Inherent Flaw In Session IPA's

I don't find any of those traits in either Daytime, Go To, or Easy Jack. Haven't had Founders'...

 

Count me in the "never had one that I've liked" crowd. If I'm drinking something in the 4% range it's gonna be a gose or a Berliner weiss.

 

except for superfun! and boat, every session ipa i've had seems a lot like a dry hopped miller lite.

 

Yeah, because you HAVE to drink them. You're not able to just choose something more to your liking.

 

Thought Pinner was good as well as Boat Beer. Really liked Lawsons Super Session #4 (Galaxy).

 

Carton does call it an IPA on their website description.

 

Balance. It is what's missing. Still have yet to try pinner. Still would rather have Sunshine Pils or Straub Pilsner at this point. Just more appealing to me.

 

Haha I know nobody forces me to drink them and I have nothing against people who enjoy them. I just haven't found a single one that I like. Different strokes for different folks.

 

Haha I know, just busting. What did you think of Boat? I don't think it has that overly thin or watery feel that some other session IPAs have.

 

I think Carton Boat Beer's Kolsch malt is what makes it incredibly tasty.

 

Good call. Boat is far and away the best I've had and I did give it a good rating. For some reason I never think of it as a Session IPA. Probably because it's so different from the majority of them.

 

Palate fatigue and Abv imo are not related. Session ipas are imo are overly bitter due to the lack of malt balance, it's the bitter that causes fatigue not the Abv. I've had English bitters that were nicely bitter , well balanced and under 4% Abv. Session and ipas imo just don't work, maybe an Amber, or Brown Ale, but by its nature ipas are a bit higher in alcohol, so to lower the Abv you kill the malt balance. I love bitter but I hate session IPAs, they're a waste of time and money, imo of course, and for my palate.

 

Session beers fill a special niche for me. It's what I bring on excursions, so gotta be canned, easy to drink, sits light in the stomach, with 4% max. Perfect for outdoor activities, and I don't mean sitting on a riding mower!

 

What I meant by palate fatigue is when you simply feel that enough is enough. Stuffing a low ABV beer with hops makes for unbalanced beer and your palate soon gets tired of it.

 

one Session Ipa is enough, and I'm an ipa guy. I love Lawson beers, they are across the board spectacular, except their session ipa which is typical session. I think it was a Citra based brew, but it was stunningly bitter, too much so. I'll just drink one less of a regular beer and I'm good.

 

I agree with most posters. Session IPAs, while hoppy, lack that malt backbone that make it so flavorful. Besides, I like regular IPAs so much that I can have more than one even when they are at full strength.

 

Light and hoppy. Nothing wrong with that. Don't over think it.

 

get thee to Oakridge

 

I am one that would love a good session IPA. I agree they have a hard task of not being able to add a ton of grain and need to balance that in the category of a hoppy beer. Most I do not like at all. Founders was good and I really liked one I tried from Troegs the other day. I think the troegs one is a one off , but well done at 4.1%. I am the perfect demographic for a nice session IPA. I spend a lot of time at the beach and love to body board. I want a nice beer, but not much alcohol. A good session IPA would be a perfect refreshing beer that would not kill my next session. This style if you want to call it that of beer is very hard to pull off. As a group it has been my least liked style as a group, but I will keep trying and stick with the two if I can get them.

 

I'll leave the bold thought here that it's actually an inherent flaw in the American drinkers mentality and is something which closely mimics American mentality as a whole. That is that excess is best. We have an issue with subtlety. A thread like this is probably not as common as a beer noob thread saying they only drink _____, _____ fanboy beer and precede to bash BMC as fizzy yellow water and toot about it being poorly made. Which I'll counter with the ultimate fanboy brewer Shaun Hill who dismisses that amateur, I'm new here thinking wholesale. The real reality is that those beers commonly called pisswater are the hardest to make and take the longest to master.
These two complaints and their base misunderstandings are rooted in the same lamentation over subtlety. We don't get it. We especially don't get it because we are also recovering from the hangover of mono culture and its big box one size fits all mentality. So, our rejection of that insists that its logical response be loud, brash, in your face and annoying even. i.e. completely unbalanced, and kind of a hot mess. Thus, we need to get bashed over the head to understand the point and its shock of newness because that is a quintessential aspect of being an American. Why jump over a pit? That's boring. Jump a pit filled with alligators, fire ants, gorillas on horseback and a fire-ring on either side? Now we're talking! That's sort of what Session IPA's are doing in my mind. There's such a narrow window for them to be successful in what they set out to do as well that I think they are hugely wasteful of the resources they are showcasing.