Why Session Beer?

Same reason as some people watch TV, read a book or sit in the garden-because they enjoy doing so.
A proper pub isn't a beer store-it's a community. It's a wonderful place to interact with friends and strangers alike and it sells beer too.Fact is you tend to lose track of time.

 

I think that the United States severely lacks a European style pub culture, so I can understand somewhat where the poster is coming from. If you sit in a bar for 7 hours in the US, people are going to say bad things about you, regardless of the ABV of your beer.

This is unlike the UK or Germany where long sessions in pubs or beer gardens are common and are more or less accepted as a normal means of social interaction with friends, family, or even colleagues.

 

I understand where you're coming from, but there are more than likely good bars full of good people and good beer somewhere by you. You just have to look hard enough.

 

I will choose a regular IPA over a session IPA every time. Especially when the price is not commensurate with the product and "full flavored" alternatives. Sure they smell nice and the initial taste is good but it always seems to have a weak mouthfeel and watery finish.

 

Maybe I'm just an alcoholic, but i session normal IPA's. My favorite and most easily available are chillwave, commodore perry and stone IPA. A session brew is most likely low ABV so you can drink a lot. But most cut flavor more than half. I can handle my beer so i wont sacrifice flavor.

 

There are definitely good bars and good people and good beer around me! I'm in a college town, so there's plenty of bars/pubs/beergardens. There are at least three respectable places to go and have a good pint or three of craft.

The difference is that I can walk into any of these places and have ~3 pints of standard craft beer max before a) I start getting inebriated and probably need to stop, and b) people start noticing I'm getting inebriated and probably need to stop and start judging. This is unlike Germany, where, when I was studying abroad, I could go and sip ~4pt over a few hours and not only not start slipping into drunkenness due to the lower ABVs there, but also not feel judgement from patrons.

As another example, when I was working in Michigan this past summer, several coworkers and I would go to a bar that offered 12oz pours, 500mL pours, and 1L pours. I normally would get a 1L pour to start out with and even this was often followed up by "damn" due to the perceived amount I was drinking, despite the fact that I was normally having a 5.3% APA or Hefeweizen- nothing insane by US standards.

 

Session beers are great for the lake and long parties.

That said, I agree with the others in that breweries are price gouging with them. Yes, hops aren't cheap, but you're telling me stone uses more hops by volume in go to than their other beers? And make does cost money, otherwise why do imperial stouts cost more also? Full disclosure, I've been home brewing for 5 years now, I know for a fact that it's cheaper to produce a session IPA vs. a regular IPA, why not pass along some of that?

 

When we're talking about bulk ordering of hops and malt, I'm sure the margin between a session IPA and regular IPA aren't all that different. Same labor/marketing/labelling/distro costs, lower malt cost, same or similar hop cost. Since the malt is pretty cheap, especially considering the fact that these breweries have massive grain stores, I'm sure we're talking a cents on the dollar difference in production costs. I can especially see this being true if the session IPA is dry hopped, which many of them appear to be.

Generally, I'm also of the opinion that the consumer is willing to pay for the flavor. If the consumer is willing to pay (which they clearly are), why lower the cost? We also have to consider the relatively small volume of session IPAs sold and produced by necessity means breweries can't pass substantial savings on to the consumer. I'd be surprised if such savings would amount to anything more than 50cents per sixer. Honestly.

 

I agree with you on both points, especially the second. My best example is that stone's go to is priced above their other offerings. If the market supports it, so be it, but I think that's crazy.

I think my annoyance lies on the other side. When you bring the economies of scale into this as you brought up, why am I stuck paying $11 for a 4 pack of say FBS when it doesn't cost them much if any more than centennial that will soon be less than $20 for a 15 pack?

 

I love IPA's and DIPA's, and I don't crumble at the site of 9% abv or greater. But when I find something that I really like that is hoppy but with a lower abv, that makes me happy (I decided not to use a terrible pun here).

Out here on Long Island, summers are way too short so we try to get in as much outdoor time as we can- our backyard parties go for hours! A really good beer with less than 5% abv is perfect for that situation, which was why Blue Point's Mossaic IPA (and GSB's Hops Daisy) will be filling my cooler this summer. I am not giving up on non-session high abv IPA's, but they aren't conducive to long summer parties!

All this talk of summer parties is making me anxious- it is 56 degrees (and dropping) with 18 mph winds and torrential rain at the moment. Please summer, arrive already!

 

Drinking to get a buzz or even drunk occasionally, but session beers aren't as overwhelming and a lot easier to not go overboard. Why I like craft session beers: I can drink a lot in one session of something that's still flavorful.

I don't normally get drunk, I do like a buzz a lot though, but a lot of times I just like beer. But I won't deny occasionally I like to have too many and feel pretty good, but I also like beer especially good beer.

 

Flavorful, can have 2-3 20oz pints and still in full control of your motor skills, and it reminds me of being in England.

Love me some Samichlaus, BCBS, etc etc etc, but would be happier daily if there were readily available, quality bitters and milds available at under 4%

 

The one thing I take away from this thread is that everyone should appreciate the crazy amount of choices that are available for all tastes. Personally, I would much rather sip on 2 or 3 big beers than bloat myself with 8 or 10 weak ones. If it's an extended affair I'll gladly drink a few glasses of water in between. I guess I just never feel the need to have something I can drink non-stop for hours on end, but that's just me, and that option is the beauty of the current market.

I did enjoy marquis' story of the old bull and the young bull. However, I would much rather sprint to enjoy 1 Kate Upton than walk to enjoy a field full of Kathy Griffins. I'm a quality over quantity guy. And in a more accurate depiction the old bull (assuming he's not too old) would gore the young bull and take all the cows for himself.

 

opportunity cost. Brewing a big beer like an Imperial Stout, Barleywine, etc., usually takes a lot longer than an under 7% beer. If you're knocking out a regular strength beer in 2 weeks but the barleywine takes 3 months, the opportunity cost of that barleywine is 6 batches of regular beer. This is why the big beers are so much more expensive, and this is why homebrewers have a faulty understanding of the costs of brewing - homebrewers don't need to account for opportunity cost, labour, taxes, permits, utilities, etc etc....

 

Drinking in public places was considered a societal problem and taboo for much of the 1900s in Sweden. The people who frequented such places were seen as alcoholics and degenerates, and drinking was mostly confined to the home. I found this American booklet from 1913 to be interesting in how it describes the public drinking establishments of Sweden and Norway, and later contrasts them (and the American saloons and bars) with the beer gardens of Denmark, Germany and Austria:

"The failure to do this constitutes one of the weakest features in the Gothenburg System, especially as enforced in Norway. The Bolag and Samlag drinking bars are avowedly simply places where men can go to satisfy the purely physical sensation of thirst. With the sole exception of the money payment, they perform just the same role for their patrons that the water trough in the street does for horses and cattle.

Men come in, get their drink, swallow it off, and are then expected to go their way, just as the horses and the cattle move on from the through as soon as they have had their fill. In Norway there is even a great reluctance to provide seats, lest the men may be tempted to stay and talk to one another, and in both countries the hours of closing are abnormally early."

"There remains now to show you the places where, and the manner in which, beer is consumed, and since the life of the public-house is in a general way similar to the northern and central countries of Europe, I shall not confine myself to Danish beer gardens but show you the life in the Continental beer gardens in
general. In order to understand the conditions, it is necessary for Americans to divest themselves of two ideas.

First, we must get away from our habit of thought which fixes us permanently in the home when not busy at our daily task. In Europe, the housewife in her times of leisure is more likely to go out for a walk on an afternoon than to sit in a rocking chair and read a novel, and while out, she is quite apt to drop in at one of the gardens. Perhaps she there meets friends, or she has met them in the street and enters with them. Often they have their children along (page 38).

Everybody is as free and unconcerned as at home, no one is under the feeling of restraint and on the qui vive for something improper or offensive to happen, as we are apt to be in public places in this country. In the evening or on Sundays the wife is likely to be at the garden or beer hall with her husband, the daughter with her father and mother, etc., as you will observe in this picture from
Munich (page 38).

In the second place, there is no special feeling as to beer. A man or woman will drink beer as readily and unconcernedly as coffee or chocolate or sparkling water. No woman need feel that people are looking at her askance if she drinks a glass of beer when there is no male escort with her. It is all quite natural and​

normal."

​

 

Weirdly, spirits are relatively cheap in UK pubs. Definitely cheaper than in East Coast US bars.

 

You'll also NEVER find a 7% ABV beer that tastes like Tetley's Mild.

Never had Ram Tam? I'm shocked, disappointed and a little bit sad. You must have tried Merrie Monk. Same idea, just with a snatch.

 

If your band is playing at the pub you're likely to be there for 5-7 hours. 5 pint's of heavy hitters doesn't lend its self to playing your best.

 

Loved All Day IPA. Does what it says on the tin. I certainly tested the all day part.

 

Centennial is 7.2%, FBS is 8.3%. They shouldn't require vastly different fermentation time frames. If anything, all day at 4.7% should be much cheaper with what you're saying about overhead costs.