Had a group over on Friday night for a pre-St. Patrick’s day gathering. I served my home brew, including a keg of Harry Knuckle, silk stout, and a lot of chocolate stout. We had a great time and everyone genuinely seemed to enjoy the beer, but the night really illustrated for the need for session beers for parties. The chocolate stout was a big hit but it weighs in at around 9% alcohol. By the time it late we were all feeling very little pain. The stout is great for sipping one in the evening, but I’m not really sure it is made for drinking all night. Its not that you cant drink them all night, its that you shouldn’t.
I think the following is a good guideline:

“A session beer should be low enough in alcohol to encourage conversation but not tangle your tongue.”

Not unreasonable. The amber (English bitter) I brewed for the family party earlier this year almost met that bill, but may still have been a bit strong. I’m thinking of working that recipe a bit to create great session beer, something along the lines of a Honkers Ale from Goose Island. A clean refreshing beer that is easy drinking. I will post the recipe as soon as I come up with it.

On a related note, there seemed to be some interest in brewing up some beer for the annual St. Pat’s party that we attend. I have a pretty good idea a session beer may be just what the doctor ordered.  Something along the lines of an Irish Red Ale, cheap to make and easy to drink.

I was fishing with my mechanic the other day. At least I think it was my mechanic, my mechanic usually uses a lot of cuss words.  I turned to look at him. He had on what looked to be a good fish. Just then the line snapped.

“Bleep!”

Yup, it was my mechanic.

 
My mechanic (Rob) and I had come to the Rogue to fish for steelhead. The day had dawned clear and bright but now a steady drizzle fell as the day’s shadows lengthened. I stood knee deep in water and glanced back over at him.

 
“Did you see the size of that Bleeping Bleep of a Bleep?”

“No.” I lied.

 
It is a good practice to lie to your mechanic. Why not? He always lies to you. Take the cost of parts for instance.

ME: Looks like that thingy is loose again.

MY MECHANIC: Yup (Yup is mechanic for get ready to make some money)

ME: How much do you think a part like that would cost?

MY MECHANIC: Hmmmm (Hmmmm is a noise mechanics make when calculating how much their vacation fund needs to be replenished.

 
“Well you should have seen him.” Rob said. “He was as big ass a Buick.” (What is it with these mechanics and cars anyway)?

 
We moved downstream and I spotted a big Steely holding behind a rock. As I cast to him I thought of my mechanic and the last job he did for me. He overhauled my entire engine, put on new brake pads and rebuilt the transmission. After I paid him in gold bars and my wife’s diamond he said:

 
“Here, I always shake hands after a deal”.

He held out his hand. It had a small box in it that rattled. I opened the box. It held a bunch of assorted small bolt and car parts.

 
“What is this?” I asked.

 
“There’s always some left when I put them back together.”

 
Just then a huge strike broke me from my thought. I pulled on the rod tip to set the hook.

 
“Fish on!” I yelled

 
Ten minutes and a lot of nervous energy later I had the fish netted. It was a huge Chromer. I looked at Rob. He had watched the whole affair.

 
“ Nice fish.” he said.

“Thanks Rob”, I said.

 
On our way home from the river Robs phone rang. He got into a discussion and then hung up in a huff.

 
“ What’s wrong?” I asked.

 
“That was Karen”, (his wife) “She told me her Dad was stopping by for dinner with his new wife”, he said.

 
“What’s so bad about that?” I asked.

 
“She’s from Charlevoix and the steelhead run has been lax up there.”

 
“So?” I asked.

 
“So Karen told her I was out fishing and she got all excited. I guess her dad used to take her Steel-heading. Karen told her I was probably bringing some fish home and she just went crazy.”

 
I saw where this was going.

 
“But, you don’t have a fish, do you?” I asked.

 
“No, but you do.” He tried.

 
“Well, I suppose I could let you have my fish…for a small fee.”

 
“How much?” He asked tentatively.

 
“Hmmmm”.        

The pick-up truck leaped along the two-track at a conservative 50 miles an hour.  A half-smoked pack of cigars bounced across the dashboard sprinkling tobacco into small pools of spilt coffee. Drake, the driver of the truck, stared straight ahead and puffed on a Backwoods cigar as he steered his contraption down the road. I did my imitation of a flying duck lawn ornament as I juggled my cup from one hand to another as each was successively burned by spilling coffee.

            “So, Drake, (Ow!) do you (Ow!) think the bluegills will be (Ouch!) bedding up?”
Drake was a cloud of smoke behind the wheel.
            “Yup (puff) they should (puff) be getting’ close (puff, puff) to it now”.
Ah, The bluegills on the pads. Drake had picked me up early that morning and taken me to his place where we put some new shocks on his truck. He had only had the truck for a year and it had already seen two sets of shocks. I asked Drake about that once while we were driving vertically up the side of a mountain but he just shrugged his shoulders and put his cigar out in an eagle’s nest. “Bad Luck” was all he offered.
Once we had installed the new shocks (shock being the operative word) we beat a path to The Tackle Shop and ordered the usual.
            “Four dozen Crawlers, please”
            “ I told you guys before, we don’t sell bait here. This is a football equipment store!”
            “Oh yeah, sorry”
After stopping by Jake’s Live Bait for coffee, cigars, and worms we were headed down a seasonal road (mostly seasoned by pieces of Drake’s trucks underbody) and talking happily about the prospects of catching some monster bluegills for supper. Some people get nervous when riding with Drake but I have found that when I become agitated and worried I just hum a simple little tune to calm me down.
As we careened along I calmly pointed out obstacles in the road to Drake.
            “OH MY GOD, WATCH OUT”
            “I (puff) see (puff) it!
            “Whew, I thought we were going to hit that pine tree. It’s funny how you can’t see things until they’re right in front of you with all that mud built up on the windshield three inches thick. Ha, Ha, I bet you thought I was really scared didn’t ya Drake? Ha, Ha.
            “Yeah these roads are awfully muddy, say, stop that annoying humming will ya?”
After putting several laws of Physics to the test we arrived at the lake.
We carried our gear to the shore and began rigging up our poles. Drake walked down shore to his favorite spot, where some old tree stumps stuck out of about four feet of water. He was visible as a cloud of smoke wearing flannel about 100 yards away. Having moved to my own favorite section of water I began to cast a small spider to some feeding fish about 40 feet in front of me. My line picking up a good rhythm as I cast. One, two, three, snag. One, two, three, snag.
Finally I was able to present a decent fly to the feeding fish. They rudely refused it.  I reeled in and stared at the spider loitering at the end of my line. It seemed completely disinterested. What do you expect from a rubber fly? I glanced across the lake to look at Drake. He was casting a worm and bobber combo to some pads a few yards out. His bobber disappeared and Drake set the hook.
 Now a few times in my life I have been accused of being the jealous type. A title I feel is unfairly bestowed upon me. I mean, I really didn’t hear Drake calling for a net. And as far as the incident with the cigar and the burned through fishing line – well, I won’t even mention the theory Drake proposed for that.
            Several hours and several fish later we were driving back down the road in Drakes truck to the tune of a cold rain drenching everything in it’s path.
            “Well Drake, that was some fine fishing”
            “Yeah (puff) it sure was”
            “Wasn’t it funny how I burned your line like that?”
            “Yeah (puff) funny”
            “And when I didn’t hear you calling for the net”
            “Yeah (puff)”
            “And that business with the spilled whisky”
            “Mmmm (puff)”
            “So is there any chance of you pullin’ over so I can hop back into the cab with you?”
            “(puff)”

This is it. High Summer. Michigan days take on a hazy glow as all it’s vast water is slowly baked out of it in the hot July Sun. The humidity is rising and everywhere the gardens, a spring ritual born of a cold damp desire to forget winter, are maturing. At any one time there is an isolated thunderstorm coming off one of the lakes, pouring rain to replenish the water table and nourish growing fields. Elsewhere in the state it ranges from hot and humid with blue skies to a wind swept threatening front of cool blue clouds. All give way to the enchantment of a Michigan Summer night. Where the heat lightning illuminates patches of clouds and the wilderness hums with the song of insects too numerous and plentiful to measure. There is no better time to be outside. Camping in the high summer takes on a metaphysical quality; where the very air is charged with an energy all its own, scented with the exhalation of trees such as white pine, spruce, and cedar. The insects are carried on the night air and the bats are busy above making a feast on them.

Tonight, I walk along the banks of the river where a stream enters it. The elated song of a cold stream rolling down the clay banks is reverently hushed just before its entrance to the river, as if it has paused to contemplate it’s long sojourn from deep in the Earth.

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I am working on the recipe for a saison for this summer. Saisons are spicy dry ales that are really crisp and refreshing. A great pair to a warm summer evening. The recipes are really quite simple in composition the most popular example of the style’s grain bill consists of only Belgian Pilsner malt. The yeast here is the key. With that in mind I am going try something new as well. I am going ferment the batch with two different types of yeast. Five (maybe 7) gallons is going to get a standard saison yeast, the remaining will be fermented with Brettanomyces claussenii (brett). Additionally I am planning on adding some lactobacillus to the brett batch to give it some additional food to produce flavors with. The hope here is to create a complex beer with a slight sour twang that is a great summer drinker. You can follow the recipes development in the recipes section of the site.

Great reference for brewing lambics: http://www.liddil.com/beer/lambic/lamfaq.html

There is an amazing overview of what lambics are at the enclosed link.  If you read the link you may not be interested in trying one (if you haven’t before) as the process in which they are brewed is not what intuitively would produce anything edible.  However, I assure you, they are great.  Put a framboise in the cooler, perhaps a Lindemans, and when its cold pour youself a glass.  You will be amazed at how refreshing and clean it is.

This is such a cool story and really demonstrates the attitude in the craft brew market.  The jist is that two brewing companies realized that they both had beers named the same thing.  Now typically you would expect two corporations to sue the pants off each other.  Thats not the case here.  The beers are of similar styles, so they decided to take the two beers and create a third by blending it.  The winner here is beer drinkers.  There are several reviews of the beer on the net.

Here are some photos from the transfer to the larger fermenter last night.  I think this beer is going to turn out quite good.
 

You of course can follow the status of this brew in the under development brewlogger.

Hell?