The session, otherwise known as beer blogging Friday (I know, it’s Saturday, I’m late, deal with it), is a once a month gathering of the beer bloggers of the world to get together and talk about beer. Each month there is a specific topic. This month the session is being hosted by Oliver of literatureandlibation.com. He has asked us to all review a beer without actually reviewing it. I know that sounds like a paradoxically illogical piece of nonsense but hear him out. He explains it better:
I know it sounds like the yeast finally got to my brain, but hear me out: I mean that you can’t write about SRM color, or mouthfeel, or head retention. Absolutely no discussion of malt backbones or hop profiles allowed. Lacing and aroma descriptions are right out. Don’t even think about rating the beer out of ten possible points.
But, to balance that, you can literally do anything else you want. I mean it. Go beernuts. Uncap your muse and let the beer guide your creativity.
I want to see something that lets me know what you thought of the beer (good or bad!) without explicitly telling me. Write a short story that incorporates the name, an essay based on an experience you had drinking it, or a silly set of pastoral sonnets expressing your undying love for a certain beer.
The beer which I want to discuss I have already reviewed before on this blog. It is a beer which is brewed locally to me and was just starting to make some headway in breaking into the local supermarkets. The beer was called Shambles and it was made by Potton Brewery. Notice the last sentence is in the past tense. I recently looked up the brewery website after I saw a ‘reduced to clear’ label on a bottle in Tescos. I have found that the brewery has been taken over and all by a new outfit and is well, except the beer of theirs, for which I can not express my feelings, has been removed from their list of beers.
Now my main ways of expressing myself about beer are either to write about it on this blog or harp on about it to my mates who are probably sick of it all by now. Being creative in a new way is something I have had to think about, hard. Expressing myself through the medium of modern dance is not something I want to do, or indeed any of you want to see. I’m not all that skilled with a paintbrush and a definitely can’t sing. I could think up a song, but I couldn’t play it (owning a ukulele ≠ being a musician).
What I can do is pinch other peoples creativity and so I give you the Shambles 4.3% playlist. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to do something similar. Hopefully the narrative of what I mean will become obvious.