An ongoing thread got me thinking on this topic. The topic of ‘Session’ beer can be controversial so permit me to provide a guideline and state that a ‘session’ beer is a beer less than 5% ABV. And lower (e.g., something like 4%) is even more appropriate. I suspect that many (most?) BAs will first think of the so-called Session IPA beer style (e.g., Founders All Day IPA) when the topic of ‘Session’ beer is mentioned but other beer styles such as Mild Ale, Bitter Ale, Belgian Table Ales (e.g., Grisette), etc. are applicable here as well. On a related note, I attended the Sly Fox Bock Fest & Goat Race last month and there was a booth there for a new brewery called Soul Tone Beer and they served two very low alcohol beers of 2.5% ABV: a Pilsner and an IPA. I sampled the Pilsner and it was pretty good. Soul Tone Beer is produced at the Sly Fox Brewery. I spoke to one of the owners, Greg Kester, for about 20 minutes and we discussed his journey towards making this business come to fruition and he informed he had a proprietary process to produce these beers. You can learn more here: https://breweriesinpa.com/2-5-abv-m...id-strength-craft-beer-brand-in-pennsylvania/ Just yesterday I visited my local Retail Beer Distributor and I noticed that these beers were now on the shelf. Tell us about your preferences here as regards ‘Session’ beers. Cheers!
Sure. I don't always target something under 5% specifically, but more that I'm targeting something that's roughly around that strength. To me, that's my sweet spot most of the time. Anywhere from 4-6%.
I enjoy a big bomb stout but definitely a fan of the session beer. Two from tone wood, focal point and birdie,both 4% and a favorite of @jonphisher Ted struggles with which he prefers to crack open first.
Can't say as I buy many of them, as they better be pretty fresh, but if I see a dark mild on draught, I'm in, as well as just about anything on the beer engine.
Both Back Beat Brewing (with a focus on cask ales) and Notch produce mostly sub 5% beers. They're both in my weekly (if I have the time) rotation for breweries. So yup, always drinking sub 5% beers.
I drink session beers now and then, but I don't do sessions. I'm one and done these days, and very infrequently at that.
Can’t go wrong with either of them Teddie both are great beers. The list of beers they brew below 4.5% is huge, the list of sub 4.5% ones I’ve added reviews for lies at fourteen My favorites that fall into that are their pale bitter Burton (3.7%), their schwarzbier Blackbird (4%), and their american stout Still Night (4%). This is why I love them so much, who the heck else brews a hoppy american stout with cascade and chinook at 4%...look forward to it every year, I call it Storm King Light.
The last ten beers checked-in were ABV: 7, 5.8, 4.5, 4.5, 7.9, 5.7, 6, 5, 5, and 7 Definitely yes for me.
"Session beers" that are just watered-down versions of other kinds of beer, IPA in particular? Nope. No way. Well-made lagers and ales that are highly drinkable while offering nuanced or interesting flavor despite falling at or below 5% ABV? Hell yes! Pale and dark lagers, kolsch, hefeweizen, english mild, belgian style table beers, and many other styles offer great drinking at low ABV. I'd always choose one of these over a hoppy but watery "session IPA."
You cannot go wrong with Tonewood sessions beers! As a matter of fact, I am thinking of a birthday beer day at Tonewood in July! It has been too long since I have been there!
My go to session ipa Summit Triumphant has been sacked. I don't like the Summit Light Lager so they just lost a customer re anything light.
I think Lew Bryon's Session Beer Project used 4.5% as the session cutoff once ago. Stand by, please. Yes, found it (that was mad easy)... ► 4.5% alcohol by volume or less ► flavorful enough to be interesting ► balanced enough for multiple pints ► conducive to conversation ► reasonably priced English bitters & milds, pale & dark lagers, Belgian table beers, session IPAs, even Berliners & Gose (although I don't know about multiple pints of them). I drink more session today because they're the sytyles I enjoy, and as one who travels for beer some (i.e., place reviews), I get to stretch it out some with lower ABV goods. Early in the last decade, I attended a great Session Beer event during Philly Beer Week at the Farmer's Cabinet before it imploded. Different good bar owners & some brewers maybe talking about what they like for session, what they direct people to when they want something light, it was a real good event. This below from my 2012 review of Farmer's Cabinet... "And up in the far corner, a back room events space, of sorts, I was there once for the ‘Philly Beer Week Session Beer’ event. You know, the one where Don Russell lost his fucking mind and denounced session beer as being 'a farce, completely unnecessary, and flying in the face of the good beer we all drank when we first got into craft beer'. Yeah, good times". ...but otherwise, it was a real good event.
Jack, They are in my rotation, as i am a believer in rotating styles on a mostly daily basis. I could not drink a hazy DIPA, imperial stout, or fill in the blank style every day. Palate fatigue and boredom would set quickly. With that said, full disclosure is that i enjoy higher gravity beers but with my advancing age i should start scaling things back more often. And the Asheville area has 3 very good lager houses (Zillicoah, Cellarest, and Burning Blush) within 30 minutes of my house. Towards the end of April, i met up with @ATL6245 at Good Word Brewing in the greater ATL area, purveyor of mostly sessionable brews and hosts a small beer festival in the early spring. I had 4 drafts that day at the brewery, 3 of them sessionable (the 4th was a WCIPA collaboration with the esteemed Mitch Steele), and have to say had some fantastic flavorful brews in these small packages. @ATL6245 and i also traded many small brews from our respective locales that day in which a few are still remaining and in my rotation. Cheers! Tom
It’s variable….I don’t go out seeking a certain abv, I seek styles I feel like drinking. Sometimes it’s a big, burly stout, sometimes it’s a czech lager, or it could be anything in between. I do plan to drink my weight in Real Ale when I’m in London later this summer though.
At home I have favorite beers chosen for flavor (good malt body) and what passes for a moderate alcohol content these days (6%). When I go out and want to drink more than a couple, I'll choose moderate alcohol Guinness if it is available.
I did this last month in Scotland. I recommend using the CAMRA website for finding pubs that have Real Ale and how many beer engines they have. I used it everywhere in Scotland and it helped me find places I never would have thought to visit. Here's a link to the page with the Cask Ale filter on. Not to completely derail the thread, if there's a Bitter, Pilz or Mild on tap I will always get it. I especially like that fact that you can drink a couple 3.5% Bitters and it's about the ABV equivalent of a single IPA.
