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

Never understood it either. Most standard non imperial/double style beers are plenty "sessionable" to me.

 

You'd give me the 1/2 of the Heady cuz you're a great guy and love to share. Thanx.

 

No way, man. "Not my thing" = "This doesn't make sense & needs to disappear"

 

In theory I agree with you, but the bank that holds the mortgage, the paychecks that need paid, the bottles that hold the beer, the boxes that hold the bottles, the trucks that carry the boxes and the stores that sell the beer do not care that there is less alcohol in the bottle.

The ingredients for the beer are only a small part of the overall cost of your beer

 

hahaha I'd def share, i was just trying to make session beers feel better!

 

This is a really good point, I may not always think this way but I can definitely see other peoples angle on it.

which is why people aren't willing to pay a lot of money on a Gose or Berliner Weisse....

 

"Still, if you’re really so concerned about drinkability, I can point you to something that both tastes great and is less filling. It’s called water. Enjoy your next session, chum."

100% agree. I have no interest in session drinking if the point is to get as many beers in my body as quickly as possible; I drink primarily for flavor. And the author enjoying 5 beers over a 6 hour drinking period sounds just about right. If you're drinking great beer, take a little time to properly enjoy it!

 

uhhhhhmmmmmmm.........many many lagers are session beers. I know that on BA session ale can be synonymous with session IPA, but any style of beer with a low ABV is a session beer, even lagers

 

What you just said makes no sense. It's a narrow-minded opinion. Are you telling me that all FWD cars are slow or that all models are unintelligent? There are plenty of full-flavored low ABV beers out there. Infact, there's about ten in my refrigerator, right now. Otter Creek Overgrown APA, Otter Creek Hop Session, Carton Boat Beer, Stone Go To IPA, Founder's All Day IPA, anything from Tired Hands Brewing Co. Come on, man!

I think we just figured out who has the real drinking problem...

 

True and agreed. But for me, it's a perception issue. And it takes longer to produce more alcohol in the beer so fewer batches are made in the course of a year. Economies of scale.

 

I think this is another reason why "session" beer doesn't make sense in an American context & has been kind of shoe-horned into American craft culture. From what I understand, taxation of beer in the UK has historically been based on ABV/ingredients vs. just volume, as it is in the US, so a less strong beer would be correspondingly less expensive & conducive, economically, to drinking multiples. It doesn't make sense to "session" a beer here if it costs the same as a moderately stronger beer, so "sessioning" becomes cost-prohibitive.

 

But at the same time, "session" beer is promoted as conducive to serial drinking, & the implicit message becomes "you'll pay the same price per drink, but we're encouraging you to buy more of them".

 

You're getting less ALCOHOL. I'm fairly sure the $8 whole cheese pizza at the Sicilian place across the street from me has far more calories than the filet mignon at the expensive steak place in the city. I'm paying more for the steak because of how it tastes, and if it's a quality product, not because of how many calories it has.

Alcohol does not equal value.

If it wasn't for the session IPA craze this article would never have been written. Low abv English cask ales, pilsners, hefeweizens....etc. have been around for quite some time. In fact, lower abv beers are still what sells. Look at Sam Adams Boston Lager at 4.9%.

And while I agree that low abv doesn't have to mean taking a stronger style and watering it down, I'm also not a fan of taking a lower abv style and "imperializing" it.

 

He starts with a graphic that says he doesn't know what a session beer is, but I soldiered on and continued reading, until I got to this:

"If we’re being honest, “sessioning” is just binge-drinking..."

No, it isn't. This guy is obviously clueless and writing complete drivel. He has no understanding of the great, complex, tasty "session" beers from the UK, for example, nor does he understand why people like them.

Drivel from an aging frat boy.

 

And my cynical nature says - maybe big beer is going to try and change that. After all, they have the means to grease the skids, i.e. lobbyists in place and they certainly have the incentive to have higher ABV beer taxed at a higher rate. Kinda like what the feds are doing to the legal pot sellers in CO - taxing them to the max.

 

Yup, good old capitalism hard at work.

 

I enjoy tasty low alcohol beers. Anything with "session" or some equivalent in the name tends to fail in the flavor department. It's a nice marketing gimmick, but I can get a quality low alcohol brew without it having to be called "session." That's just a way to sell more beer to idiots.

 

Relating alcohol content to value and worth of purchase. Craft beer cuture at is finest. This is us now. Maybe everyone can stop trying to deny it now. You can hardly find a person who says the alcohol is important to them here, but then those same people won't pay for lower alchol beers at similar prices.

"I would drink beer even if it had no alcohol because the taste is all that matters." GFY.

 

More than 90% of the U.S. drinking public prefers lower alcohol beers that can be drunk in quantity over long periods of time. Unlike both macros and most high-ABV "craft" beer, the best session beers get better the more you drink of them. Yep, the session beer trend makes no sense at all.... (The article is just click-bait and itself makes zero sense.)