Session vs. Extreme Beers

Whether you dig the term or not, there’s no denying that the “extreme beer” movement in America has played a very large role in the success of today’s growing craft beer market, put the US back on the map for good beer and influenced quite a few international brewers. Not only has it created a new passion for beer with a generation that will not grow up on BudMillerCoors, but it’s also spawned a generation of brewers who’ve thrown style out the door, resulting in some of the most creative and tasty beers ever consumed on planet Earth.

Unfortunately, some consumers, beer writers and brewers have made it their personal goal to dismiss extreme beers at every opportunity in a manner that’s reminiscent of craft vs. macro bashing. Their platform is a call for more session beers—i.e., beers 4.5-percent alcohol by volume and under, with just enough flavor to keep you interested in drinking more than one, or many. Their target enemy is extreme beers, and they narrowly focus on pockets of hype surrounding some of the more popular big beer releases.

Now, we love a well-made session beer, but we take issue with this.

1) Many crusading for session beers are stereotyping and belittling one of the greatest and uniquely American beer movements in decades by equating extreme beers solely with either beers that are highly hopped, beers high in alcohol, or both, and associating people who are into them as tattooed, pierced freaks who guzzle alcohol quicker than an eight-cylinder SUV hopped-up on road rage.

C’mon. Anyone not living in a bubble knows that extreme beer runs the gamut and simply represents the passion of brewers who’ve decided to push the boundaries of brewing. While some extreme brewing does indeed result in highly hopped and high alcoholic beers, it’s more about flavors, using exotic ingredients, employing strange brewing methods, revisiting the past and creating the new. Extreme beer keeps beer fun and the industry constantly evolving, and has helped to raise beer’s image above a standard ale or lager dumped into a 16-ounce tumbler pint glass.

2) They talk about more beers that allow them to have another, or many, but even at 4.5-percent, when does another, or many, become too many? Is it wise to promote the fact that you can drink many?

3) Session beers actually outnumber extreme beers. It’s just a fact. According to recent data on BeerAdvocate, out of the total number of beers in our database with a listed ABV, 20 percent fall within the session beer genre. Extreme beers represent 17 percent. And the number of new releases for session beers trumps extreme beers on an ongoing basis. Extreme beers simply appear to dominate due to beer geek hype, which has proven a successful tool for many growing craft breweries.

Lastly, beer is many things, and there’s plenty of room for session beers, extreme beers and everything in between in this wonderful world of beer that we drink in. So why target one in order to promote another? It’s all beer! Enjoy them both, or not, but some need to stop taking an elitist stance in order to promote one craft beer genre over another. It’s lame.

Personally, we agree the world could use more session beers (good ones, of course). We just don’t feel it’s necessary to bash extreme beers in order to achieve this.

Respect Beer. ■