Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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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:

    • Date: April 2007
    • Host: Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog
    • Topic: Dubbels
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: June 2007
    • Host: Snekse at the Gastronomic Fight Club
    • Topic: Local Brews
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: June 2008
    • Host: Thomas Vincent at Geistbear Brewing Blog
    • Topic: Beer Festivals
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: July 2008
    • Host: Rob DeNunzio at Pfiff!
    • Topic: Going Against the Grain Bill: Drinking Anti-Seasonally
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: October 2008
    • Host: Ray Merkler at Bathtub Brewery
    • Topic: Beer & Memories
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: November 2008
    • Host: Matt C. at A World of Brews
    • Topic: Your Favorite Beer
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: May 2009
    • Host: Joe Ruvel & Jasmine Smith at Beer at Joe’s
    • Topic: Beer Cocktails: Beyond the Black & Tan
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: September 2009
    • Host: Peter Estaniel at his BetterBeerBlog
    • Topic: Summer Beers
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: January 2010
    • Host: Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune at Beer For Chicks / The Beer Chicks (launching January 2010)
    • Topic: New Beer’s Resolutions
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: September 2010
    • Host: Carla Companion at The Beer Babe
    • Topic: Welcoming the New Kids
    • Announcement |
    • HopPress Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: October 2010
    • Host: Ashley Routson at Drink With the Wench
    • Topic: Frankenstein Beers
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: November 2010
    • Host: Bruce Ticknor at BeerTasters.ca
    • Topic: Wheat Beers
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: December 2010
    • Host: Mike Lynch at Burgers and Brews
    • Topic: An Unexpected Discovery: Finding Great Beer in the Last Place You’d Look
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: April 2011
    • Host: Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog
    • Topic: How Do They Make Me Buy The Beer?
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: June 2011
    • Host: Brian Stechschulte at All Over Beer
    • Topic: Collectibles & Breweriana
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: June 2012
    • Host: Carla Companion at The Beer Babe
    • Topic: Pale in Comparison
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: December 2012
    • Host: David J Bascombe at Good Morning …
    • Topic: Don’t Believe the Hype
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: February 2013
    • Host: Ryan Newhouse at Montana Beer Finder
    • Topic: How We Love Beer
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: November 2013
    • Host: Nichole (a.k.a. Nitch) at Tasting Nitch
    • Topic: Women and Beer: Scary Beer Feminists or a Healthy Growing Demographic?
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: April 2014
    • Host: Heather Vandenengel at Beer Hobo
    • Topic: Beer Journalism
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: October 2014
    • Host: Jeremy Short at Pintwell
    • Topic: Homebrewing and How Homebrewing Impacts Your Relationship with Beer a.k.a. “I Made This”
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: January 2015
    • Host: Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog
    • Topic: What beer book which has yet to be written would you like to see published?
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: October 2015
    • Host: Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog
    • Topic: Quick! Write… And Make It Good!!
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: March 2016
    • Host: Mark Lindner at By the Barrel: Bend Beer Librarian
    • Topic: Porter
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: June 2016
    • Host: Carla Jean Lauter at The Beer Babe
    • Topic: The Other Beer Economy
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: November 2016
    • Host: Csaba Babak at Beer Means Business
    • Topic: More, more, more …
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: January 2017
    • Host: Alec Latham at Mostly About Ber
    • Topic: Discomfort Beer
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: May 2017
    • Host: Josh Weikert at Beer Simple
    • Topic: CyberBrew — Is the Internet Helping or Hurting Craft Beer?
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

    • Date: July 2017
    • Host: Mark Lindner at By the Barrel: Bend Beer Librarian
    • Topic: SMaSH Beers
    • Announcement | Roundup | Bulletin Post

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 tweet or 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.