Esquire: Why the "Session" Beer Trend Makes Zero Sense

Maybe some brewers simply like the flavor profile of beers styles (especially lagers) that happen to be lower ABV, and the secondary benefit is that they are lower ABV? Crazy, right?

 

Think about yourself ten years ago. Remember what the US beer scene was like 10 years ago (I know a lot of the younger beer hipsters were in grade school then - the same ones that now buy up all the Pliny the same hour it's delivered to my local). Pretend you are still that 10-years younger version of yourself and then imagine that in 2014 there would be millions (thousands, whatever) of choices of styles at all gravity levels now available to you. Oh no! you can have a super hoppy IPA in the afternoon and not feel bloated? That sucks! You can enjoy a super-flavorful coffee stout for breakfast if you want and still drive a car? How unfair! My wife loves hoppy beers, and she can can nurse a 4% IPA over an afternoon even though she's breastfeeding? The humanity! The indignity of it all!

Would the 2004 version of yourself be complaining about that? Or would the 2004 version of yourself reach 10 years into the future and slap your current self in the face.

In 2004 you couldn't get an IPA in most restaurants in America. Now you're probably complaining because the keg is over 2 weeks old.

But by all means, keep complaining about having more choices.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with the author. The friends of mine who're interested in sessionable beers all have drinking problems and need to be drinking something the entire time they're out.

 

Boy you can really tell which users have been around awhile vs. those who are wet behind the ears in threads like these.

Anyone remember Ding? That guy would be having a conniption fit reading this thread.

"MUST BE UNDER 4%!!!"

 

You've changed my stance. After all your friends do represent the entireity of the population. Oh wait...

 

You can only really appreciate a good Mild after a round (imperial) gallon. In one sitting.

 

This thread is like a wildfire. Just when we thought the last flame had been doused....

But you're right - every alcoholic I know automatically reaches for the lowest ABV drink possible. Have you tried the session methylated spirits yet? Pure awesome

 

You sound ignorant.

 

I didn't even read the article because I know it will just piss me off... That being said, I was skeptical and/or critical of the session ale boom at first, but certainly warmed up to it. I don't drink beer for the alcohol. If I wanted alcohol, I sure as hell wouldn't drink beer, that's for sure. It's all about that flavor baby. When I find a beer with tons of flava flav and its low ABV, then guess who is buying it?

 

Wow...for me a "session" means having the same beer two days in a row! I guess in that sense, I have "sessioned" some mighty high ABV beers... I'm not big into volume. If and when I feel like I have had enough beer, I don't drink any more regardless of the situation. So there's that - kinda seems like common sense. If the people I am with have a problem with that, they've never said anything and if they did, so what? If I'm out for a couple hours and feel like "nursing" a 10% impy stout, that's what I will do - everybody else can do whatever they want. Makes no matter to me. I don't feel as though I "have to" always have a beer in my hand - thinking about beer is a different story...pretty sure that goes 24/7.

Here's the disclaimer - I don't care what, how much, or how often anybody else drinks. It's a free country and we all can do as we choose. That works both ways. I'm a lightweight when it comes to consumption - I don't care, but neither should anybody else. What works for me doesn't make me "right" or anybody else "wrong".

I can really relate to the post by @AlcahueteJ - beer has been a "full circle" journey for me, maybe in a couple of ways. From the young guy pounding down cases of swill supplemented with crappy bourbon just to get drunk (all too frequently), to not drinking at all because of that, to slowly getting into better beer and good bourbon in reasonable (for me) quantity. Then came BA - wow...I gotta have me ALL of these big, bad-ass beers everyone's talking about. Headlong into the deep end of the pool (with restraint on total volume) so I can play along. Frankly, after a while, I got tired of drinking those beers. Don't get me wrong - I do love me a big imperial stout or other high ABV beer as much as the next guy, but for me they are an "occassion" - might take me all night to get through one. I've come to appreciate the more subtle styles much more than I ever have - maybe as a result of going through that indoctrination phase. The amount doesn't matter to me - the quality of the experience does. Leaning how to dissect the flavors and understand how the beers are built - important to me whether it's a big beer or a small beer. What doesn't matter to me in the slightest is how much volume I can drink in an arbitrary time frame. What does that have to do with it? It's almost the same argument about putting the stopper in the bomber vs. "man up" and drink that sumbitch - yeah, I stopper bombers all the time, so what?

I'm not exactly sure what the argument is here - it's kind of all over the place (so is my post, I suppose). That Esquire sucks and the author is an idiot? Maybe so, but I really didn't think the article was that far off base and we aren't their target demographic to begin with (at least I don't think so). There's all kinds of beer, there's all kinds of people, and we're all free to choose what we want. Naming things and categorizing things is a human thing to do, so we have a "session" category however loosely defined and probably far from the original intent of the word. No - I've never been to England, but I get the concept - lower ABV with big flavors. Equating "sessionable" to BMC doesn't make sense to me. Thankfully we have many choices across a wide ABV spectrum. Ten years ago, could we say the same thing? What were our choices? There were variations on the same theme with damned few exceptions. Shoot...Heineken at 5% was the beer to get wasted on in high school...strong stuff

 

This is really just one of those colored subjects. Like, uh..."I've noticed some people are really into the color blue for whatever reason. Come on, blue? Really? It's obvious for reasons X,Y, and Z that they really should be wearing purple because I like purple for its complexity and it makes me feel hip and all." People just gotta care about other people's taste I guess. Life's too short to sweat the small stuff. Access to variety and quality is really all I ask for. Oh, and reasonable prices 'cuz that's an exit not an entrance back there.

 

Yeah I'll be that guy who of course didn't bother reading the article (I mean it's Esquire... say no more)...

But culturally there is a difference in America compared to the rest of the world when it comes to just "things" in general.

We equate bigger with better. More of something.. is greater value

• Bigger cars
• Bigger houses
• Bigger restaurant portions
• Bigger salaries

and so forth. Europe isn't really like this, and I also think it translates into the drinking and in this case beer culture, and if you want to then say this whole "session" mentality.

It's neither right or wrong it's just different, we seem to be gravitating towards bigger beers, bigger aromas, bigger abv, big bourbon barrel booming busting bodacious beers etc... as being favorable and ideal for some beer drinking. Europe isn't really like this where the whole session idea makes a little more sense. It's also a great place to visit.

They both have their right time and place.

 

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Except, Wachusett did this 3-4 years ago and it didn't sell. Because the word "light" or "lite" on a beer can, is to craft beer drinkers what garlic and holy water is to Vampires. So "session" was invented as nice marketing pitch for lower calorie, lower carb (lower abv) hoppy beers. Since we already talked about "sessionality" it didn't have the stigma of "lite". Those beers have their place, and kudos to brewers for trying to make them as good tasting as they can be. It's not a stupid trend. Hell, I love a nice 14% BCBS, but you know, it just isn't the right beer for all occasions. The author drank 5 Harvest ales at 228 calories each. All-Day from Founders is 147 each. That's a 405 calorie difference. Carb count is similar. Some don't care, some do. Some worry about driving home, some take a cab. Options are good.

 

I would simply argue that Europe is a more complex entity than a mere US-Europe divide on the issue of lower abv beers. The abv of a regular beer in most (all?) European countries outside of the UK will be closer to 5% than 4%. Norwegians have their 4.7% pilsners, Finns have their 4.5-4.7% pilsners, Swedes have their 5.2% Export lagers, Germans have their 4.6-4.9% pilsners, Danes have their 4.6% pilsners etc. In Sweden there's a market for 3.5% beers in the grocery channel since beer above this strenght is only allowed to be sold at government owned stores, but it's not held in high regard (and hasn't been held in high regard for the last 70 odd years). The UK is rather unique in having high taxes yet a substantial amount of sales of lower abv beers. My explanation for this is the greater degree of beer consumption on-premise, in pubs, a heritage which is lacking in other high-tax countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland.

 

I totally agree. Stone has been making Levitation Ale for years. It's a tasty low abv amber. But they wouldn't be caught dead calling it a light beer, and the session fad had not yet started when they began brewing it. Then they release Go To IPA and everyone says they are just chasing a fad.

When I first started drinking craft, I would inevitably overdo it on IPAs while watching football on Sundays. I really wasn't trying to get hammered, but I wanted the flavor and I wanted to have a few beers watching a game or two. That's 10AM in CA, and by the time 4PM rolled around I could be a hot mess.

I eventually switched to nice pilsners or modest pale ales to get through an afternoon. (This was before I had kids - I would go to sports bar every Sunday. Now I'm lucky if I have time for one beer.) But I love that there are now options if I want a nice hop kick without ruining myself for the rest of the day.

 

The basic concept of a light beer is to start with a lower than normal original gravity and milk it for all it's worth in terms of alcohol production (in order to do this a brewery might add enzymes to help this process along), most likely combined with high gravity brewing for maximum efficiency (i.e water down the beer). That's not the premise of "session strenght" craft beers, which are lower gravity and thus lower in alcohol, but it's not the same process as that of a light beer which I think is important to consider. One way in which craft breweries could try and add more body to these beers would be to lower the degree of attenuation to produce a fuller bodied beer at a lower gravity. At the degree of attenuation which is standard nowadays a brewery has to ramp up the wort strenght and abv in order to get the mouthfeel which might be desired by some consumers. If they pulled back on the degree of attenuation they could deliver a fuller bodied beer at a lower abv.

 

My compliments to @Nick_Bousquet for his numerous well written and cogent posts in this thread! He has a lot of good points and I appreciated reading them.

Cheers to Nick!!!!!!

 

I appreciate the feedback and compliment Jack (assuming that is your name, sorry if it is not), I felt like I was struggling to properly articulate the concept I have in mind and I seemed to have failed to reach most of the readers here, however I need to take a break from the thread as replying to all the responses can be a daunting task. Also, I was unaware that you could simply tag a person's user name and that it would alert them so thanks for the education as well. Cheers, comrade!

 

Unfortunately, at this point "session" has little meaning beyond the shallow "5% ABV or below" definition assigned by this web site. Of course, there is a UK contingent that insists that it should be 4%, but that is moot, really.

"Session", once the term has been separated from being applied exclusively to UK pub ales, tells you nothing about the beer itself, nor about the reason someone would be drinking it, since it includes AAL lights, classic European lagers and ales (Pilsener, Kölsch, etc.), classic Bitish ales (bitter, mild), American summer seasonals of various types, so-called Blonde ales, and the recent trend in "session" pale ales and IPAs.

There is a place for all of these, but they are hardly all members of the same family or style nor are they marketed nor bought by the same people for the same reason. They all just, almost coincidently, share a characteristic of being less than 5% ABV. It is no wonder opinions range all over the map when the author of the Esquire piece tries to pretend they are all the same and then we argue about it.

The author wrote drivel. That, really, should have ended the discussion.