How do you define a session beer?

By my lights, a session beer is 4.0% abv or less and has a flavor and feel that allows you to drink several-to-many over the course of hours without losing your taste for it.

Now let's talk about which DIPA is the new Pliny.

I mean Heady, Heady!

 

Keeping it brief there are two camps:

1. Session beer has to be 4% ABV or under. Any style.
2. Session beer can be whatever people like to drink in a session. People in this camp often quote beers that are 6-7% ABV or more. They clearly have great alcohol tolerance and/or very short sessions.

I'm in the former.

 

Well, I think it depends on your interpretation of "session". How many beers are generally consumed during this time?

I'd be comfortable with a 5-6% beer for most sessions.. To me, the repetitiveness of the flavors is more of a problem than the ABV. Like, I love SNPA.. but I don't want to drink 4 in a row, despite its alcohol content. However, give me 10 Allagash Whites in a row at 5%.

 

No. I does not depend on your interpretation of a session.

There are basically 2 definitions out there and it depends on which one you want to subscribe to. Other folks do not choose to use either definition. There are others who will resort to the term "sessionable" to call whatever beer that they like a 'session' beer.

This topic has been discussed many many times. It usually doesn't end well and gets locked down because there is no answer that suits everybody and some folks become quite unhinged over this issue. I'd suggest you do a search for this term to see what has happened in the past. This thread will turn out no different.

Edit: my own search does not turn up much. I'd assume that this is because most of these threads get nuked instead of simply locked down. It is that divisive.

 

3. Camp that believes there is a hard cutoff, but that it's not 4%. Personally, my rule of thumb is 5% or less. I know this is contrary to what historically were considered "session ales" and the root for the term, but that tends to be a good dividing line (for me) between beers that I can drink several of without getting shitty and beers that I have to pace myself.

This might seem amusing to someone who's standard is lower than my own, but 6-7% seems absurd for a session beer, especially given the fact that the general rule of thumb for "Imperial" beers is 7.5%. That makes for a hilariously small window between "session" and "imperial".

 

In in the same camp, but think 5% is too high. Beers just under 5% are too close to "standard" beers to be session. 4.8% isnt far enough away from 5%.

However, I dont want to exclude 4.2% beers just because they happen to be a bit over 4%. They seem to fit better with the 4%ers than with the 5%ers. So I end up with something like a 4.5% cutoff. But the idea for me is more "noticeably smaller than a typical 5% beer".

 

Ok, we CANNOT interpret it how we want. There are 2 schools of thought, and we MUST subscribe to one. THAT'S IT!!!!

Beer Communism.

 

Now you're gettin' it.

 

My definition that I use is less than 4% abv

 

If you can't agree on a meaning then it becomes meaningless.Like the ad I saw which said "you could save up to $1000 or more" (my italics)
Where the term came from it refers entirely to the strength of the beer , it's one specifically designed to enable drinking of pint after pint for an indeterminate period of time.This eventually became settled at below 4% , and breweries describe stronger brews than this as "premium beers." So Fuller's describe Chiswick Bitter (3,5%) as a session beer but London Pride (4.1%) as a Premium Bitter.It has nothing to do with what the drinker feels he can put away at a time.

 

So I guess that puts us both in Camp 3, but under different subdivisions of the camp. LOL

 

To be honest, having lived in the US for five years now, I do understand why a lot of people have to up their ABV limit on what they consider to be a session beer. Although I still believe a session beer is sub 4%, in practice it's often not possible to go to a bar and get a sub 4% beer on tap.

Here's my old local -

http://www.beermenus.com/places/188-blind-tiger-ale-house

And now that I've moved to Brooklyn, here is my new one -

http://www.beermenus.com/places/1122-the-double-Windsor

Nothing on the tap list at either place qualifies as session.

Really it's a UK cultural thing, which at least for now, hasn't caught on in the US.

If I want to drink a session beer tonight, it would most likely involve buying a sub 4% beer from a beer store and drinking it at home. Which defeats the purpose of what a session (a long period of time at the pub with friends, drinking) is all about.

Edit - ok I do see they each have one sub 4% beer, but you get what I mean

 

http://beeradvocate.com/articles/653

 

3a: camp that believes in a soft cutoff. There are some beers that are low-abv, even well under 4%, but I couldn't drink more than one or 2 at a shot. However, there are some that are over the 4% or even 5% that don't drink like that. At that point, yes, it does come to a point of where can you safely get home, which is the second point of a sessionable beer.

 

I must admit, BA's article on the issue likely helped me establish my 5% cutoff rule.

 

There is an actual definition that pertains to the abv but in my personal vocabulary I am referring to a beer not more than 6 or 7 percent that is not heavy or too filling and has a flavor that I would want for more than just one beer in the same sitting.

I know that's technically wrong.

 

I think we should just commandeer the term (like we did with British styles such as IPA, Brown Ale, Stout, etc.) and call it an "American Session." Then we can kick the ABV limit up to 10%, boost the IBU's above normal human thresholds, and lower the drinking time to 30 minutes.

 

Under 4% that's mild enough to not fatigue the palate. That doesn't mean that I don't drink multiple 4%+ (or much higher) ABV beers in an evening. But just because it's a session of drinking doesn't mean its a 'session' in the context that 'session beer' is used.

I understand that definitions change over time. And mostly I'm ok with that. This isn't one of those times, though. Just because you can drink 5-6 7% ABV beers and still be good to drive doesn't mean that's normal. The idea of a session beer is that most people can drink 5-6 3.5%ABV beers and still be good to drive - or at least remain mostly functional.

Hell, I'm usually all about flouting tradition. But this case it's about physiology and a drug's impact on the body. No amount of redefining is going to change that. And again. It doesn't matter if you're 6'4" and 260lbs or 5'4" and 260lbs (and thus have a higher tolerance), in either case, you're not representative of the average population.

 

Wow...I get the idea of not wanting to get smashed during a session. But Im listening to these cut-offs for ABV in session beers. And I wonder how many guys are drinking. I blame my history with lots of spirits (lol)...but a 6 of 4.5%....Im downing that within the hour.