Whew! It’s finally done!
That was awesome. I was afraid that, after four fairly straightforward “go drink this kind of beer and tell us about it” Sessions, that there would be a bit of a backlash as we bucked the nascent tradition. On the contrary; we got a lot of compliments on the topic.
We also got a lot of participation. By my count, no fewer than 29 people participated in this iteration of the Session, not including your two hosts. We had bloggers from all over the U.S., as well as Canada, Ireland, Brussels, and several from the United Kingdom. We had brewers as well as people who get paid to write about beer. (Lucky stiffs.) I enjoyed reading everyone’s contributions.
Better, we had a bunch of people new to our beer blogging day. Welcome, one and all!
Early on, it became quite clear that there was a nearly universal theme as to what made for a good beer drinking atmosphere: people. Just about everyone talked about how much having good people around them made any beer that much better. Yeah, there are some great places to have a beer, and having a good beer by oneself can be enjoyable, but, by and large, having the right people to enjoy your beer with is really the thing.
It was a bit more work than I expected. Not only did I have to come up with my own post (which I waited too long to get started) but every time I turned around on Friday there was another note in my inbox or showing up on a Technorati search. It’s a good thing I was searching Technorati too, as a few people neglected to drop us a line or give us a pingback. (If I still missed anyone, let me know and I’ll get you added to the re-cap.)
But, it was great fun, and I look forward to hosting again. Thank you all for sharing.
August’s session will be hosted by Greg Clow at Beer, Beats & Bites. I’m sure Greg will have the topic up in the next few days.
If you’ve not participated before, it’s never to late to join us. If you have, I encourage you to reach out to some of these new beer bloggers popping up, or even those that have been around but haven’t been participating, and let them know about our beer blogging day.
