The Session

I felt like I should jump on the beer blogging bandwagon and join in the first installment of The Session. Here was the original idea from Appelation Beer:
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Time for a beer blogging day

All the best ideas end up with beer.

Food bloggers have their own cooking day once a month. Wine bloggers have Wine Blogging Wednesday.

It seems that beer bloggers around the world should have something similar. So let’s start one, an event that will occur on the first Friday of every month. It doesn’t have to have a name (yet) or a logo (like wine), just participants who want to have a little fun and don’t mind learning a little along the way.

Appellation Beer will host the first tasting March 2 (giving us time to get out the word), and the theme will be “Not your father’s Irish stout.”

There aren’t many rules. Simply pour yourself a stout (or stouts) and post on the topic March 2, looking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day or not and writing about any stout that isn’t Guinness, Murphy’s or Beamish (the Irish old guard - good beers but we’re writing about others). Should you worry about style? About getting the opinion of friends, about writing an official tasting note, about food? About the history of the beer or how its made? All optional.

After we do this a couple of months different bloggers will likely find different approaches we are comfortable with.

If you think you might participate please leave a comment or drop me an e-mail. Then invite a friend to participate too. After you post on March 2 send me the URL and I’ll write a wrap up with links to all the posts.

Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog will host the April gathering, announcing the theme shortly after March 2. If you have an idea for a monthly tasting, and particularly if you want to volunteer to be a host, send me an e-mail.

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So Flossmoor's is going to be dedicated to our Milk Stout, debuting Saturday, March 10th at 10 in the a.m. in conjuction with a breakfast buffet. Mug Clubber's will be able to pay $10.95 for the food and a mug of our new stout.

Milky Way is a sweet stout or milk stout, made with lactose (milk sugar), which is unfermentable to yeast. Consequently the beer has a creamy and sweet flavor that is a fine contrast to the roasty stout body. It also means that if you are lactose intolerant, you might consider staying away or bringing your Lactaid® with you. It's a stout that is easy to drink, lighter on the alcohol that our other current seasonals, and a beer that reminds you of coffee, chocolate, and candy. I will be in Germany for the tapping, so please make sure that there is some left for me when I get back.

p.s. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this Sunday is Goose Island Stoutfest.

Goose Island StoutFest 2007 to Benefit ICBG

So Night of the Living Ales wasn't enough for you? Then join us at Goose Island Clybourn (1800 N. Clybourn Ave., Chicago) for StoutFest 2007 and enjoy more than 30 different stouts from 20 local breweries! Doors open to Goose Island MBA members at noon and to the general public at 1:00 p.m. Tickets (limited quantities!) are $30 and are available by calling Goose Island Clybourn at 312-915-0071. Proceeds benefit the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild.