Summer of Session IPAs

The breweries are just responding to customer demand. My personal take on these offerings is that a few will find a small niche in the market and many will just fade away, never to be heard from again or rebranded as something else.

 

If I have a pint of a 5% beer as opposed to a 4% abv brew, I'm drinking 25 grams of alcohol as opposed to 20. That's 25% more alcohol, over the course of six pints at the bar that's 30 grams more alcohol, or, more than a full pint's worth of booze. It's not just 1% higher.

Compare that to a 6% beer, or a 7% IPA.....or higher, you get the point. One of the many reasons Bud Light far outsells Budweiser, that extra ~1% does make a difference.

 

Fads are not necessarily "either/or" things. There can be a solid base of support among many for something and then a big surge of interest (fad) which eventually dies out but leaving behind that solid base, maybe with the base actually having grown some.

 

Lawson's will soon be canning their Super Session #2 with Amarillo hops.

 

Yeah, I was being a goof. As I age I notice those increments of alcohol more and more.

 

If you can't tell a difference between, say, Stone Pale Ale and Stone Go To IPA, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

The American beers I've had don't seem particularly flavourful or complex for their strength.

Dear Lord, when are our friends across the pond going to grasp the idea of a session beer ? 5% is far too high for this purpose.It's supposed to be a beer that you want one after another after another, even if it's not the only beer available and low enough gravity to enable the average Joe to do this for hours on end.

There's no authoritative body deciding what is what. Nobody brews an IPA remotely like the beers which started it all, the UK has been brewing session ales labelled IPA for around a century by now . All IPAs are of course by definition Pale Ales anyway ("Pale Ale as prepared for the India market" so who is to say what is and what isn't an IPA ?

 

Session IPA was sooooo last summer. This year it's all about Gose. Get on board this bandwagon right now.

 

I don't think the style is going to go away because it's never going to be unfashionable to have the want or desire to be able to drink for hours on end while also being able to avoid hitting the shitshow button.

 

I had the same mentality until I bought a 15 pack of All Day, then another. I pay the same price per beer for that 15 pack, or less, as I would for 15 SNPAs or Dales. And although I consider the latter two beers "better", there is a time and place where an All Day IPA is a better option. That time being summer and that place being southwest Texas.

 

Summer of Craft Lagers IMO.

 

I will take all of your Easy Jack for as long as you will provide it. That is one hell of a great beer, doesn't matter what the ABV on it is. So drinkable and enjoyable and looking forward to it as a staple in my fridge.

 

I don't see the session IPA boom going away anytime in the near future. They are obviously popular enough to warrant the production and increased number of offerings. No reason to believe that will be changing. That being said, I still have yet to try one that makes me say "hey, this is so good I'd like to drink 7 or 8 in a row without getting drunk." To each his own, but I'd much prefer to drink something like Headhunter or Dirtwolf. Sip it, and drink a water in between beers if it's some sort of all day event. I'd rather have the IPA and water mix in my belly than my glass.

 

What a depressing way to drink beer. Just get hold of a good well brewed low ABV beer and after a very short while you'll not notice the slightly lower flavours. Your taste buds soon compensate.Beer was invented to drink not sip.
But if you don't want to drink 7 or 8 (Imperial pints I hope)of it in a row than it is falsely labelled as a session beer.Get the right beer and that's all you want to do.

 

Thank you for saying this I totally agree. There isnt a single session that I would actually want to have a session with.

 

To be clear, my intention was not to discredit lower ABV beers in general. There are many I thoroughly enjoy. I was specifically referencing the abundance of beers marketed as session IPA's in the states. I respect your opinion, but fail to see what is depressing about my stance on American IPA's or the "way" I drink them.

Edit: It's also not my intention to give the impression I only see beer through the American spectrum. But the premise of the OP was clearly focused on the American market.

 

If I'm out on the golf course, which I frequent often, I'm going to have a Bud Heavy or Bud Light. So why not a have a nice session ipa? Two Roads Lil' Heaven is better than those options.

 

You're very opinionated whenever a session thread shows up. We get it and we get that a session beer should last a session. Culturally though we come from different places and that's what you miss, I think. I'm not sure about these guys but I don't have the time in a day to drink 7-8 imperial pints with any sort of regularity. Also, speaking culturally, it's not acceptable for most to drink before, during or when returning to work. I would also venture to guess we work longer hours on average. These factors alone mean shorter sessions and in turn stronger beers. Session for most of us will never mean what session means to you, time to move on.

 

7 or 8 Imperial pints? Unfortunately most beers labelled session over here come in 12 ounces, so you'd need to drink 12 or 13 of them.

 

That's a good point I hadn't really contemplated. Working 50+ hours/week with an 18 month old son at home gives me very few opportunities to really worry about "sessioning" anything.