It’s time for the Sessions again – aka Beer Blogging Friday. That’s where, on the first Friday of every month, a blogger picks a topic for the rest of us to write about. This time it’s the turn of Oliver Gray at Literature and Libation to host. Presumably because he’s studying writing, Oliver’s gone all creative and left-field with his topic.

“So for my turn hosting The Session, I ask all of you to review a beer. Any beer. Of your choosing even! There’s a catch though, just one eentsy, tiny rule that you have to adhere to: you cannot review the beer.

“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.”

I liked the idea of freeing myself up to think way outside the box. And what I ended up with was not really a review of a beer as such – but I had fun writing it. And it’s my blog so I can publish whatever I damn well please.

So enjoy. Or don’t. It’s up to you.

SCENE: a lounge room in a house. A MAN is sitting on a lounge with a glass of beer in his hand. He is holding it up to the light, swirling it and checking its aroma. A WOMAN is sitting beside him, reading a book and casting irritated glances in his direction as he performs this routine.
MAN: Honey, this Dogfish Head beer is –

WOMAN: (exasperated, she slams her book shut) Shut up! I’ve had enough.

MAN: But how? I haven’t even given you a sip of the beer yet.

WOMAN: I’ve had enough. Of that beer. Of the beer you had yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. I’ve had enough of all the beers.

MAN: What? Even my homebrew?

WOMAN: (turns to him, gives him a sneer) Especially your homebrew. It’s the worst thing I’ve tasted. By Christ is it awful.

MAN: Well, that’s just because your palate hasn’t developed enough to appreciate them.

WOMAN; Your last beer had bloody  seaweed in it! No-one appreciates salty beer.

MAN: Briny.

WOMAN: What?!

MAN: Briny. Not salty. It tasted briny. That’s the characteristic I was going for.

WOMAN: Whatever. It was salty and it was awful. An anchovy could try that beer and go ‘‘too salty for me’’.

MAN: But I thought you loved beer. We always chose our holiday spots because they had good beer there.

WOMAN: No, YOU always chose our holiday spots because they had good beer there. I kept dropping hint, after hint after hint that it would be nice to go somewhere else for a change. But you were too stupid to pick up on them.

MAN: But I did! I did pick up on them! I made sure we always went somewhere else. Different from last time.

WOMAN: Going to a different beer place isn’t what I meant. Are you really that dumb? I wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t beer-focused. Somewhere with a beach. Or mountains. Nice restaurants. Somewhere that doesn’t have beer.

MAN: But, honey. Beer is everywhere.

WOMAN: No, it isn’t. You just think it is. Your whole world is beer. Beer this, beer that. You live in a beer bubble where that’s all you see. There’s a whole world out there that has nothing to do with barley. A world where people have nice long conversations without once mentioning hops. A world where people can just drink a damn beer without having to muck around by holding their glass up to the light, sniffing it and all that crap. And it’s a world I’m sick of missing out on.

MAN: What are you saying?

WOMAN: Umm, I guess I’m saying beer isn’t the only thing I’ve had enough of.

MAN: You sure? (the woman nods) Well okay. (he looks down at the glass in his hand. Pauses) More for me then. Because you have no idea how hard it is to get Dogfish Head beer in Australia.