Beer Forum

BN Army and regular listeners, aside from the usual suspects (JZ, John Palmer, Doc, Tasty, JP, Shat, etc...) I'm curious as to your top 5 Sunday Session guests and brewers you feel have had a meaningful impact on your brewing philosophy and techniques. Also which guest would you like to hear from again.


Shea Comfort - His discussion on Wine and Beer Yeast blending as well as Oak Aging presented an endless amount of options for my brewing. I will admit, since he talks so fast, I've had to listen to the Session episode about 4 times to soak in a majority of the info. My impression is he could talk about brewing for 24 hours straight and not be out of useful info.

Colin Kaminski - Water Chemistry, water chemistry, water chemistry. Overall very informative guy who likes to talk brewing with home brewers. Seems like the type of person who would research a lot if he didn't understand something. He has inspired me to not give up on looking for answers to my brewing questions. Surprised he hasn't written a book.

Dan Gordon - My favorite German-style american brewer. His historical knowledge of brewing and assertiveness in Beer Jeopardy has made me look more into the history of brewing. Very cool guy. Never trust a skinny brewer!

Nathan Smith - His overall knowledge of brewing and hop compounds has made me really evaluate how and when I hop my beers. He is very easy going and very informed for being a "younger" brewer. It's great to hear him appearing on more and more current Session episodes.

Nicole Erny - Very informative on describing beers. While she may not have a mainstream approach to analyzing beer, she has definitely made me take a deeper look into what I'm tasting in a beer. This has helped me be more critical of the good and bad components of the beers I've brewed. Not to mention she seems down to earth and actually likes to drink while on the air.

Guest I would like to see again:
Without a doubt, Shea Comfort.

This is not to say I have not learned a great deal or enjoyed other guests but to me I felt these guests have provided info that you can't just find by reading a book or listening to Brew Strong or CYBI. Cheers to all the Brewcasters and these guest in going out of their way to present complex info in a competent manner

Mark Carpenter (and crew) from Anchor Brewing.

Mufasa from BJ's.

Mitch from Stone Brewing.

Sully from 21A.

Chris Graham from B3.

I agree with your first three for the most part. Although, I think Colin's best were the recipe design episodes by far. I would drop Nathan and Nicole and bring in Vinnie and either Chris Graham or the White's. Vinnie definitely belongs in there and the other two fight it out for the last spot. Several of the shows with Vinnie, I have just had to pause and reflect on the amount and quality of the information he puts out.

I will say, personally, I don't get a lot out of the Nicole shows. It seems like more often than not she is presenting 5 minutes of info in 30 minutes of time. I know getting drunk at the end of an episode can be funny but I find her dotw attempts really detract from her message.

BrewChemistinCO wrote:I agree with your first three for the most part. Although, I think Colin's best were the recipe design episodes by far. I would drop Nathan and Nicole and bring in Vinnie and either Chris Graham or the White's. Vinnie definitely belongs in there and the other two fight it out for the last spot. Several of the shows with Vinnie, I have just had to pause and reflect on the amount and quality of the information he puts out.

I will say, personally, I don't get a lot out of the Nicole shows. It seems like more often than not she is presenting 5 minutes of info in 30 minutes of time. I know getting drunk at the end of an episode can be funny but I find her dotw attempts really detract from her message.

I think that's the great part about the Session. Every guest can impact homebrewers in a different way. Its tough to try to memorize all the useful info each guest presents, but you can definitely tell when you don't get much out of a guest. For Nicole I would agree. She probably knows how to describe a beer better than most people, but I think it may take her 30 min to describe a 5 minute process simply because there is no black and white way of describing how to improve expressing your personal take on a beer. You definitely need to catch her info earlier on in the podcast as opposed to later.

OK this is a good one so here goes.

1. JZ - I know that you said not counting him, but back in the day those session appearances made a big impact.

2. Brian Hunt - He may not give the best interview, but his answer to every brewing question is spot on (taste it!) Plus he told Dan Gordon to lay off the fatty foods and that takes balls.

3. Vinnie

4. Shea - he changed the way that I think about oak.

5. Gordon Strong - He taught me that if you don't like the rules, you shouldn't enter the competition.

In no particular order: Dan Gordon, Vinnie C, Chris Graham, and I can't remember his name, but the guy from the HB store in SF.

1) Vinnie he needs a 4 hour Vinnie show, and must cover everything hops and bugs

2) Dan Gordon/Mufasa its hard to pick between these two, brewing philosophy is the same and both are great in the studio

3) Shea Comfort I'm sure he has much more wisdom to be imparted, but with his oak tasting session was awesome

4) Colin Kaminski just so much to offer: water chemistry, recipe formulation etc

5) Brian Hunt at first I wasnt sure about him, he almost seemed like he just wanted to be different than everyone else, like JP, but then the 2nd show just changed my opinions on styles and why beer is what it is where it is

Needless to say there are probably a dozen other people I could put in 6th place that I would love to hear from again, to see how if they are still doing what they were doing or if things had changed and what they may have needed to adapt to.

fulkrum78 wrote:In no particular order: Dan Gordon, Vinnie C, Chris Graham, and I can't remember his name, but the guy from the HB store in SF.

You must mean Homer from the oak barrel.
I agree with you but can't forget Michael. Ferguson. Aka mufasa