What is a "session"?

This is a weird question. I would assume any time you drink more than one beer is a "session" to most.

 

A weekend six pack. Watching the game, barbecuing, working a honey-do list....I don't need many excuses to drink a few!

 

Where I come from, your session (8-10) is called "Pounding" . I always figured my session to be 3-4 beers at an event (ball game, ufc fight, party.

 

A "session" beer IMO is one that you can drink 5-6 of with getting no more than a buzz.

 

I think the OP is asking what constitutes session drinking; not session beer. In which case I would say, it's an arbitrary term. To one person, four cans of SNPA could be session . To another, it might be a couple bombers of RIS. Although the marketing use of 'session' seems to mean exactly six light IPAs!

 

A session to me is just knocking back a few beers consecutively, typically 3+ would be session territory for me, but as few as 2 would qualify I think.

Anyway, isn't the definition of a session just a single continuous sitting? It is for me. Somehow the collective beer marketing department got ahold of the word and turned it into "low ABV beer you can drink a lot of without getting totally hammered". Sure, that definition had some truth to it, but it's not really seeing the big picture.

 

A minimum of 6 imperial pints drunk in no longer than 3 hours.

 

I tend to agree, 6 is a minimum. I'm a large man and session IPAs are a wonderful thing when I'm trying to maintain a level of coherentness

 

It's about the drinking , not about the beer.2 or 3 is just "having a drink" particularly if we aren't talking Imperial pints.It's paddling compared to swimming.
I recently acted as a beer judge, spent a long time in the pub where it was held and besides the 10 beers I was judging I had a coupe of pints at the bar. I don't regard this as a session.
I regard it as an open ended drinking period where beer is consumed. Where an empty glass is refilled over and over again and beer is drunk for enjoyment rather than inspection or analysis.

 

Would you regard it as being similar to clocking in and out of work for a set period of time? (all whilst drinking of course)

 

ses·sion
/ˈsɛʃən/
noun

a meeting of a group of people to pursue an activity

any period devoted to an activity

 

first you gotta wrap your head around craic; sessioning is the drinking that goes with it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic

 

Didn't the term "session drinking" come from Europe (England I think) when workers were given break periods for a few hours when they usually consumed anywhere from 6-10 beers but didn't want to get too drunk. I think that was called session drinking and good tasting ales that were somewhere around 4-5 ABV were the go-to drink. That's what I always thought anyway.

 

After checking this site real quick there's an archived article all about it if you do a search, perhaps that's where I read the info I mentioned above.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/653/

 

I would think these pints would fall into the true session range of 3 - 4% no?

Doing this with a 7% IPA, or even today's "session" IPAs may yield unfavorable (or favorable depending on your goals) results.

 

One meaning of session is the period of time set aside for a purpose; for example schools usually have a morning and afternoon session.Between 1916 and 1988 British pubs had , by law, two sessions a day. The lunchtime session was typically 11 am to 2.30 pm and the evening one from maybe 5.30 to 10.30pm.It was quite possible to drink throughout the entire sessions as the associated beers were between 3 and 4% ABV.This is the strength used by the industry to define a session beer.

 

Exactly...just as the question implies "what is a session"...is not referring to the ABV of any beer but the amount of time spent to drink them, regardless of quantity, 1 to 10, or ABV, 3% to 18%.

By it's own definition..."the period or term during which such a series is held", suggest that it could be 1 beer over 5 minutes or 10 beers over 10 hours...the "session" is what it is...time spent doing any particular task.

My sessions last anywhere from a minute to all day depending on the situation. The amount of beers and their ABV will vary depending on the time allotted.

 

A buzzword attached to more and more low abv beers for marketing purposes.

 

Blue collar drinking outdoors with some beers in warm weather