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The Session #111: Round Up (Part 2)

June 30, 2016 · by Oliver Gray

I apologize thoroughly to the writers I left hanging by delaying this second part of the Session round-up. Like I said on Twitter, I have lots of excuses, but none of them are very good, so I’ll just say I’m sorry.

Anyway!

Quick recap: Inundated by politics and petty internet squabbles, beer had me feeling lower than lager yeast. I asked the internet if it was just me, or a larger trend. A bunch of people in the first round-up seemed to think it was just me, but what say the other bloggers?

Tom Bedell, beer and golf enthusiast extraordinaire, writes about his own early beer-life crisis and run in with the dread pirate Ralph Lauren, which lead to him taking off his beer writing hat for some time. A bit like me, he thought the sickness ran a little deeper, affecting his wont to write at all. The good news though, is that he never stopped drinking…er…”researching” beer, as the passion that was temporarily sucked out of his pen, never seemed to get sucked out of his glass. Unlike us whiny millennials, Tom’s got the luxury of perspective to help keep him grounded:

“I have a long view, after all, and remember when things were at a nadir. I’m far from jaded about the existing profusion of choice, although also unlikely to be bedazzled by the next new thing.”

He closes with some musing about being a specialist or generalist, something I think a lot of niche writers struggle with. It’s good to see Tom finding his stride though (he’s writing a book!), as it gives me hope that I’ll find mine. The last line of his post might be the best line of all the entries (no offense to the other wonderful writers), as it speaks to why beer matters, or should matter, or shouldn’t be a chore:

“I find beer more enjoyable placed in a wider context, where it engages, or blends in, with more aspects of one’s endeavors, interests and enthusiasms. I suspect if I ever tire of beer in that sense, then I’ll be tired of life.”

Friend of the program, Doug Smiley, came out of beer blogging retirement to answer my cry for existential help. He describes his own tendency to go all-in on a topic, until he’s had his fill, at which point he quits cold-turkey. That’s not how my brain functions, but I know other people a lot like Doug, and I respect ones ability to know exactly what you want for how long you want it, because the flip side is holding onto worthless stuff and feeling bad that you can’t let go of it. Doug describes the come-down from his beer binge, explaining how he used to keep up with blogs and news site until he realized that a vast majority of it was repetitious and shallow. I can’t disagree with that (seriously, no more articles about cans please please please). I do, however, disagree with the idea that it’s not the writers, but the topic that’s limited:

“And it’s not necessarily a case of the people writing about this stuff being bad writers it’s just that the topic is limited. Salsa bloggers would have the same issue. Maybe we should all take our cue from the Salsa blogosphere and ask ourselves if we really need daily coverage of a food stuff?”

I think this is a matter of lazy or unadventurous writers coupled with publications that won’t take a risk on any article that won’t generate clicks, more so than beer being limited. There are outlets producing wonderful, well researched and written beer stories, but those get lost in the sea of listicles and fluff. Tom Bedell’s quote above resonates with how broad beer can be, with the right context and the right writer. Oh god I just said can. It’s happening to me too.

Regardless, I appreciate Doug’s honesty and candid approach. I think he’s right that we’ve gotten a little carried away with romancing the hops, and that some (most?) people don’t need sociological or scientific analysis to drink and enjoy their beer.

The next entry comes from Draft Magazine, which is awesome in and of itself. Zach Fowle answered my question with a resounding “no, it’s not the industry, it’s you,” suggesting what I was feeling was a “natural stage in the life cycle of a beer geek.” The rest of his piece cleverly outlines the stages, and what one might experience at each stage, which is a great idea and something I really wish I had written. The four stages, Birth, Adolescence, The Crisis (me), and Maturity, are pretty damn apt, and you should really just pop on over to Draft to read the whole thing yourself.

My favorite line, which speaks to this topic directly, comes from The Crisis phase:

“I think you have to approach beer differently. You have to rekindle the love of beer by reevaluating what excites you about it, and generally that’s not driving across state lines to try a few sips of draft-only, no-growler whalez.”

My Montana buddy Alan offers his own mini re-cap of the Session to kick off his exploration of beer burnout. He’s not having a crisis, he says, but admits that he needed a break from writing about beer. I like the idea, as I’ve always found breaks useful, too – a day or two off from running rejuvenates, a day or two off learning a new piece of music somehow helps the melody sink further into your brain. In typical Oliver style, I had over analyzed my sagging enthusiasm, and probably gave it more credence than it deserved, but Alan set me right:

“It’s not so much a midlife crisis as a useful pause. Somewhere in converting from “fan-boy” to knowledgeable, objective observer, there are many choices to be made about how to continue writing about beer.”

Alan goes on to explain that his understanding of beer has changed dramatically since he first started his journey in the 1990s. Which makes sense, because the whole industry has changed, too. His new perspective of the importance of simple quality over hype has brought him back around to writing about beer, and he hopes his readers will respect that his time off will lead to better writing. He’s also looking for help nailing the Belgian character in his homebrew, which leads me to…

…the Belgiany and phenolic Chris Barnes of I Think About Beer! He describes his own issues with the culture that drag his optimism through the mud, mainly cynicism and entitlement (of which, there is way too much to go around in the beer community). I think a lot of my own disillusionment came from interactions with the type of people who would rather condescend than converse, so it’s nice to hear that I’m not the only rampant optimist annoyed by those hop garblers. Chris goes on to describe the niche he found as he settled into consistent writing, and how that niche presented him with some wonderful opportunities, personally and vocationally. He echoes a lot of what other people have said in his closing advice:

“To me, it’s less about each individual beer but what that beer led me to: friends, community, and passion.”

Dave, of AnnArborBeer.com, opens his post with Sam Calagione’s “99 percent asshole-free” quote (which I should also note Alan used, and disagreed with too), but suggests it might need updating:

“Craft beer’s exponentially increasing popularity has brought a host of new people into the fold, and when one takes a look at the larger beer community these days, one has reason to suspect that Calagione’s estimate may need to be adjusted downward.”

His take, which he worries borders on curmudgeon status (I don’t think it does), is a refreshingly honest and candid tirade about how silly a lot of beer trends are. His break down laments the sameness of a lot of “fad beers” and a community who routinely puts rarity and novelty over quality and heritage. Dave and I share at least one of these beliefs: beer is made for drinking, not storing or coveting or using to boost one’s ego:

“All those pictures of your Founders KBS bottles or Alchemist Heady Topper cans you post to Facebook groups? No one cares. It’s beer, not a status symbol.”

Dave’s piece seems to be touching on another common thread: a lot of beer burnout comes from dealing with the worst kinds of people in the community. He worries it’s him (as I did), but maybe, just maybe, it’s actually them. If so, overcoming boils down to having a thicken online skin or rising above the less savory people that will inevitably join the industry as it gets more popular. Either way, Dave, I don’t think you’re an old grouch, and even if you are, I’m starting to think curmudgeon is a synonym for wisdom, not bitterness.

The last entry in this Session comes from Derrick Peterman, of Ramblings of a Beer Runner. He opens with an admission that he’s been through an actual real life crisis, one he couldn’t even resolve with an expensive sports car. He segues into a discussion of the natural waxing and waning of enthusiasm for things you love, in his case, running. I run too, and can very much relate with the off and on love affair of destroying one’s knees while improving one’s heart. Derrick’s description of running (and how even with enhancements in shoes and tech, remains pure and simple) draws a whimsical parallel for my love of the basics of beer:

“the sport still retains it’s simplicity of putting one foot in front of the other and repeating this over and over again to propel yourself as fast as you can over some distance.”

Ultimately, despite any crises or slight down turns in energy, he finds talking to brewers and developing an understanding of the complicated reality of beer as a business drives him and keeps him motivated. I can get behind that idea.

So I understand why lots of people, possibly including our host Oliver, might find themselves less committed to beer than they used too. And that’s OK. But as for me, just like running, my relationship with beer is constantly changing, but has never been stronger.

I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this iteration of the Session, and apologize again for taking so long to finish my recap. I plan to participate in Boak and Bailey’s 113th Session tomorrow, as the topic is equal parts investigatory and voyeuristic. You should join in too!

The Session #111: Round Up (Part 1)

May 18, 2016 · by Oliver Gray

(Preamble: if the Session continues to stick around for a while, I think the submission period should be a week [first Friday of the month to second Friday of the month]. I got a lot of great entries well after the Friday deadline. 2 cents.)

I suppose I should have been a little clearer in my description of the Session topic. I wasn’t (as Stan Hieronymus hinted at) experiencing an actual mid-life crisis with existential meltdowns and brightly colored Corvettes. I’m only 30, and my life is pretty damn good. It was more a mid-hobby crisis. Fortunately, it seemed a topic lots of people wanted to discuss, and lead to some very thought provoking posts.

The good news: aside from a few outliers, pretty much everyone responded with, “It’s not beer, it’s you, Oliver. Get over it or get out of it.” It’s reassuring to hear, as it means the industry isn’t collapsing under its own weight, as I had oh so hyperbolically thought. It’s also reassuring on a personal level, as it means my own beer writing salvation is but some time and introspection away.

But I digress. Back to the matter at hand. We had sixteen (16!) entries this month. I did my best to corral all the entries from the different media streams, but my apologies if I missed you. Shoot me an email or tweet if I did, and I’ll amend the recap.

I’m also splitting this into two posts, as each roundup ran nearly ~1500 words and I don’t want to kill people with walls of text. Here we go!

Boak and Bailey, our blogger friends from across the pond, responded first, describing their version of lagging beer interest as a “Wobble” (with some excellent use of Willy Wonka lyrics to open). Despite being jaded, they weathered the wobble, and found their enthusiasm for the drink and industry revitalized. To those feeling wubbly or wibbly or wobbly, they suggest one of two courses of action: 1) “Leave the learning and exploring phase and enter steady state” (read: enjoy your beer and the fact that you know too much about it peacefully) or 2) “Embrace the mania fully” (and be “that” beer guy). I won’t deny the appeal of the first, but the second seems far more fulfilling, if a tad more annoying to your friends and family.

In what I believe is a Session first, Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting chimed in. Mr. Kiser flattered me enormously (yay!) but then directly disagreed with my assessment of the state of the beer union (boo! just kidding). He goes on to describe himself as ripe for an aforementioned actual mid-life crisis, but feels beer has been his agua de vida in ways, and his connections to the people that define the future of the industry are what keep him excited. An anecdote from the Craft Brewers Conference showed a natural juxtaposition between those who view new breweries as competition, and those who seem them as opportunity. As writers, we are the latter, and if Michael taught me anything here, it’s that I should ignore the political industry noise and embrace the new people and perspectives: “when they look across the tap lineup at their neighborhood bar, they don’t see AB or MillerCoors. They see you.”

On that note, Tom Cizauskas of “Yours for Good Fermentables” wrote a post titled simply: “Enjoy the beer, forget the hype.” Tom got this idea rolling early, with a comment on Alan McLeod’s reaction to my initial Session announcement:

“There’s beer as a business; beer as tax revenue; beer as science and technology; beer as one (small) study point in history; beer as an alcohol delivery system; beer as a diverting avocation. Each except the last is specific to a limited concern. A loss of interest in the last calls for a new hobby. There’s little semiotic about it.”

I want to thank Tom, as this is something I really needed to hear. I have a tendency to over-analyze and over-internalize, seeking meaning and the resulting epiphanies constantly, even where there might not be any. Especially related to those things I’m most passionate about. In his post, Tom encourages us to assuage our ennui by letting go – of “craft” and solipsistic declarations of identity – and instead “meditate on the joyful pleasure implied by the simple phrase: “Let’s go grab a beer.”” This is good advice that I plan to follow.

In his expected form, Alan McLeod gave us a post with a touch of history and some great insight, including this, which hit home for me:

“Good beer writing should be directly dependent on an interest in beer and brewing. But there seems, if social media reporting on tavern and bar attendance at #CBC16 is anything to go by, to be the idea that a commitment to daily strong drink is a requirement as well. Why is that?”

I find myself drinking much less these days, and if my thinking is aligned with that implied in Alan’s quote, perhaps that explains my disconnected feeling. But he makes a good point. You don’t need to be a lush to write about beer. In fact, clearer heads probably lead to better writing. He goes on to suggest that beer writing has been pigeon-holed and “framed too narrowly.” I can’t disagree. His closing is wonderful advice for any beer writer, from newbie to veteran:

“Once you realize that you do not need to join the herd, you may see there is so much more to explore. Once you realize so much of what’s touted in the glass is overpriced yawn water you can detach yourself from the need to impress – or be impressed – and explore this massively rich but still largely untouched seam of human experience, the lode of beer and brewing.”

+100 internet points to Bryan Roth for being the only other blogger than me to use Lionel Richie lyrics in his Session post title. Given some time to digest the other entries first, Bryan noted how he’s actually feeling great about his place in the beer world, finally realizing that his remote pipe-dream of being a functioning member of the industry is now, some years later, a very near reality. He echoes Michael Kiser’s comments about 2000 new breweries meaning 2000 new opportunities to meet new people and see new places, and more and more space to grow and write about they myriad aspects of beer. Bryan is a perfect example of Boak and Bailey’s advice to embrace the mania. I dig it.

The Beer Nut (the special Irish variant, not to be confused with the 250,000 American imitations) opened his post with an acknowledgement that he has witnessed a steady thinning or his beer blog RSS feed. He then goes on to explain that he doesn’t feel his energy or enthusiasm waning, part in thanks to keeping “governing rules:” his regular posting schedule keeps him too busy to get introspective and worry about silly things like a beer mid-life crisis. As someone whose blogging schedule is little more than what comes to him in the shower that morning, I can’t help but envy his discipline. He even adheres to his own rules in the Session entry, giving us brief introductions to five Irish beauties. This particular line stuck with me, as I had blamed this concept in part for my flagging interests:

“the industry itself (at least in the US where Oliver is) seems to be suffering a bit of an upheaval. It’s hard to know where you stand as a fanboy blogger when your favourite brewery is liable to be snatched away from you by a grasping multinational”

Gary of “Beer et seq” noted that to him, keeping interest in beer is all about taste. Literally. Gustatorily. He posits that flavors define the mystery:

“It never really ends, there is always more to learn. The beer palate is the core of it for me.”

I agree with Gary. All manner of information and ideas can be derived from how any why a beer got to its final, taste-laden form. Going back to ones roots to focus on what matters (to you, specifically) is usually a healthy recommendation. I would more likely return to homebrewing and recipe building, but really, all things considered, that would just be the other side to the same coin: refining your love and continuing your search for those elusive, ideal tastes.

Barry Masterson (friend of the Beer Nut, and also an Irish expat living in Germany) says in his post a lot of what I’ve been feeling. Like me, he had many conflicting obligations (pesky “jobs” and “responsibilities”) going on in his life that kept him from going all-in on beer, until, as he puts it, “With my lack of time and money, to a degree it felt like watching from the outside.” It’s as if Barry took those words out of my brain and put them into his own. There’s nothing quite like being completely immersed in something then taking a step back for unrelated reasons, to make you feel like an impostor and outsider where you once felt part of the inner clique (weird and shallow, I know, but honest I hope). Also like me, Barry never actually lost the love his love for new beers or brewing in all of this, despite his cynicism. Barry closes with some good news: if I’m really anything like him, I’ll rebound soon enough, if not quite in the same capacity as I did before.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

The Session #111: Are you there Beer? It’s me, Oliver

May 6, 2016 · by Oliver Gray

At 3:00 PM on a Thursday, I found myself almost alone in the local hombrew shop.

Maryland Homebrew is a popular store. I’m used to sharing the mills with several other people, chatting about recipes while waiting my turn to crack. The yeast fridge is often crowded by homebrewing newcomers searching for a specific strain, while veterans reach past them for tried and true favorites. On any given Saturday, the warehouse space in the back hosts a smattering of curious DIY brewers, all of them sitting, laughing, sipping, while they watch a pot boil.

But this time, short of the staff quietly going about their work, it was just me. Just me and all that potential beer.

I took some time. And I mean took it. Gathered it up in my hands and consumed it. Spent each minute purposefully, deliberately, methodically.

It had been too long since I’d taken some time to be with my hobby. The stresses and obligations of life had turned it into perfunction, another box to check so my brain wouldn’t keep me awake all night with constant reminders of unchecked boxes. I had, in a way, distorted my fun into a form of work, disfigured my avocation with nasty scars of predictable routine.

I let the Maris Otter tumble through my fingers into the whirring maws of the mill. The exposed starch piled up in pillowy white hills. As I waited, I popped a few kernels into my mouth.

The next day, I brewed. Ten gallons, split into two batches of five. The batches are wedding bound; a simple Amber and Brown requested by the bride and groom, respectively. I normally brew alone, but my mom, staying with me before her trip to England, played an eager Igor. She’d had my beer before, but never actually participated in the brewing.

She asked questions I’ve long filed away as “known;” reminding me clearly of how much beer- and brewing-related information I’ve squirreled away in this caffeine addled brain. But her naivety was refreshing, if not down right rejuvenating. There stood a 59 year old woman who has seen and traveled and tasted the world, asking me, in earnest with sparkling curiosity, about the very basics of brewing beer.

And with that, on my front porch, drinking a Yuengling, stirring in an eye-balled half ounce of centennial hops, my heart broke. I saw in my mom myself, the me of 10 years ago, when all this brewing stuff was shiny and new. A version of me all but gone, replaced by some jaded asshole who thinks too highly of himself.

I had forgotten why. Why any of this mattered to me. What a hand-me-down kettle, some malt extract, and a dirty party tap on an old Coca-Cola corny meant to me when I first got it into my brain that I was qualified or skilled enough to make something as delicate as beer.

Forgotten all those hilarious stories of growing up with a dad who made his own beer-of-questionable-quality. Lost, in the wheel-spinning bullshit of Tweets and petty internet squabbles, the fact that I fundamentally love creating beer.

I’d let the demons of politics and pride in, stood by idly as they painted the walls, rearranged the furniture, and created a space I was no longer comfortable in.

And then I had the audacity to blame anything but myself.

It’s a weird thing to rediscover a wayward portion of yourself. Like firing up an old video game and finding a save file that you made, years ago, but having only vague recollections of what you did in the game to get to that point.

I just fired up that old save. I’m a little lost as to where I am exactly, but I do remember how to play this game.

Let’s just hope I can actually beat it, this time.

Announcement – The Session #111: Surviving a Beer Midlife Crisis

April 11, 2016 · by Oliver Gray

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. Sean Inman, of Beer Search Party, hosted the 110th session which involved lots of beer and lots of Twitter. You should check it out!

It’s been over two years since I hosted the Session, and I’ve been admittedly spotty in my participation when other people host. But I’m back!

This time with something a little less…odd…than last time.

Full disclosure: I don’t work in the beer industry. OK, yes, sometimes I get paid to write about beer, but that money does not my livelihood make. Despite pouring myself into brewing and beer culture for the last 6 years, I remain little more than an overly involved consumer.

I think that’s true about a lot of bloggers and beer writers. Some may work directly for breweries or distributors or behind the till in a beer store, but a lot of us toil in vocational worlds apart, spending our free time and free dollars on what can only (by definition) be called a “hobby.”

Recently, I’ve found my interest in said hobby waning. The brilliant luster of new beers and new breweries looks now, a few pounds heavier and a bunch of dollars lighter, more like dull aluminum oxide.

The thing I have embraced so fully and spent so much time getting to know and love, suddenly seems generally, unequivocally: meh. It’s like I’ve been living a lie, and everything I’ve done is for not. I’m having a beer mid-life crisis, yo.

Maybe it’s the politics of purchasing or selling. Maybe the subculture has peaked. Maybe this is the natural progression of a hobby that has no real tie to the industry behind it.

Maybe I’m way off the mark, and this whole thing is just a figment of my imagination.

But I’m willing to bet it’s not. All that talk of beer bubbles might prove true, but instead of a dramatic *pop* we’ll might see a slow deflation followed by a farting noise as some of the air leaks out and the hobbyist move on the spend their time and dollars elsewhere. It’s impossible to see the future, but if my fall from rabid beer fanboy to dude-who-drinks-beer-and-sort-of-wants-to-be-left-alone is indicative of a trend, I’ve got some signs to make a doomsaying to do.

What say you?

Do you find it hard to muster the same zeal for beer as you did a few years ago? Are you suffering through a beer-life crisis like I am? If so, how do you deal with it?

If not, put me in my place!

Post your responses in the comments of this post on Friday, May 6th, or tweet them to @OliverJGray. I’ll do a round up on the 16th so if you’re a little less than punctual, no worries.

I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s perspective. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments, on Twitter, or at literatureandlibation at-sign google mail dot com.

The Session #104 – Blog to Write

October 2, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

(For the 104th Session, Alan McLeod asks us to justify why we should keep writing about beer.)

I’ve missed The Session. Both figuratively and literally.

Directly after discovering Jay and Stan’s blogging braintrust, I didn’t miss a single iteration of the Session. I’d been diligent in following the topics, planning something ahead of time, and being ready for each month like an over-prepared college freshman. I even hosted once, much to the dismay of other bloggers, I’m sure. I miss writing Session entries because they’re fun and thought provoking and, well, easy, in the grand scheme of writing.

But I’ve also missed the deadline to post eight times in a row now (the last Session I did was #95). I know such a long hiatus might make it seem like I don’t have faith in the cause or support the idea, but realistically, it’s more about the timing of significant life events over the past year, and their direct overlap with the first Friday of each month. There are several never-to-be-finished drafts in this here WordPress database, half-hollow husks meant to be Session posts that have been left dangling from the dressform, a mess of patchwork fabric and loose threads.

I don’t want to see the Session die. I understand that I’m part of the problem by not actively participating, but I still think the idea to bring different perspectives together on a single topic has a lot of worth in a community that’s full of young writers still trying to find their voices. It’s also a great prompt for newer bloggers to jump in on without feeling sheepish: a place where everyone is welcome to say whatever they want about beer with (for the most part) little chance of repercussion.

That exists nowhere else that I know of. Other attempts to bring the community together like the Thursday night #beerchat on Twitter don’t really count, for me, as Twitter is too ephemeral and curt to really hash out any meaningful ideas.

I’ve written about why I blog before. That hasn’t changed. I keep writing here because it’s my space. No editors, no deadlines, no rules or stipulations. I’m a writer who writes way more than makes sense to consistently pitch to other publications, and in a style that most publications don’t want, anyway. Here, I’m free to do whatever, sculpt any sentences I can see in the formless clay, play with grammar and be obtuse, because no one is paying me, and the expectations are basically non-existent. For a prolific writer, a blog is creative freedom manifest. A linguistic jungle-gym. An all-you-can-eat buffet of syntactic gluttony.

A blog – if taken seriously and properly maintained – is an incredible catalyst to education. When I started in 2009, I knew comparatively…let’s see…nothing about beer. I thought I knew about brewing and styles and history, but as I began reading and studying more to write posts, I realized how startlingly little I knew. It’s given me an avenue to learn a tremendous amount about the ingredients, the processes, the people, the industry. You’re free to explore and research any topic you want, fumble through your own opinions about complex topics, engage in (and hopefully kick off) conversations that help us grow as drinkers, consumers, citizens, people. If your blogging means more to you than just banging out 150 word nonsense posts during lunch or reposting old articles/generic news pieces written by other people, you’re going to learn, whether you intend to or not.

That’s a good thing, and a reason to blog, if anyone ever needed one.

But outside of personal, artistic justification, niche blogs (and other writing) about niche topics remain important even if the format waffles, because they make up the voice of the consumer-side of the community. In every sub-culture some will rise to the top to speak and inform and possibly evangelize for the people within. Bloggers are those speakers. People who try to evolve into something beyond being that guy at the bar who erroneously explains the difference between ale and lager to his cavalcade of half-toasted co-workers. They take a chance to thrust a shovel below the surface only scratched by others, and put in the work to bring the fertile material below up to the surface for others to see.

That’s the goal. I think. At least. It’s not always perfect, and lots of blogs and bloggers – even those of stout convictions and pounding passions – never do manage more than rote regurgitation. It’s easy to fall into a trap of writing what is easy, repeating what you hear daily, and going with the flow so entirely that you’re lost in the current.

But hey, even the worst are trying. Attempting something bigger and with more reach than rambling to their close friends or boring strangers at parties. They’re adding to a narrative that will one day be looked back upon as historical; not perhaps world-changing historical, but certainly historical as related to the legacy of alcohol in post-industrial Homo sapein culture. And as much as you might want to scoff at the idea of “beer as a piece of history,” we’re already pulling from a mutli-millennium backlog of brewing and beer lore that was deemed important enough to be chronicled as part of human history by our ancestors. Looked at in that light, we’re just scholars recording history as it happens, using the internet as our immortal cuneiform.

And that’s just it, I think. Beer bloggers just so happen to write about beer, but it’s the actual writing that should take precedence. You can tell when a blogger isn’t really a writer, trust me on that one. Passion about a topic does not automatically equate to good or interesting writing, and readers can tell when you’re writing because you think you should not because you want to.

We run these blogs to have our voices heard, opinions aired. I’d submit that most people who write about beer (myself included) only do so because we’ve seen some fundamental truth about human nature either in the science of the kettle, or the behavior behind the bartop. I think all writers write to discover some meaning; beer bloggers (and writers) just use a medium that’s a tad more esoteric than usual.

If the current incarnation of the Session has crossed the finish line of its final marathon, that’s sort of sad, but so be it. I’d implore those who wants to write to keep writing even without it. In addition to being the main curriculum of your own not-for-profit mini-university, writing is therapeutic and cathartic, and a hell of a better way to spend your time than many other things that pass as “entertainment” these days.

But write with responsibility. Do your best to carefully sift out the nuggets of golden narrative that come washing down the sluice, and do your best to avoid showing off the rocks you found that you think are gold. If you’re going to be a voice of your sub-culture, be a good one. Add to the narrative with humor or wit or education; don’t let misinformation, rumor-mongering, and petty drama take over. We have enough of that elsewhere in the world.

Blog to write. Write to learn. Learn to write. Write to write. About beer or otherwise.

The Session #95: Beer Books? Beer Books.

January 2, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

I have a book idea. An idea that, quite unincredulously, is for a book that is about beer.

In fact, I have much more than an idea: a full proposal, a complete outline, several (somewhat) fleshed-out sample chapters, pages upon pages of notes and research and scenes.

I have a proto-beer book. All the elements of primordial literary soup that just need a bolt of publishing lightning to create new bookish life.

Unfortunately, I am not going to talk about that particular idea (but if you are an agent or publisher type who would like to know more, I am always available here). While I realize it’s very difficult for someone to steal and then properly execute a complicated project, I also think it’s intellectual folly to tell too many people about something that is not yet, and a waste of creative energy to let the buzzing singularity of the idea dissipate across the infinite reaches of the internet.

So no, I won’t be talking about my book idea. But that doesn’t stop me from talking about other book ideas, and trends I’d like to see emerge on the more formal side of beer writing.

Of all the books I read in 2014, only six of them were specifically about beer: Capital Beer (Greg Kitsock), Maine Beer (Josh Christie), Baltimore Beer (Rob Kasper), Yeast (Chris White with Jamil Zainasheff), Malt (John Mallet), and The Craft Beer Revolution (Steve Hindy). I know some other, fantastic beer books came out this year (I still haven’t read Boak and Bailey’s Brew Britannia yet, and feel great shame), but many haven’t made it into bed-time reading rotation yet due to me only having two eyeballs and a finite number of conscious hours.

Two technical books and four history books. I enjoyed them all, if I’m being honest. But mainly because each one taught me a lot, not necessarily because they were fun to read. We seem to be in the middle of a trend about trying to teach everyone about beer: guide the rookie through styles and brewing techniques; introduce the journeyman to newer, more complicated topics; inundate the veteran with rehashings of not-so-long-lost histories. It’s a trend I applaud, given that the understanding of beer – even among some of those who calls themselves “beer people” – is still generally poor. If contemporary beer books finally break that guy of claiming he hates hops while he exclusively drinks IPAs, or make a new drinker feel more confident in ordering a beer she knows she’ll like, I’d call that a victory.

The peddling of beerish lore to the receptive student will always be a great thing for the industry, and I’m clearly guilty of trying to spread lupulin-laced education. But writing (blogs and magazines and books), need not always be lectures given by the learned to the not about fundamental facts, doesn’t always have to be grounded in the dry and practical, and most certainly doesn’t always have to be so tangibly tethered to the drink itself.

So, in 2015, I’d like to see some books that are about beer, but also distance themselves from the particulars of beer at the same time:

Beer and Psychology: While the psychology of alcohol dependence seems obvious, I’m especially curious about the psychology of taste: how does the psychology of our processing of flavor support the trends toward more complex and bigger beers? Is there any connection between economically depressed Americans being disillusioned with the world and the trends to seek out the biggest, boldest flavors they can find? Is there an inverse relationship with this connection and the decline of subtle lagers? Is an evolving palate a psychological phenomenon or a physical one (or both)?
Medicine and Beer: A spin off of the first idea, but with a focus on the positive and negative aspects of beer consumption. Are we doing to see more illnesses from a generation who drinks more and more? How are high calorie, high ABV beers contributing to America’s struggle with obesity? Will we ever consider beer a “whole food” and find some health benefits in moderate consumption, ala red wine?
Green Brewing: Are our barley and hop farming processes sustainable? Is brewing helping or harming the planet, as it stands? There is no GMO barley now, but as demand grows, might that change? What does the future agricultural landscape of brewing look like? Are modern breweries concerned about (and making plans to address) waste water and spent grain practices and other sustainability related issues?
Homebrewing Revival: Has the surge in beer’s popularity given homebrew shops a new lease on life? What about the National Homebrewer’s Association and its sundry branches? There have to be some stories behind how those groups benefited from the economic boom of beer, most of which are untold at this point, I think. Will the increase in homebrewing ever compete with or put a dent in the economics of beer? Has homebrewing created a group of consumers who know more about the nuances of a product than ever before?
Big Beer Fear: This may be difficult to pull off, but I’d love a probing look into Big Beer in 2015, potentially a real look into what they think about “craft” and how they plan to react. I think the time for casually dismissing smaller, local breweries is over, and there’s probably some fascinating corporate group-think going on in boardrooms that would potentially make for an excellent book.
Beer Fiction: I know I may be in the minority of wanting this, but I get giddy every time I see a fictional character drinking beer, like Switters from Tom Robbin’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. I think there is a lot of room for fiction grounded in beer, or for protagonists who happen to adopt the modern beer drinker’s attitudes and behaviors (for better or worst). Or even a historical novel about brewing during colonialism, or during pre-industrialization, or hell something wacky, like during the black plague.

In 2015, I would not like to see:

Any new “guides to beer” that don’t add anything to the already massive pile of beer information available, well, pretty much everywhere.

The Session #94: The Way I Role

December 5, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(DING is back as our host for The Session #94, this time asking us to consider our individual roles in the beer community/industry)

As I downloaded the pictures we’d taken in Gettysburg after my wife’s birthday-turned-photoshoot, I had to briefly pass through hundreds of shots of bottles and cans of beer in front of our guests. I’d hooked my laptop up to the TV, and my previously imported beertography spilled out all over Lightroom, too fluid and legion to clean up or hide quickly. My wife’s friend noticed, and laughed. “Did you really need to take so many pictures of beer?” The rest of the room laughed with her.

I felt a flush of embarrassment. There are a lot of photos of beer on my computer. Nearly 200 GB, if I’m being honest. Lots and lots of photos that are nearly identical, short of a slight change in depth of field, or a minor adjustment in framing. The nested folders of images translate to many hours behind the viewfinder, and exist as proof of my obsession that few people ever see.

Did I really need to take so many pictures of beer? Yes, I did.

To me, every photo contains a story, or at least the potential for one. The old adage parrots “a thousand words” but to me there’s more than just the details in the arrangement of the pixels. I spend so much time and take so many pictures trying to capture that one fleeting second, the one perfect microcosm of me, in our culture, at that exact moment, all so I can tell a story.

Not so I can promote a brewery. Not so I can earn money. Not so I can show off.

Only to tell a story.

It’s the same reason my mind builds narratives when I’m scanning beer labels, or wandering around a brewhouse, or ordering another round for friends. Beside all those proto-photos rest skeletons of stories, bones and structure with no meat, frameworks waiting for an infusion of reality to reanimate them.

I’m a writer who lives in a beerish world, and as a result, I’m always trying to mine the veins of our culture for some literary truth. I feel obligated to tell the stories that make up my world, that make up our world, so writing about beer becomes a literal manifestation of “writing what I know.”

Contemporary beer writing has been plagued by a decided lack of storytelling. It’s not completely systemic, but I do see a lot of writing that, while functionally fine, reads like technical documentation or corporate copy. The latent sex-appeal of beer has been supplanted by a strange utilitarian slant, where brewing details, tasting notes, and arguments over semantics have wrestled importance away from engaging a reader and potentially teaching them something.

We’ve gone full-throttle on the science and the details, but forgotten that industry need not be mechanical and cold, and that a lot people have difficulty connecting with data and flat exposition. We’ve forgotten that humans are hardwired to follow narratives, connect to characters, to start at the beginning and stop at the end.

In short: we’ve built the rituals and canon of beer without developing any of the mythology. Joseph Campbell would be pissed.

I try to populate the empty pantheon. I try to weave all the loose threads into cohesive forms, move past the liquid in the glass to stories that people want to read. I’m not always successful, I know, but that’s my “role” if I had to pick one.

Writers have more competition for attention than ever in the history of writing, so I feel it important, if not downright necessary, to write something that’s free from errors, creatively composed, fundamentally worth reading. Either because it has a point that makes one challenge presupposition, or because it’s legitimately fun to read or intrinsically beautiful.

That’s it. No other secret plans or ulterior motives or special considerations. I’ve always enjoyed reading stories (I might even argue that I participate in them), so it only makes sense that I’d enjoy writing them, too. To me, human history is one big book, and American beer is a chapter that’s still being written. Let’s make sure it’s a good chapter, a chapter worthy of all this cultural passion, one story at a time.

Birthday-turned-photoshoot results. Worth way more than a 1000 words, I think.

The Session #92 – I Made This

October 3, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(This bout of beery banter comes to us from Jeremy Short of Pintwell. The topic: how homebrewing changes your relationship with beer.)

To be unfairly simplistic, the world can be separated into two kinds of people: consumers and makers. They form a complicated codependency, always needing each other to exist but in different ways, two dancers caught up in so dramatic and intense a tango that they often forget who is leading who. The same way an oak drinks the rain to make an acorn that becomes a squirrel’s winter dinner, there’s a natural beauty in the cycle of creation and consumption, and at some point in life a person will play both roles, possibly at the same time.

In a topical coincidence, blogging and homebrewing fall under the same umbrella of creation. They’re the hobbyist’s logical steps towards the professional; the sentence and syntax practice on the path to publication, the mashing and boiling on the boulevard to the brewhouse. To be done well, both require relatively large time (and sometimes financial) investments, with little to no return outside of personal satisfaction and some loose concept that all this practice might be beneficial at some ill-defined point in the future. They are, as far as hobbies go, poorly calculated risks that would make any actuary worth his spreadsheets cringe and run in mathematical terror.

But they do have one advantage that makes up for the sacrificed time and energy: creative freedom. A blogger is left to his own editorial devices, free to write anything he wants with only his experience and sensibilities to guide the quality. A homebrewer is free to brew whatever she doesn’t see on tap, let her recipes run wild down the weird and winding paths of unusual adjuncts, hybrid styles, and potentially disastrous ingredient additions. Concerns about commercial viability matter little to the spinner of homegrown tales and bottler of homegrown ales; they’re making for the sake of making, which some might argue, is the purest pursuit there is.

All of this is to say that bloggers and homebrewers are simultaneously consumers and makers, existing in a limbo between the two distinctions, giving them unique perspective on their craft. A blogger with bookish dreams will balance writing with prodigious reading, analyzing structures and themes, just as a homebrewer might sniff and swirl a beer at the bar in a search for potential defects. While mastering the making side, a person has to learn what defines “good” in their field, and imitate, emulate, sometimes downright copy, all to find their own style, which has its roots buried deep in knowing the product and process well. To make, one must first consume. To truly appreciate what you’re consuming, it’s important to know how it’s made.

By transitioning from full-fledged consumer to fledgling maker, you get to see, maybe only briefly, that border where the two worlds meet.

There’s a drawback though. By committing yourself to learning the delicate intricacies of how a product is made, you’re fundamentally altering how you view that topic. After learning to revise grammatically and syntactically, I struggle to read books without trying to analyze the sentences, wondering how and why the author wrote them that way. When I drink a beer, I’m often spending more time considering its constituent malty and hoppy parts as the brewer in me takes over, not just letting it slide down my gullet with simple satisfaction. Once you learn you cannot unlearn, which may (if your mind works anything like mine) somewhat ruin the enjoyment of the product you had when you were only a consumer.

But what you lose in enjoyment, you make up for in the satisfaction of creating something that other people enjoy. It’s a fair trade, I think. The life of a maker is not for everyone, and that’s a good thing, because the aforementioned codependency would fall apart if the maker had no one to make for. Blogging and homebrewing have changed how I approach two of my favorite things in this life, to the point where “I read this” and “I drank this” are less important to me than the simple and inclusive “I made this.”

“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Session #91 – Forgotten Friday: My First Belgian

September 5, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(I missed the last few Sessions due to travel and exhaustion and illness, but I’m back! This month’s topic is “My First Belgian” hosted by Breandán and Elisa over at Belgian Smaak.)

Occasionally, the many moving parts of my writing life line up in a perfect row, like some rare celestial event where arcane energies mingle and a portal to other worlds opens very briefly. As the Session falls on a day I had other writing plans, I can feel the gears of my mind click and sync, suddenly whirring together as one as the clutch reengages. I typically write “Forgotten Friday” posts about places and items that have been lost in plain sight, but today, I’m using the literal definition of my favorite nostalgic infinitive: “to forget.”

This month’s topic asks me to recall the first Belgian beer I ever managed to sneak down my gullet. The problem is, no matter how far I stretch my brain, how many stories I pull from the depths of my hippocampus, how many bottles and labels I recall on the selves of the dozens of fridges of my life, I cannot remember my first Belgian beer. I can remember the first beer; it was a Boddingtons Pub Ale, at the dinner table with my parents, around 7th grade. Although, photo evidence says I probably drank a bit earlier than that (thanks, Dad), that’s my first fermented memory, the first time I remember drinking beer.

I also remember thinking it tasted like bitter instant oatmeal that someone had added way too much water to, followed by a quick internal question, “why would anyone want to drink this stuff?”

Don’t judge, it was the 80s in England. Just look at that red table and white leather couch.

If I had to guess, my first was probably one of the big boy Belgian beers: Duvel, Hoegaarden, maybe even a stray bottle of Delirium Tremens left to age in the back of our family fridge after a party. It’s possible, in all its wasted decadence, that my first Belgian was Trappist; my mom would often keep a bottle of Chimay Red on hand during the holiday season, for reasons I don’t quite understand, because neither she nor my dad drank it. But I cant’ say for sure. It’s a black void in my mental vault, one of those things I never built a place for in my memory palace, that will probably be forever lost in the deep dark ocean of my memories.

I’ll confess; I probably don’t remember because I’ve never taken to Belgian beer. I’ve homebrewed it, tried countless styles and brands, forced my tongue into a steel-cage death match with funky fermentation, hoping to one day emerge bloody but victorious, the Champion of Brussels. While I’ve gotten in a few good punches, I’m still likely to brace myself before taking a sip of saison, clench my jaw when quaffing a quad. I appreciate the artistry and heritage of many Belgian breweries, but something in the bready unmistakable yeast character of Belgian beer is antithetical to what my taste buds want.

While that may seem tragic (and trust me, for years I was convinced there was a fundamental flaw in my mouth), it has allowed me to finally accept a reality a lot of modern beer enthusiasts forget, try to dance around to avoid appearing unlearned or inexperienced: it’s OK to not like a certain style of beer. It’s OK to not like super hoppy, high ABV imperial IPAs. It’s OK if you find the salty sour of a gose a bit too much for your particular preferences. It’s OK to say, “I have tried this, and it is not for me.”

The only thing you’re obligated to do is appreciate that someone else, somewhere, probably does like that style. Maybe likes it so much they’re known to throw “favorite” in front of it whenever it comes up in conversation. You don’t have to like a beer, but always keep in mind: your not liking it doesn’t make it bad. Subjective bad and objective bad are wildly different beasts. If you’re into beer enough to have opinions (and don’t just enjoy it as a drink), it’s on you to be able to acknowledge when a beer is well made but not to your tastes, verses poorly made, and not up to the quality standards of excellent beer.

Memory is tied to taste, and I was hoping that sipping on some Belgian beer would cause a chemical cascade of mnemonic flashes. But it didn’t. It just reminded me of all the ways I’ve tried to force myself to like a style because of faux cultural pressure and personally manufactured expectation, and how, when looking at it in hindsight, that seems like a very silly thing.

Session #88 – “Traditional” Beer Mixes

June 6, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(This post is brought to you by Boak and Bailey, hosts of the 88th Session. Topic? Traditional Beer Mixes.)

No matter how many times I typed it, those pesky quotation mosquitoes swarmed the word traditional. I urged him to show up for the barbecue, have a beer, eat a bratwurst, that it would be a good time, but no, the little conveyers of annoyance just couldn’t leave him alone. Now he has to sit in the bathroom for an hour, scratching and slathering Benadryl gel on all those inflamed lumps, all because I tried to drag him out here against his will.

I can’t in good conscience use the word traditional in a post like this, because I fear, that as a 28 year old American beer drinker, I have no traditions. I’ve got rituals, sure, and more beer related ceremonies and tribal dances than I even remember at this point. But traditions? Those are carved from the wood of a tree with many rings. They’re built from collective societal experience, passed from elder to youth, made up of the fibers that bind demographics and generations together.

The only quasi-traditions I have any experience with exist mewling and hungover on college campuses, but those mixes (cheap orange juice + 40 oz malt liquor; 15 Natural Ice cans + Saturday full of regret) don’t exactly bring much intelligence to the discussion. It also seems like mixing beer became (and remains) popular in England, and a quick survey of my American beer drinking friends shows that nearly none of them mix beer outside of snakebites, shandys, or the one-off experiment.

I’m at an impasse. The road’s closed, possibly due to an overturned Budweiser truck. The bridge is out, and the misappropriation of the local civics budget means it won’t be repaired anytime soon. If I want to get in on this traditions game, I’ll have to take a machete to the cultural thicket and make some of my own, starting right now.

Dogfish Head 60 Minute + Dogfish Head 90 Minute = Dogfish Head 75 Minute

You may be thinking, “But Oliver, Dogfish Head already brews a beer called 75 Minute, so isn’t this a little redundant?” Yes. But also no. More no than yes.

When the Dogfish Head Brewpub of Gaithersburg, Maryland, rose from the ashes of the old Pat and Mike’s restaurant like an inebriated phoenix, my friends and I mustered all our young courage, donned our hepatological armor, and became regulars. We suddenly had a place to drink that served beer not just “beer,” and found pretty much any excuse to plant ass on bar stool. We’d meet for happy hour, or lunch hour, or just regular hour, to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just Tuesdays.

As the pub wasn’t exactly walking distance from any of our homes, we’d often want for a driver. Cabs weren’t in the first-job-out-of-college budget. Girlfriends and siblings grew sick of always picking up a troupe of Dogfish infused drunks. We had to adjust how we drank, and thus the 75 minute was born.

By mixing the 6% of 60 minute with the 9% of 90 Minute, you’d, quite logically, finish out with a balance of 7.5%. The mix had all the bitter aggressiveness of the 60 minute, with some of the mellowing charm from the 90, bringing out the best of both beers. You could order one of these on half-price burger night and chew on beer and beef all night. It offered all the flavor of sipping on two beers, with none of the buzzing side effects.

I can’t say we invented it, because local rumor says people were already making this mix at the brewery in Rehoboth, Delaware, but we invented it.

Stone Go To IPA + Stone Ruination IPA = Regular IPA

It’s rare for me to make blanket statements about a particular thing, because I try to keep an open mind and admit my experience is perpetually limited, but:

I don’t like “session” IPAs.

They taste like a bottled identity crisis, like a brewer started brewing an IPA then second guessed herself, only added half of the malt of the recipe, and then instead of dumping the batch, finished it in a panic. They’re plenty aromatic, but out of the nine or so I’ve tried, the low ABV does not offset the weak finish and lack of body. A low ABV IPA seems fundamentally wrong, and I wonder, every time I see one, why the brewery didn’t brew a style that actually supports low ABV instead of hacking up a perfectly good style of beer to fit a weird marketing niche.

Stone Go To IPA reigns as my least favorite of the versions I’ve tried; it’s sort of sour, sort of crass, like someone who brings an already open, two thirds full bottle of wine to a dinner party. But my solution is easy: to fix it, mix it.

Your neighbors might call the cops if you set off a hop-bomb of this magnitude, but by mixing Stone’s delicious Ruination with their not-so-delicious Go To, you get a surprisingly easy to drink weapon of nasal destruction. The two hop profiles blend surprisingly well, and the spaghetti-noodle malt backbone of the Go To manages to calm the raging of the Ruination. The result is a lot like Stone’s regular IPA, but by mixing, you get two good beers instead of one great one and one lame one.

The universe always finds balance.

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