The Session was a monthly effort where beer writers around the interwebs responded to a topic question each first Friday. It went on for quite a while–starting up in March of 2007 and running for 142 installments before expiring in August of 2023. I dipped my toe into The Session sessions now and again, and kind of wish I’d done it more often. Now, it would appear, I might be able to, since Alan McLeod, he of A Better Beer Blog, seems to be revving it up again, albeit on the last Friday. (And where he’ll probably aggregate the responses he receives.) We’ll see what happens, but meanwhile Alan has proposed the topic for this last Friday:
“What is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?”
Let’s see, that’s about six years to try and remember, so that’s an impossible task right there. I could start reading in my One Line a Day diaries from the last six years to see what’s there of a beery nature, but that would probably take six days, at least. And it’s too late in the day to pour through any telling statistics.
So that leaves some mere impressions. To an old-timer like me, who remembers when finding a good beer–that is, something other than watery yellow bellywash–was no easy task, easily the best thing to happen in the world of good beer is the sheer proliferation of breweries purportedly aiming at creating brews that rise well above the norm of uninteresting mainstream lagers.
It’s now entirely possible, roaming from town to town, to find one or more small breweries in operation. We’re said to be barreling, so to speak, toward 10,000 breweries in the U.S., more than at any other time in history. They may not all be wonderful, but it is easier than ever to find a good beer with relative ease.
The downside, I suppose, is that for many of these breweries to stay alive, they have to bend to the demands of the marketplace. Hence, the years-long slough through questionable styles–creemee-like beers, pastry beers, super dank and hazy double IPAs. Even though I’m in New England I have to say I’ve pretty much had it with IPAs that have the look and all the appeal of dishwater.
I suppose I could point a finger at The Alchemist from Stowe, Vermont, for getting that particular ball rolling with Heady Topper, once a cult beer, partially owing to the difficulty in obtaining it. But Heady Topper, now more readily available, is an exceptionally well-made beer, as is its sister (brother?) IPA, Focal Banger, which I’m drinking right now and quite enjoying. Although I’m drinking it out of a glass, despite the suggestion, or order, right on the can: DRINK FROM THE CAN!
I’ve often wondered if brewer John Kimmich was a little concerned how people would react to the hazy look of his beer, hence the instructions. But I’ve yet to ask him about this and it’s ancient history by now anyway. Heady Topper is now a classic in its own right, and there may be a minor lesson there–if you want to get at the essence of a particular style, head for the classics.
I’m still pretty much willing to try any kind of beer at least once, although I’d be fine to never have another with marshmallows in it. But I find myself most often returning to other classics of the realm these days–a good pilsner, an English IPA, a clear West Coast IPA, a German doppelbock, most anything Belgian (although particularly Orval), and the list goes on.
Again, it may just be an impression, but it seems to me that that’s the other best thing to have happened to good beer in recent years: a return of interest in classic styles. A week or so ago I was happy to find a few bottles of Côte de Champlain from Zero Gravity Brewing in Burlington, Vermont. Zero Gravity has a solid, wide-ranging portfolio across styles, but it’s not adverse to specialties like this, a wonderful tribute to Orval.
AI didn’t quite spell “drink” correctly, but the beer looks good.
Maybe the best thing to have happened in my beer world is moving to Vermont in the first place. We still have more breweries per capita than any other state, and some wonderful brews are pouring forth from them–if too many double IPAs.
A regular slogan back in the olden days of craft brewing was, “Life is too short to drink bad beer.” Nothing has changed there, except maybe in the way we express it. As Kimmich says on the Focal Banger can: “Drink this beer today, you could be dead tomorrow….”
