But only one of the comments I noticed addressed what jumped out at me.

Right now, the Brewer’s Association will tell you that there are almost 600 breweries in the United States that bottle, can, keg or otherwise distribute beer. That number doesn’t count the many hundreds of brewpubs that brew beer for sale in their restaurants. In most markets, there are only 2 or 3 beer distributors that will carry and sell craft beer, which leaves a theoretical total of 200 to 300 brewers per distributor in any particular area, not including the wide array of import brands that are currently available.

That would imply that every packaged beer should be available in every market.

Why?

1. Chinook
2. Amarillo
3. Nelson Sauvin
4. Bramling Cross
5. Simcoe
6. First Gold

Three hops grown in the U.S. Northwest (Chinook, Amarillo and Simcoe), two in the U.K. (Bramling Cross and First Gold) and one from New Zealand. Nelson Sauvin, released only in 2000, seems to be a hop du jour.

Its character has been likened to Sauvignon Blanc, the grape and wine variety, and New Zealand Hops Limited emphasizes its cutting edge attributes.

From the brewer’s notes: “The fruitiness may be a little overpowering for the un-initiated, however those with a penchant for bold hop character will find several applications for this true brewer’s hop.”

And from the suggested applications: “Very much at home in the new-world styles such as American Pale Ale and Super Premiums. This hop is considered by some as extreme and certainly makes it presence felt in specialty craft and seasonal beers gaining an international reputation.”

What beer have you tasted recently (say, the last six months or so) that is worthy of their own day in the media sun?

And to add a little extra to it, how do “great” expectations affect your beer drinking enjoyment?

AND If you have attended one of these release parties, stories and anecdotes of your experience will be welcomed too.

“Was the beer worth it?” and “Was the experience worth it?” might be two different questions.

Is there a perfect beer for every particular special moment? Is there a time in every beer’s life when it tastes better than it ever otherwise will?

SirRon’s open-ended assignment for The Session spells certain trouble for me. I’m perfectly willing to spend all sorts of time contemplating questions that do not have answers.

Anyway, the topic this month seems particularly timely because we’ve recently been treated to a flock of stories about cellaring beer. Don Russell made it subject of his column last week, there was a story this week in The Washington Post food section, and a rather long feature in the Los Angeles Times (worth clicking through to for the photo alone).

Could this be dangerous? Although these stories emphasize the importance of picking the right kind of beers to lay down and having a proper cellar it’s easy to envision a reader skimming the story, grabbing who-knows-what beer, sticking it in the back of a closet and forgetting about it until it’s time for the next garage sale.

Last Christmas friends of ours brought out a large corked bottle of Budweiser that somebody had given them (thank goodness) at an estate sale. It was bottled in 2001 for the brewery’s 125th anniversary. We have no idea how it was stored, but that didn’t really matter. We opened it, sipped, talked about wet cardboard and dumped the contents. We could only dream about what that beer might have tasted like fresh.

I must confess I’m a serial cellarer. When we moved to New Mexico and left our Illinois basement behind the idea was “no more laying down beer.” Didn’t take. Bought a chest freezer, hooked it up to a temperature controller and we were good to go.

But only a small portion of beer spends much time in that pseudo cellar. We buy beer, we drink it. Beer shows up at our door, we drink it. It seems it would be rude to do so otherwise. Oh, that beer you sent last week, we’ll open it in 2014 and let you know how it is doing.

So a few things I learned in February:

The beers were really good, but you knew that. I liked XII better than a year ago, and we might have talked about that over the course of about two hours. I’m not sure. Not until I was driving home did I consider that three of us tasted Firestone 10 together, Firestone XI the next year, Firestone XII the next and now XI-XII-XIII.

We’re not some crusty war veterans who need an excuse to get together, but this is a nice little tradition that I expect will continue. So to SirRon’s question about “finding a drinking occasion that lives up to the reputation of the bottle,” I’d suggest sharing beer with friends should be occasion enough.

“To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.”

Just so I don’t get injured when an empty bottle that once held *xtr*m* beer rattles off my skull, it’s also OK to do uncommon things perfectly.

Your answers prove it’s not a useful word for a drinking note.

This is where it started. When I sat in for the Sunday Session on The Brewing Network a question came up: What’s the difference between phenols and esters? I blew it off, mostly because I knew if I started I could have the audience snoozing in a matter of minutes, and still have plenty of words left over. There are several sources of phenols and we perceive them in a variety of ways (though not all drinkers equally).

This show is mostly for homebrewers so a fair question. Just one I need to come up with a short answer for. I mentioned this to my wife, the first beer writer in our family, and she had a quick answer. “Phenols are bad, right? And esters are good,” she said, tongue in cheek. “That’s they way people talk about them.”

Many of the comments prove her point.

Thanks for playing along. I suspect it will make my short answer better.

This strikes me as a far better way to spend your time than standing in line for the latest rare beer.

In this video Steve Hampton, president of the preservationist Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corp., walks through a tunnel beneath East McMicken Street in Over-the-Rhine. The tunnel is part of the old Schmidt Brothers Brewery.

Cincinnati’s 18th annual Bockfest begins Friday, with plenty of beer and tours of the city’s historic breweries. Around 40 buildings remain standing in Over-the-Rhine and West End that were used in the operations of about a dozen nineteenth century breweries.

(For the record, the weekend activities don’t list tours of the tunnels — “We really have no idea how many of these cellars and tunnels may still exist,” Hampton said — but there’s still plenty going on. The schedule.)

This is a serious question and I’d appreciate any comments off the top of your head (no Googling) — remembering that a sentence is better than a treatise.

(I promise to explain why I ask.)

This kind of brings new meaning to the concept of a “brews cruise,” doesn’t it?

The 827-foot long cruise ship AIDAblu is outfitted with a complete brewery. The brewhouse on deck 10 (of 14 decks) is made of glass and can produce 5 hectoliters a day (132 gallons, about 4 U.S. beer barrels). Copper fermentation and lagering tanks have a capacity of 130 hectoliters (more than 100 U.S. barrels, 3,435 U.S. gallons).

This is not a gimmick. It’s a real brewery, and it’s fair to talk about how beer from this place (even if it is in motion) is different. Certainly German brewmaster Andreas Hegny faces unique challenges. A press release from Weyermann Specialty Malts in Bamberg, Germany which provides all the malts for the brewery, explains system designers configured the brewery vessels so that their contents would not be affected by the ship’s rolling and pitching.

And then there’s the water (how’s that go? “Water, water everywhere but not . . .”). The AIDAblu uses sea water, stripped of its salt content by an onboard desalinification plant. The water is then cleaned and enriched with minerals. “This water is just right for beer making,” Hegny said, “because it is very soft.” (That’s Hegny in the photo at the top.)

Hengy travels with seven Weyermann malts, milling them fresh on brew day. He brews a variety of specialties, pointing with particular pride to AIDA-Zwickel, but also including an Eisbock — a lager in which the alcohol content has been raised by freezing. (The process has been at the heart of the competitition between BrewDog in Scotland and Schorschbraeu in Germany to brew the world’s strongest beer.)

The press release refers to this as the world’s first floating brewery. That’s not quite true. During World War II the HMS Menestheus, a British mine-laying ship, was converted into a floating brewery to supply beer to British and Allied troops in the Asian theater. By the time they got everything in order the war was over, but it was a working brewery. I love this story from the Beer Drinkers Companion (1993, Edinburgh Publishing Co.):

Towards the end of the Second World War, the supply lines to the Far East were dangerously stretched. For the forces engaged in the fighting against the Japanese, certain supplies, such as beer were a rare luxury. In order to maintain morale, and at the instigation of Winston Churchill himself, in late 1944 the Board of the Admiralty decided to convert two mine-laying vessels into Amenity Ships, to include cinemas, dance-halls, shops, bars, and onboard breweries.

These ships — the HMS Menetheus and HMS Agamemnon — were sent to Vancouver in early 1945 to be refitted.

Distilled sea water was to be used for brewing purposes, and malt extract and hop concentrate would be shipped from the U.K. to bases in the Far East where the vessels would call. A 55-barrel capacity brewing copper was to be installed in the forward hold of the ships and heated by steam coils from the ships’ boilers. Six glass-lined fermenting vessels were also installed, and the capacity was an estimated 250 barrels per week. Only one beer was to be produced, a chilled and carbonate 1037 Mild Ale. Beside being sold in the ships’ bars, this was also be be made available in 5 gallon stainless steel kegs

Some of the brewing equipment was lost on the way to Canada so only the Menestheus ended up brewing, the first test batch made on the last day of 1945. Although the war in the Far East was over troops remained. The ship visited Yokohama, Kure, Shanghai and Hong Kong (“with the latter proving a conspicuous success”). Brewing took place at sea between ports of call.

Curling strategy. This chart will make wagering easier the deeper into a match you watch.