I didn't pop a beer with tenth or 14th on the label last night as other beer bloggers did. "The Session" happens on the first Friday of every month and this month was hosted over at The Barley Blog. A great topic was picked - the best in a while - but I just had other things on my mind with the first game of Jason Bay's new career with the Boston Red Sox to watch with company. Why couldn't I do both? Well, that goes to the problem with anniversary special brews. When craft brewers get into their eight and ninth circuits around the sun, they get into the habit of matching alcohol level to the number of years being celebrated. Their yearly celebrations are generally planed to be a knock-out.

Given that, given that they come in big format bottles and given the half decade or so since these beers have been getting more and more popular, they have just boosted their power in large part well past the idle sipper brew. The moment called for a couple of quiet simpler session beers, not some bombastic brew taking attention away from how many times Bay ended up on third. Not some heated up wine-strength wallop of an ale making you too sleepy to stay up to catch how he walked in from third in the 12th inning to win the game.

However lovely, anniversary beers just aren't for any day drinking let alone every day. And yesterday was just not that day.