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The Sessions

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What is The Session?

 
The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. Over time, it is the hope — of me, at least — that a record will be created with much useful information about various topics on the subject of beer. The idea for the Sessions began with fellow beer writer Stan Hieronymus, who noticed similar group endeavors in other blogospheres and suggested those of us in the beer world create our own project. Here is Stan’s original thought process to start up the Session.

How to Participate in a Session

 
If you write a beer or beer-related blog, please consider joining us on the Session project. It couldn’t be easier. The topic for each month is announced shortly after the previous month’s Session, meaning you have about three weeks to consider what you want to write about within the topic. And as long as it has something to do with the theme, you can pretty much do whatever you feel is appropriate for you. Then on the first Friday of the month, write your post. Usually, you then just let the host know what the URL (the specific web address or permalink to your post, not your home page) is so he can include it in his or her roundup. Each host does it slightly differently, but usually it’s just by sending an e-mail or posting a comment.

I would encourage each participant to use the Session logo for your Session posts because it lends consistency to all of our efforts and makes it easy for readers to know and understand that your post is part of a larger project. But it’s by no means mandatory. I made a version both with and without the subtitle “Beer Blogging Friday.” They’re free to use, of course, but please don’t hotlink to them. Please download them and host them on your server or use a photo hosting website like Photobucket.

Past Sessions

 
Here is a list of all the announcements, roundups and my own contributions for all The Sessions to date:

Volunteer to Host The Session

 
Do you own a beer related blog and want to host a Session? To host one of the monthly Sessions, you’ll need to do the following:

  1. Reserve the next free month or any specific month not yet taken. To do this, please contact me via Jay (.) Brooks (@) gmail (.) com or Stan Hieronymus of Appellation Beer. His e-mail is stan (@) appellationbeer (.) com.
  2. Choose your beer-related topic or theme. See the list above of past Sessions both for ideas and also to insure you pick something we haven’t already done.
  3. Announce your theme by posting about it. This should be done right after the roundup of the previous Session. Also, please send Stan and/or myself an e-mail to let us know it’s up so we can help spread the word.
  4. Do a reminder post about a week before the first Friday of your month.
  5. Post your own entry on your topic.
  6. Post a roundup. Some hosts run updates all day. Some hosts wait until the end before posting their roundup.
  7. Announce who the next host will be. Usually, you can do this in your roundup.

{ 12 trackbacks }

Beer At Joe’s mentioned in the NY Times!
June 30, 2009 at 11:40 pm
The Next “Session” Heads East | Brookston Beer Bulletin
September 9, 2009 at 9:21 am
Three-Year Session Anniversary To Features A Cask Of Characters | Brookston Beer Bulletin
January 7, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Session #36: Cask-Conditioned Beer – Beer Engines | Top Fermented
February 5, 2010 at 9:23 am
Beer In Ads #38: Gangloff « Global Posts
February 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Beer In Ads #38: Gangloff | Brookston Beer Bulletin
February 5, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Session #36: Cask-Conditioned Beer | Brookston Beer Bulletin
February 8, 2010 at 10:40 am
The Display Shelf | Make Mine Potato
February 9, 2010 at 5:57 pm
The Display Shelf | WNYmedia.net
March 5, 2010 at 5:57 am
Session # 38 – Announcement
March 5, 2010 at 11:58 am
Session #37: Drinking The Good Stuff | Brookston Beer Bulletin
March 5, 2010 at 7:41 pm
The Session #37: When to Drink the Good Stuff |
March 6, 2010 at 9:25 am

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Brad November 5, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Hey Jay,

I love this list and refer to it routinely.

One suggestion though: You might consider flipping the past/future Sessions list so oldest ones are at the bottom. This would keep the most relevant items up top and the scrolling to a minimum.

Keep up the good work!

Reply

2 J November 9, 2009 at 9:48 am

Thanks Brad, the only problem with doing it that way is keeping track of upcoming months and open ones, too. You’d have Sessions that haven’t been done yet, in some cases several months ahead on top along with open months. It’s for that reason that I work chronologically from earliest to latest.

Reply

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