{"id":3445,"date":"2012-10-05T12:45:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T18:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tombedell.com\/?p=3445"},"modified":"2014-02-09T13:51:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T19:51:30","slug":"the-session-68-novelty-beers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/3445\/the-session-68-novelty-beers","title":{"rendered":"The Session #68: Novelty Beers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Though planned well in advance by 99 Pours<\/a> it seems that all discussion of novelty beers has been pretty well cut off, so to speak, by the Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout set to go on tap at the Wynkoop Brewery in Denver on Monday. It will be interesting to see how many of the curious will herd up to the bar to give it a swallow.<\/p>\n

I would if I were there. I think. But certainly the beer has done just about everything the brewer of a novelty beer could hope for in terms of publicity. As soon as I heard the announcement I grabbed the bull by the, well, you know.<\/p>\n

I immediately enshrined the stout into my small, but swelling, category of brewing endeavors I call The End of the Beer World As We Know It<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As can be readily seen, I\u2019m having as much fun with these efforts as the perpetrators. What they have in common is wobbling on a tightrope stretched between novelty and outrage. The title of my collection may suggest I\u2019m passing judgment, but I\u2019m really just passing the news along. News of the weird, true, but take it all for what it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

What is it worth? Sure gets tongues wagging, that\u2019s for sure. And it may or may not fill some immediate need or address something in the wind. I was recently looking into craft brews from Oklahoma (almost novelties in themselves), and found out that Rick Huebert of the Huebert Brewing Company had put his political heart on his sleeve with a recent offering called NoBama Brew. (Not one I’d ever spend money on, however.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And in my alternate reality as a golf writer, I recall the Welsh brewer who took the opportunity to produce a beer in time for the 2010 Ryder Cup, played in Wales. Since the Tiger Woods sexual shenanigans were then still spicy news, the ale was called Tiger Would and the label left little to the imagination about what he would.<\/p>\n

The question is, where do we go from here? We know there\u2019s a beer now conditioning at Rogue that used wild yeast cultured from cells in brewmaster John Maier\u2019s beard. I shudder to think where this could lead, and I\u2019m not even going to make arch suggestions. (Though I certainly thought about it.)<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m forced by the calendar to always take an elder viewpoint, I can say that back in my day a beer with noticeable hops in it was a novelty. A wheat beer was a revelation. Finding a smoked beer from Bamberg was apocalyptic.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember the first pumpkin beer I had, but I\u2019m sure I found it a head-scratching wonder, while marveling at the brewer\u2019s creativity. Pumpkins ales are now so ubiquitous they\u2019re pushing Oktoberfest beers off the shelves, and I find them all relatively easy to ignore. Yesterday\u2019s novelty is today\u2019s battered old hat.<\/p>\n

This merely suggests that it\u2019s easy to become jaded with the smorgasbord now spread in front of us. But it\u2019s just beer, so why worry about it?<\/p>\n

What will they think of next? Well, if we knew that, it wouldn\u2019t be novel, would it?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Session is a monthly effort where beer writers around the interwebs respond to a topic question. This is the 68th installment, so it\u2019s been going on for quite a while. The list of responses this month can be accessed at 99 Pours<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related posts:
\nThe Session<\/a> posts
\nBeers Good for an April Fools Day Laugh<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though planned well in advance by 99 Pours it seems that all discussion of novelty beers has been pretty well… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":3447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[594142,939,18],"tags":[594137,594138,594139,53,594140,277,594141,3429,1045971,38,594143,1641,594144,112208,594145,594135,594146,594136],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-session","category-beer-on-tap","category-lifestyle","tag-tiger-would","tag-rogue","tag-john-maier","tag-tiger-woods","tag-wynkoop","tag-colorado","tag-99-pours","tag-pumpkin","tag-the-session","tag-humor","tag-rocky-mountain-oyster-stout","tag-denver","tag-rick-huebert","tag-end-of-the-beer-world-as-we-know-it","tag-huebert-brewing","tag-novelty","tag-okt","tag-nobama-brew"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2012\/10\/tigerwould.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5061,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions\/5061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}