I’ll be very much surprised if there’s a great turnout for Session #51.5. It is after all, asking a lot — and for a second time in two weeks — gather together a selection of beers and cheese. For this extra Session, the instructions were in the round-up for Session #51. The idea was to use the list of beers chosen by everybody for each of the three cheeses that were listed in the round-up to try a few more beers with the same cheese. Simply pick up some of the other beers that were suggested, and try them with the same three cheeses and do a follow up blog post on or around Friday, May 20 to explore more fully pairing cheese and beer.

You can write about how your choices compared, or what you learned from the other suggestions, or which out of all the ones you tried worked best. What recommended pairing most surprised you? Which didn’t seem to work at all, for you? It’s my way of taking the Session concept and making it more interactive and collaborative, essentially an “online cheese-off.” First, we made our best recommendations for pairing a beer with these three cheeses, and now we have an opportunity to try as many of the suggestions as we can, and discover which worked best. I’ll then do a second round-up and report the findings of the group as a whole to the beers and the three cheeses together. If you’ve already done Part One, don’t stop now, keep going. Read what your fellow bloggers liked, and pick a few to try yourself. To participate, just post a comment here or at the round-up with a link to your blog post for Session #51.5.

A final note. Since it’s not really an “official” Session, don’t worry too much about sticking to today’s date. Have another cheese tasting whenever you like, whenever it’s convenient or you feel like it. To be honest, after being in South America for the last eleven days, I’m too tired to do it today myself, and will most likely do it next week. Feel free to do likewise. I’ll keep adding posts as they come in. Also, don’t forget about Session #52, coming up Friday, June 3.