For the February 2011 installment of The Session, Simon Johnson, of the Reluctant Scooper, asks beer bloggers across the globe to a address a straightforward yet complex question: cask, can, keg, or bottle? Simon says, “The question is simple but your answer may not be: Cask, Keg, Can, Bottle: Does dispense matter?” My answer is that it depends on the situation, there are pros and cons for each method. I’d also like to observe that Simon forgot one vessel: the growler.
For the past 47 months beer bloggers have been coordinating on a single topic to blog about on the first Friday of the month. This phenomenon is called The Session, which was started by Jay Brooks of Brookston Beer Bulletin and Stan Hieronymus of Appellation Beer. The topic of 47th installment of The Session, hosted here at Beer 47, was Cooking with Beer. The following is a recap of what the participating bloggers had to say about the subject. This subject brought out 21 bloggers and it made me very hungry reading all of these great blog posts.
A few weeks ago, I announced that Beer 47 will be hosting The Sesssion #47 and the topic is Cooking with Beer. For my contribution to this topic I chose to find a few recipes, cook them, and report the results. I made three dishes: Norwegian lamb patties with spiced baltic porter gravy, Kölsch chevre spinach salad, and beer brats.
We all know beer is great for drinking but what about using it as an ingredient in cooking? Wine is used as an ingredient for numerous dishes and recipes yet beer seems to be under utilized in cooking. However, with the rise in popularity of craft beer and advocacy from the likes of The Homebrew Chef, I think this trend is slowly changing. For the month of January, Beer 47 will be hosting The Session #47 and encouraging beer bloggers from all over the internet to discuss Cooking with Beer.
Each month a different blog selects a topic and hosts a conversation of bloggers called The Sessions. The topic for The Session #46, hosted by Mike Lynch of Burgers and Brews, is to discuss An Unexpected Discovery, a beer experience that took you by surprise. I was originally not going to participate in this topic because I couldn’t think of a good story but lo and behold a few days ago I discovered Amsterdam Cafe in San Francisco less than 10 minutes, walking, from where I live.
Appropriately chosen for Halloween, October’s topic for The Session is Frankenstein beer. This topic for The Session #44 was chosen and is hosted by Ashley V. Routson (@TheBeerWench) on her blog Drink With the Wench. The guidelines for the topic of “Frankenstein beers” were given as follows:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a blog post on “Frankenstein Beers.” There are no rules about how to write about this topic — feel free to highlight a Frankenstien brewer, brewery, beer tasting notes … or just your opinions on the concept.
The Session #39 is being hosted by Mario Rubio at The Hop Press and the topic is Collaborations. The instructions for this Session were as follows:
Drink a collaborative beer. Who’s brewed some of your favorite collaborations? Who have been some of your favorite collaborators? Who would you like to see in a future collaboration? As the topic is collaborations, working with each other is encouraged.
Although I haven’t participated in the Session for a few months now, I couldn’t miss participating in this topic. Continue reading
For the September, BetterBeerBlog is hosting with the topic of Summer Beer for The Session #31. Peter asks the simple question, “what was your favorite beer of the summer?” On the surface, this is a simple question but for this topic the beer doesn’t even need to be a summer beer style, just your favorite beer of this or any other summer.
This year, I don’t have one favorite, I have 6 and I barely recall what all 6 were. I didn’t write them down, didn’t review them, and took maybe 1 picture one of them. In fact, I had to dig to get the names for this article. I just enjoyed them in the moment. These “favorite” 6 beers of the summer were the ones that were paired with a wonderful meal that my wife and I ate at Den Dijver in Bruges, Belgium less than 4 weeks ago.
Why these six beers? First and foremost, it was the memory of the situation: we were together in Brugge, a beautiful European Medieval town, the weather was perfect, we were eating lunch outside in a garden patio, the food was exquisite, the beer was delicious, and the pairings were perfect. The whole situation was very enjoyable and memorable.
The beer pairing, itself, was another reason why these were my favorite beers of the summer. Each course had exactly the right beer to go with the dish. One particularly memorable pairing was grilled sardines and a hoppy, bitter Belgian beer. Sardines have a very strong flavor but this hoppy beer held up and was a strong counterpart that complimented the fish. Another great pairing was an dry, tart oude geuze paired with a cheese for dessert.
Finally, the beers themselves were excellent on their own. We had the house beer, which I think was something by Halve Maan, the only brewery in the city limits of Brugge, Koriala from Brouwerij Lupiline, Steenbrugge Wit from Brouwerij Palm, Chimay Cinq Cents, Moinette Brune from Brasserie Dupont, and Oude Geuze from Brouwerij Cantillon.
In summary, my favorite summer beers of 2009 and possibly all time were more centered around the circumstances in which we enjoyed them than the quality of each beer on its own. That is now to say, however, that these 6 beers are not excellent on their own but had I enjoyed any one of these beers in a different circumstance during the summer, they would not have been my favorite beers of the summer.
Beer 47 in a Tumblr
