how to throw a cricket ball too.

So the attraction of saving breweriana has never appealed. Tegestology doesn't tickle my fancy. I do have a giant glass full of bottle tops but that was borne out of habit - flicking tops from one end of the kitchen to the other. I've no idea what's in that glass, never mind it being cross-referenced and photographed.

But, strictly speaking, I do have a collection. It's small but perfectly formed:


The Orval label comes from a lunchtime bottle savoured at the Nouvelle Hostellerie d'Orval in the company of brewery's commercial director, François de Harenne, and the beer polymath Phil Lowry. The Chimay cork was one of several popped later that same day by their export manager, Steve Marangon, in the garden of Auberge de Poteaupré. It was a day like no other in my life. Intelligent company. Industrial brewing sat cheek-by-jowl with meditative surroundings. World-class beers.

Every time I look at these things I can again feel the sun on my back. Taste the cheeses. Recall the tales told. Grin like the Cheshire Cat once more.

To everyone else, it's throwaway stuff. To me, it's a tangible link to the greatest beery day in my life. I'm just glad that I remembered to bring them home. >

Let's make this clear at the get-go. Jay Brooks' idea for this 'cheese-off' Session is a great one - everyone buys the same three cheeses and pairs them with different beers. Though as I couldn't get hold of the particular cheeses (US ones, natch) it made my participation in the Session seem moot. Ah, what the hell - I bought broadly similar styles to those suggested by Jay - soft goat's, aged Cheddar and a blue - and gave it a bash anyway.

Pairing #1: Fivemiletown Cooneen and Saison Cazeau.

A goat's cheese that doesn't taste of the farmyard, a saison that doesn't taste of the farmyard. There's a pairing full of win. Cooneen is delicate almost to the point of anonymity but it's all in the texture - the right side of creamy, still an eat-with-your-fingers cheese rather than one that ends up spread into the wallpaper. Cazeau has a smear of lemon, slight spice. The kind of saison that if you found it at a ramshackle bar halfway round a long yet lazy bike ride, you'd need a taxi to get you back to where you started. On a warm day, it's a beer you stop for. And keep stopping.

Pairing #2: Lincolnshire Poacher and Adnams Innovation

Cards on the table. Lincolnshire Poacher is my favourite hard cheese. It's a little bit nutty, a little bit sweet with a texture that's just-so. Two words describe it best: Lincolnshire Poacher. No point in describing it in terms of other cheeses. It is what it is. Adnams Innovation is one those IPAs that just keeps on giving; pungent wet earth, back-of-the-cupboard spices, sour-sweet citrics that haven't decided which way to fall. But when you cannonball the two - wowser. One eggs the other on, pummeling your taste buds before the other has finished with them. I've always had thicker, maltier beers with Poacher before - never again.

Pairing #3: Long Clawson Stilton with Brewdog Tactical Nuclear Penguin & Sink The Bismarck

My intention was to open up a sensible barley wine that had the balls to take on a full-flavoured Stilton. But I really didn't fancy a whole bottle of the ones I had. But lurking in the fridge, I had two pipettes. Looking like dodgy urine samples, they were actually the slightest snifters of two Brewdog heavyweights. Neither were great, to be honest. Tactical Nuclear Penguin had sherry-cardboard riven all the way through, Sink The Bismarck had an unusually satisfying sugar hit before an odd hop and ethanol burn. Thankfully, neither detracted from the Long Clawson - just creamy enough, just enough bite, a lingering sharpness.

Clear winner for me was the Lincolnshire Poacher with Adnams Innovation. More aged cheddery-stuff with IPA-esque beers will certainly be on my summer picnic agenda. >

Wracked as I am with the sort of snot that could glue a tuba player to the ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall, it's batter up time. It's the Session. It's the fiftieth Session.

What makes me buy beer?

Let's keep this simple, folks.


Habit - which I flogged to death a while back. I love those regular beers in regular places. Many of which have become regular beers through...

Stupidity - which fuels the purchase of terrifically imbalanced, blunt-tasting, limited-release-for-a-reason beers. Often at the behest of...

Drunken bullies - who are often found in pubs and bars I frequent - Oi! Johnson! Do as you're told, drink this and bloody enjoy it. Or moreso in recent times on...

Twitter - which lets me know what brewers are brewing, what pubs are serving, what drinkers are drinking and the happy confluence of a great beer on sale in a great pub being enjoyed by great people. Or perhaps it's an odd bottle available from an online store ; come on down...

Phil Lowry - who, with his beermerchants hat on, is responsible for me trying my first ever US West Coast beers and craft Italians, for convincing me that little-known Belgian brewers like Viven are world-class and for feeding my gueuze habit.

And so it goes.

My medication beckons. Nurse, the screens! >

Thornbridge Jaipur at the Coach & Horses, Dronfield; twenty Imperial fluid ounces of relaxation alongside a burger and the Saturday papers.

Adnams Broadside at the Carpenter's Arms, Dale Abbey; my walking boots steaming, my cockles warmed by the fire, my palate satiated by big fat chewy malts.

Stella Artois at Morley Hayes golf club; crisp, quenching, my not-playing-golf-but-just-sitting-in-the-clubhouse-lazing-around choice for over fifteen years.

Bernard unfiltered pilsner at the Sheffield Tap; when coming straight from standing on a hot, cramped train there's nothing better than a cold pils followed quickly by another one.

Pictish Brewer's Gold at the Kelham Island Tavern; never mind the tick, feel the quality.

Woodforde's Wherry straight from the cask at the Three Horseshoes, Warham. Sublimely balanced, helping me drop down the mental gears at the start of every North Norfolk holiday.

Augustiner Edelstoff from the bottle at the Ship & Mitre, Liverpool. I know it's in the fridge, waiting.

Harvey's Best at the Royal Oak, Southwark. Because it's the best damn-tastiest bitter I know of.

Marble Dobber at Marble Arch, Manchester. The first beer I ever drank there and would be happy it were the only one I ever drank there again.

Fuller's London Porter on keg at the Old Joint Stock, Birmingham. The seasons change, the view through the plate-glass windows moves from suits in overcoats to strappy-backed crop-topped students but the malts remain the same.

Bass at the Cooper's Tavern, Burton-upon-Trent. Nothing salves a tired mind than twenty minutes spent with a sulphurous brew and some idle rocking of a treadle on a table that once housed a Singer sewing machine,

Brewdog Punk IPA in my fridge. White Feather in the Brunswick brewpub. Whim Hartington IPA in the Smithfield, Derby. The list goes on.

I spent several years chasing the rate, looking for the beer I hadn't had before. I've spent longer enjoying the beers I love in the places where I first fell in love with them.

Some day, I may find a bar serving a barrel-aged double imperial gooseberry hefeweizen that keeps me coming back for more. Until that day, I have my regular beers in sometimes-irregularly-visited places. As long as they are still standing and still serving, I'm still drinking there.



Props to Stan at Appellation Beer for hosting this month's Session and for being all all-round splendid chap. Blogs *should* make you think. Thinking is so important. Right, Baldrick? >

I thought the roundup for The Session #48 would be straightforward. Everyone would simply say no; dispense doesn’t matter - it’s all about the beer, stoopid.

Thankfully, most of you wrote more than that. For which I am eternally grateful.

Some of you, though, did keep your opinions concise and to the point. So, for services to precision and brevity, congrats to A Perfect Pint and The Brew Site. And kudos to Glyn Roberts, the ever-jovial manager of Rake bar in London, for his Rabid About Beer post. Glyn’s a shining wit. At least, I think that’s what the customers call him.

Was their really a question to be answered? That Thirsty Pilgrim, Joe Stange, thinks the argument has now gone, as " the majority of aficionados have tasted enough beer from enough places to know that great beer flows from all sorts of vessels." Many of you still thought that particular methods of dispense had their pros and cons.

Cask attracted several positive posts from both sides of the pond. Ale Talk declared his ‘professional Yorkshireman’ love of a beer with a creamy head on it and, whilst deciding that it's the taste that matters, noted how Tetleys’ dispense can divide his local’s pool team.

Craig Garvie make an impassioned plea for cask beer at Make Mine A Half, whilst giving a nod in the direction of quality keg from smaller brewers that are managing to displace multinational fonts in the bars of Edinburgh.

The Beer PHXation crew from Phoenix, Arizona show that cask, although a minority method of dispense in their neck of the woods, can be wildly popular when it’s done well. Which got me thinking if it’s a case of ‘cask it right and they will come’? And whether we have the parallel approach in the UK as discerning drinkers are now being drawn to bars that serve ‘quality’ keg?

Perhaps it’s the human touch of cask that makes a difference. It’s been manhandled and tapped before the intervention of a human hand on a barpull brings it to life. Brian Yaeger over at Red White and Brew certainly likes what a little real-life interaction can bring to the party as opposed to clinical, cold technology.

One method of dispense that blindsided me was the growler-fill; it’s almost unheard of in the UK. Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog discussed its merits at Duggan’s of Toronto, comparing it memorably to “a very long straw into the heart of the tank”. David Jensen at Beer47 also plumps for the growler but notes the legal limitations of their use in California; it seems crazy to me that a brewery can only fill their own growlers. I’m sure someone can point me in the direction of a rational explanation. Maybe.

What We're Drinking echoes some of my heart-felt sentiments in identifying the "location of consumption" as key. With the local bars having few kegs and cask being "strictly special event-grade material", bottles provide the opportunity for leisurely drinking. Indeed, something that many of you picked up on was that bottled beer gives drinkers the chance to try beers from all over the world in the comfort of your own home.

Alongside bottles, Kristy McCready in The Lighter Side Of Beer declares a predilection for kegged beer too. Although in characteristically robust fashion, she recalls her licensee days when you could have dispensed her a beer “through the gusset of a whore's drawers as long as it delivers a great pint”. I think we’ve all seen those photos, Kristy.

Bob Arnott posits that UK perceptions of dispense are moulded by current product quality, with canned and keg being all too-often "a mass produced undrinkable excuse for a beer". His experience of Italian kegs and US cans has convinced him that high quality beer can be delivered by those means - but it may take some time for UK consumers to associate low-grade dispense with high-flavour beer.

Melissa Cole is another convert to the can cause. At Taking The Beard Out Of Beer she argues that “the sooner more breweries follow in BrewDog's paw prints and band together to run a consumer campaign to get them to understand how much better the beer is when packaged this way the better everyone will be”.

But not everyone is enraptured by the allure of canned beer. Ugly packaging in a dispense designed to be guzzled doesn’t appeal to A Flagon Of Ale who believes firmly that beer needs to be drank from a glass.

And how it gets into the glass wasn’t critical to many of you. Beertaster.ca was more concerned about keeping the beer near the snowmobile's exhaust on the way home to stop it freezing. Impy Malting has tried high quality ‘Black IPA’ on both keg and cask and is content to not be fussed how a good beer makes in into the glass. Jay Zeis at A Beer In Hand is a firm believer that a beer needs to make it into the glass too, so it can open up to him.

That struck a chord. I enjoy drinking beer straight from a bottle or can and firmly believe they’d be no more aromatic or visually appealing in a glass. Perhaps that’s because they’re low-expectation beers. And perhaps that’s why much bottled/canned beer sold over at pubs in the UK has a reputation for not being the tastiest.

Tasty beer. That was the draw for many of you. How it comes to you means not a jot as long as the dispense doesn’t detract from a beer being tasty. It’s hard to disagree with that.

The beer monkey nails it; “Tasty beer is tasty beer”. Jay Brooks at Brookston Beer Bulletin debates the merits of all forms of dispense but knows ultimately it’s about the taste. Leigh at The Good Stuff has enjoyed great beers all ways round and says “The best dispense system for any beer is surely the one that suits it the most”. Alcofrolic Chap argues that the quality of beer is paramount and it's actually chip-dispense that really gets his goat (as someone who remembers fondly the days when chips were wrapped in newspaper, I'm with him on that). Mark Dredge at Pencil And Spoon professes a love for many great beers, particularly for the new wave of British keg, but is still a believer in “Good beer first, container second”. And Andy Mogg at Beer Reviews says that “the but of J-Lo sized proportions” is not the method of dispense but whether the beer is at its best”.

Some contributions really tickled me. Another Drinking Blog’s ongoing revelations of each dispense form being “the best thing I had ever tasted and I would never look back” mirrors my own arc of beer appreciation. Adrian Tierney-Jones at Called To The Bar had a straightforward message; “the right container for the right moment”.

The declaration by Beer Search Party that they fall in the “slut category”- if the beer is good, they’ll drink it regardless - had me rolling on the floor. And the observation that we may not be getting hung up about dispense at all ”if the same care was shown by the people in the supply chain from Brewer A to Beer Merchant Z” had me applauding.

Derrick Peterman at Ramblings of a Beer Runner talks of a ‘cultural disconnection’, that the American brewing scene seems more focused on methods, ingredients and an entrepreneurial spirit whilst the United Kingdom seem to concentrate more on the context of how the beer is consumed and enjoyed. The defensive Brit in me wanted to say that was all bollocks. But I think he’s on to something - I think the British brewers have the same focus on production and ingredients as the Americans do, but the British consumer (in the main) isn’t prepared to accept non-traditional dispense for their favourite beer.

Pete Brown makes a killer point - different dispense works better for different beers depending on recipe and ABV. As he says, that’s why US double IPA works well on keg and UK session bitter works well on cask. And, by crucial expension, I’d suggest that’s why pioneering brewers on both sides of the pond get it spectacularly wrong when they force a great product into the wrong dispense method for the sake of being experimental or cutting edge.

And that’s almost the end of this wrap-up. A huge thanks to everyone that took part, particularly to those who lost their Session virginity this time around. Don’t be a stranger to the debate from now on. It’s been a pleasure to host and, incredibly, it’s been huge fun to work my way through thirty-odd different blogs to collate your views.

The last words, literally, I will leave to Zak Avery at Are You Taking The Pith? It’s only February but I doubt that I’ll read a more cogent, entertaining and damn-well-written post this year.

“Sometimes the message and the medium are, of necessity, tied closely together. But here, moving into the second decade of the 21st century, when there has never been a better time to be interested in quality beer, surely we're not going to lose sight of the message, are we? “ >

"All men have secrets and here is mine"

I've drank beers you people wouldn't believe.

Cask Thornbridge Jaipur served on gravity to give it the kind of excited head that you could only dream about as a teenager.

Keg laaaaager from an unpronounceable and long-forgotten brewery that glittered in the glass and unlapsed your synapses down by the Brandenburg Gate.

Cans of Grolsch by the slab, powering you through three days of festivals (motor or music) because they were allowed on site, could be kept cool and gave you something to chuck at each other. And made your wee smell funny.

Bottles of Orval whipped off the bottling line and downed in one as the most insane elevenses tipples that you could imagine.

All those moments will be lost in time...

... unless I blog about them again.

Cask, keg, can, bottle?

Never mind the medium - here's the message:

Good beer is where you find it.

Time to drink... >

I'm delighted to be hosting February's round of The Session: Beer Blogging Friday.

The method of beer dispense often raises the hackles of even the most seasoned beer drinker. Some evangilise about living, breathing cask as being the one true way. Others heartily support the pressurised keg. The humble tinny has its fans. Lovers of bottled beer, either conditioned or pasturised, can be equally vociferous.

Perhaps you think that one method magnifies a beer's impact. Perhaps you won't try a beer if it's dispensed in a way you don't agree with. Perhaps you've tried one beer that's been dispensed every which way.

The question is simple but your answer may not be: Cask, Keg, Can, Bottle: Does dispense matter?

Post to your blog on Friday February 4th and add a comment below with a link to your piece so I can compile a round-up.

>

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. This month's, chosen by Beer 47, is 'Cooking With Beer'.

And I'll perfectly honest. I have some real issues with beer as an ingredient. Because I’ve had too many great-sounding dishes that wasted good beer and too many basic dishes that buggered up the very notion of using beer as an ingredient.

Let's be clear: I've had some great food, both at home and in bars/restaurants, that have used beer. My first trip to Brugge was a revelation; the food-beer matching at Den Dyver was faultless and my first taste of carbonnade made with Westmalle at Erasmus opened my palate to how beer could be a vital part of the recipe itself.

Home experiments have tended towards the dessert course, with Innis & Gunn pancakes proving a success and framboise-injected, chocolate-dipped strawberries a la Homebrew Chef being slightly hit-and-miss. Although my Belgian-ish beef stew cooked with an English-brewed, Belgian-style ale was rather superb, even though I do say so myself.

So, what's my problem? Two things.

#1 – Quality food using quality beer, badly.

Yes, you can put an aged gueuze into a sauce for slow-cooked duck. But if it ends up tasting of vinegar, what’s the point? Yes, you can pour barrel-aged imperial stout over a delicate vanilla ice cream. But if it ends up tasting of a melting ashtray, what’s the point? Yes, you can mix in (insert name of seasonal beer here) into the canapés at a beer / brewery launch but if we have to be told what the flavour is supposed to be, what’s the point?

Sometimes, it seems the point is to impress with big beer names. Regardless of the impact it actually has on the dish’s flavour.

#2 – Basic food using basic beer, badly.

In the UK, pub menus and supermarket shelves are often home to a steak and ale pie. It’s a simple concept; ale helps tenderise the steak and add flavour to the meat. If the beer is roasty, malty, caramel, then shouldn’t those flavours be in the pie? If you name the beer used, and you’ve drank that beer before, shouldn’t you be able to recognise the flavours in the pie?

It shouldn’t be bitter (when a heavyweight stout has been added and the flavour profile hasn’t been corrected by a dab of sugar). It shouldn’t be advertised as ‘boozy’; it’s about flavour, not alcohol. And I’ll reserve a special circle of culinary hell for the recipe that lists ‘beer, bottle of. Any will do’. There was one in The Times this week. Suggesting the use of Bud. FFS.

I’m hoping to find a middle ground this year where beer is put to use respectfully and brings added value to a recipe. Until then, I’ll stick to the best beer-in-food I know – cold frothy beer makes the perfect batter for fried fish. And as it’s all about carbonation and not flavour, there’s no need to get carried away with which beer you use. Now, where’s that bottle of Bud… >

This month's Session, the first-Friday-of-the-month beer blogging get-together, is hosted by Burgers and Brews on the topic of "an unexpected discovery". Which really got me thinking.

Many of my great beer experiences are meticulously planned. Twitter and Facebook alert me to the launch of rare beers. Pub crawls are researched on the web and driven by public transport timetables. Events, lunches, festivals are all attended with a clear idea of what awaits. So when I make an unexpected beery discovery it tends to be a real blindsider.

And this year, it was Chimay. Sounds odd? Well, it's not like I was discovering their beers for the first time, but 2010 has brought me a number of Chimay revelations. It's romantic to think of the beer being brewed by a couple of monks in a back room at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Scourmont, but the reality is somewhat different. I got to visit the abbey this year and was taken aback by the size of the enterprise, moreso by the tankers that take the beer down the road to a huge purpose-built bottling facility. Yet it's not really surprising - after all, the brewery produces almost three million gallons a beer a year.

And I knew nothing of Auberge de Poteaupré. The brewery's own hotel and restaurant, it was the perfect place to enjoy the beers, sat out in the sun with corks popping and plates of cheese to nibble on.

And I never knew aged Chimay Blue could be so complex. Sure, you hope for a particular depth of flavour in a vintage Trappist beer but this was something else - the kind of complexity that you'd associate with a great sherry.

And it was a pleasant surprise to go to bars and find Chimay was the house beer. Not surprising in the town, perhaps, but it's difficult to imagine an eight or nine percent beer being the first choice tipple here in the UK. At L'eau Blanche, the bar near my hotel in Lompret, tables by the river ordered trays of Chimay White. In town, the Armes de Chimay saw rows of outdoor diners enjoying Chimay Blue. To be sat outside at 9pm, eating the freshest salad I've had in twenty years, helping myself to more than my fair share of pike escabeche was amazing enough - to realise that thirty-plus people were all drinking Chimay Blue and havign a good time was a revelation. Opposite tables didn't remain strangers for long. No-one was drunk. Everyone was relaxed. The beer was important but it was only one component; time, place, culture, attitude all complemented one and other.

And as I sit down to write this tonight, I had one more unexpected discovery. Haviing just moved house, I found an old box that ended up being used as an impromptu table in the old conservatory. Inside the box - a bottle of Chimay White that's been sat in there for three years. I'm drinking it now, thinking of good times this summer and realising that sometimes the biggest names in the beer business can still proffer an unexpected discovery.

>