The June edition of The Session, number 124, is hosted by David Bardallis of All the Brews Fit to Pint, and the topic he’s chosen is saudade: Late, Lamented Loves.

I mean a beer you remember fondly but which is no longer in production.

It needn’t be an objectively “great” beer, though it could be. It could also be a nostalgic or youthful memory. It could be a “go-to” you still reflexively want to reach for. It could be all of these things.

Maybe the brewery and the beer are both long gone. Maybe the brewery is still around but just decided for whatever reason not to continue producing the glorious nectar you still pine for.

Whatever the case, there’s probably at least one beer that’s already leapt to your mind that fits into this description. Maybe even more than one, and, if so, feel free to go there.

I’ve been thinking about this and honestly I’m having trouble coming up with any definitive beers. An obvious one would be Twilight Ale from Deschutes Brewery: this hugely popular summer ale first introduced in 2004 and was (finally) discontinued last year in favor of Hop Slice, their lemony summer brew. Twilight was a local favorite for many and something of a summertime tradition around here, and except for Cinder Cone Red, might be the one from Deschutes that people miss the most. I always enjoyed the annual release of Twilight as well and wouldn’t be sorry to see it return…

Another beer-of-Deschutes-past that comes to mind as I write this was their Buzzsaw Brown, a terrific example of the underrated brown ale style. Buzzsaw was a seasonal in their Bond Street Series and had its heyday in the mid- to late-aughts. Unfortunately there’s just not enough of a market for brown ales it seems, and it along with Cinder Cone Red was supplanted by Red Chair NWPA.

I’m picking on Deschutes here because they are the oldest and largest of my local breweries, and as such the closest to a “regular” that I have—and they’ve been brewing for a long time, so there are bound to be long-gone beers to miss. Fortunately they have also been amazingly steady over the years with such long-standing beers as Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Black Butte Porter, Obsidian Stout, and Jubelale. I’m not sure what I would do if any of those went away…