I wasn't expecting to like this beer. The enamel stripping effect of Chapeau Lemon might have been at the back of my mind. But I received a swell sample pack from the brewer and gave it a whirl.

The beer pours an orange amber with a rich off white head that resolves to a rim and foam. The aroma is extremely true Earl Grey and juicy lemon pulp along with a bit of pale malt sweetness. In the mouth, it is subtler than I expected - American wheat grassiness and a bright light body. No heavy sweetness masking and smoothing edges. Not a cooler pretending to be beer. A bit like Magic Hat #9 but lighter and cleaner without that brewery's rich buttery diacetyl legacy. The lemon is subdued at first as you notice the hop and then the tea. Low carbonation helps make it all moreish. And I didn't refrigerate this first. I wanted to try it warts and all. It passed the test.

So, not a compromise or a gateway to anything - a pretty good beer displaying authentic ingredients including the lemon and the tea. As Greg wrote yesterday, no Bud Lite Lime. Not even a Bud Lite Lime Draft Ice. A good beer.

Is this the best beer related celebrity sighting ever? It has proximity, exclusivity and... royalty:

About a minute later, who walks out the door but the Queen! She’d been attending a meal with the Privy Councillors and was leaving the building. As she exited, she stopped to say something to someone. Her gaze fell upon my buddy and me. She looked at my red running shoes, then the beer, then back to my shoes, then up at me, smiled, said something that made those near her smile, then got into the car and left.

Her Majesty having a laugh at your expense has to be one for the record books. Not that I am in the Monarchist League's Rolodex or anything but you have to respect the "oh dear, a loser Canadian kid with a case of beer" response.

On a Monday night when elementary school children are melting down all around you, it is hard to imagine Friday. Friday is that tiny light at the end of a long tunnel. A legend you hear about only in whispers in that place between waking and sleeping. And, worse, it's four days away.

But at least I booked the afternoon off as well as the next Monday to watch some Work Cup soccer over a long weekend. Apparently, the USA is one of the teams playing and this might be the beer I save for this Saturday game against Engerlant. It pours a swell orange amber with a swell clingy white head and the smell of freesias and marigold. It has a great mouth feel with a good bit of body, a bit cream, a bit of heat from the hop acids and plenty of white grapefruit pine sour, too. The brewer has a pretty full spec sheet but suffice it to say it's yum without being like aiming a can of aerosol furniture polish at the back of your throat like so many of the big bomb IPAs these days. You won't need a Rolaid mid-bottle, either. Great BAer respect - and if England pulls into the lead, well, I can switch to Honkers just to be safe.

So, if this is the beer for USA... what does one have with Uruguay?

Beer fans in central New York are mourning the passing of Bernie Rivers who ran Galeville Grocery in Liverpool near Syracuse. The shop hails it self as "your complete historical neighborhood grocery store since 1888." I met Bernie this past January on a beer run into Syracuse and enjoyed a few minutes with this cornerstone of the community as well as the CNY beer scene. I've been shopping at Galeville for almost six years so far and have always been struck how dependent we beer fans are on the passion and risk taking of the shop keepers like Bernie who stock the shelves, hoping the locals will support the decisions and selections they make. I've rarely been anything less but excited with my finds there.

Tributes can be found at the Facebook pages for his store.

There is a joke in Canada about why drinking American beer is like making love in a canoe. The punchline notes their common proximity to water. We may protest that those days are long gone if they ever existed. But who are the "we" who protest? One of the fallacious ideas popular among craft beer nerds is that the 93% or so of people who like beer who do not drink craft beer are fools. We are told that craft beer is the future. We pray for that day that 8% or more of all beer drinkers will soon reject gas station beer for the good stuff. I sometimes wonder who the fools really are.

I was at a ball game last evening in Watertown NY. It is a fine thing to live in a border town. I picked up some Goose Islands, a mix 12 of Brooklyn as well as a few Ommegangs at the grocery store as part of the run but those beers were not on sale at the ball game. There were a couple of light beers on offer and they sold fast. The gang of young couples ahead of me bought themselves rounds as did the Dads over by third base enjoying the Friday night, watching the kids running after fouls. No one was out of control. Every beer seemed to taste like a good reason for another. It was a community beer drinking session.

When I have complained about the good beer meets good food movement, I hope I have made clear it is because of the limits of its appeal. Most people have no interest in fine dining. Most don't care that good food matches with good beer anymore than they care to learn that they might actually like light opera if they just spent some time with it. Some may call them fools but others call them customers. If North American craft beer is ever to move into mass appeal of session drinking, our craft brewers will have to accept that their beers need to be placed in the hands of those young couples and those Dads. It has to meet them where they are found on a regular basis. And where is that? Not at fests or beer bars. Certainly not tucked under linen at precious food pairing events. They are heading to the grocery store, in the backyard and at the game. They are buying beer.

Tasty, accessible, affordable, not needing note taking and not intense. That's what a session beer is. Macro-brewing knows it. Some micros get the point but not enough yet. The session goes on. Will craft beer join in?

[Ed.: This month's edition of The Session is hosted by the fine folk at Top Fermented.]

You know that you've been hanging out with the wrong crowd when you have a sip of a new beer and think it tastes like Pimms or rather those cucumber sticks that sit soaking in Pimms. But it sort of does. The taste opens. Soon the aroma is like a lumber yard in a light damp rain. My guess at rye in this amber ale gives a well balanced peppery spice along with flashes of honey, irn bru, orange, lime and grassiness, cinnamon and almond. Pine even. Fairly modest carbonation makes for a soft easy sipper even with the body and complexity. Care of R+R. The brewer says it has heather, lavender and yarrow... like I could pick those out.

The only other heather ale I personally can compare this with is Fraoch from Scotland. This one is at least as likeable as the BAers will tell you. The Irish Beer Nut (the only true beer nut) loves it. You need any other recommendation than that?

I had the idea that part of my playing at training brewery staff might be to recommend the beginnings of a library. I figure most long distance sales rep and junior brewers have plenty of hours to flip through the pages of text books. I just needed to figure out which ones to select. Right? Then they'll immediately be converted into book wormery. Right?

I figured I had a tough job on my hands. Then I turned on my computer this evening and found that Martyn had posted a piece mere hours ago entitled "How to be a Beer Historian in Just 10 Books" and soon I was in that golden place where I know that someone else has done the heavy lifting already. Except I was not thinking of only beer history and specifically not British brewing history as a focus for my young students. So, here for now is the beginning of my list of works in no particular order to build a beer library around:

• Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Richard W. Unger
• A History of Beer and Brewing by Hornsey
• Booze by Craig Heron
• The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver
• The English Pub by Michael Jackson.
• Three Sheets to the Wind by Pete Brown
• Brewing with Wheat by Stan Hieronymus

I won't repeat my book reviews or references, other than care of the links above, but there is some reasoning behind it. You have to remember that the class in question meets in Canada so Heron's book is essential to understanding why a brewer in Ontario finds himself or herself where they do in relation to everything from styles and laws. Pete's second book is a genial introduction to the world's relationship with ales and lagers. Brewing With Wheat by Stan will give an example of the latest thinking about style largely from the brewer's perspective. The English Pub is Jackson's best and most accessible book which focuses on the consumer's experience in a context analogous or at least related to the British North American scene. The Brewmaster's Table is the best statement on the current key trend in beer marketing even if it is not one I would rely on too heavily. And the work of both Unger and Honsey is stunning in both their scale and detail.

There are many more books to add. This is only the start of the library. But I think this selection displays the range of text that are out there. What would you add?

That is what the headline read. I heard it from Paul and thought "it's a joke, right?"

No joke. See, there are things that don't go with beer like driving a car and then there are things that not only go with beer but are only really about the beer - dwile flonking is one of them. But not everyone agrees in Norfolk:

Norfolk District Council had warned licernsees Lorraine Clinch and Sue Hancock at the Ludham Dog Inn that the game would classify as a drinking game and would be illegal under the new code. Dwile flonking involves competitors throwing a beer soaked towel at opponents using a pole. If you miss your target twice in a row you have to down a pot of real ale.

The Code? Apparently on their way out the door Old Labour decided to impose a code for proper alcohol retailing and included restrictions on drinking games. Now I understand what Pete was going on about last winter with the whole dentist's chair thing. But not even Pete could have imagined this would reach out and suck the life out of dwile flonking.

Dwile flonking? It gets a page and a half in 1975's Pub Games of England including this bit on its creation: "According to one account it was a court pastime of King Offa of Mercia in the eighth century. According to another it was dreamed up by an underworked BBC man during an extended tea-break." I lean towards the latter understanding.

Does it matter that this strikes at silly middle-aged reasonably middle-class made up rural drinking game when the law was clearly aimed at urban youff? I suppose it shouldn't... but that would make it a dumb law, right? Unless the dwile flonkers are out of control and no one is admitting it.

You would think that the headline "Alcoholic ginger beer set to be most popular summer drink in England" might mean that someone is claiming that alcoholic ginger beer set to be most popular summer drink in England. But it isn't. There is no way in Hell that beer or tea or even fruit juice will be outsold by the stuff yet there it is:

Ginger beer is going to be this summer’s most popular drink with the beverage fast gaining a devoted consumer base. The competitively priced drinks have already bested many well-established beers in terms of sales... “It really has taken the drinks market by storm. It appeals to a really wide market from older drinkers who remember traditional ginger beer to curious youngsters,” a supermarket drinks buyer told The Mirror.

"Most popular" - that's it. The story in Daily News and Analysis, whatever that is, is lifted from The Mirror which ran the headline "Alcoholic ginger beer set to be drink of the summer" - much better in its overt meaninglessness. Meaninglessness is comforting.

I am starting to develop a theory, a little pet idea, that there is no actual knowledge about anything in the drinks trade. Expertise is based on assertion and opportunity. Reversible hats with labels like journalist / judge and critic / consultant get passed around according to the best chance to make a buck. Is this so bad? Times are tough and acceptance of this simple principle would certainly have relieved Pete of the need to update his very good but very first book. Except that presumes his revision is more accurate. Maybe it's just different. Which may well make it the book of the summer. Or even the most popular.