One of the first session beer posts I made, back in February of 2007 (I was so prescient...), was a re-post of action steps for session beer suggested by Stan Hieronymus. Take a look.
Now take a look at this: "When You're Having More Than One", in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, by Tim Redmond. I'll cut to the somewhat buried lede:
I've taken quite an interest in session beers — craft brews with an ABV (alcohol by volume) level of less than 4.5 percent. You can drink a session beer at lunch and still go back to work. You can drink a couple-three after work and not be too blotto to make dinner and put the kids to bed.
Ah... I'm well-pleased. More and more folks are picking up on the 4.5% and under number, and that's good. It's kind of like the speed limit: you know where you're supposed to be, and you're going to push a few mph over, so it's good to have it a little under where people should actually be driving. If we had given in and said 5%, sooner or later we'd have 6% beers people were calling session beers...kind of like you still see people doing on BeerAdvocate and west coast beer blogs. I'll stick with the 4.5%, thanks.
Is this victory, triumph, success? No. It's another step, another notch along the way. We're getting there; time to celebrate with a few rounds...and then get back to work!
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I don't even think 4 percent is a bad one, either.
ReplyDeleteHow about hosting a list of widely available and recommended session beers on this site? I wanted something low alcohol (but good) the other day and felt a bit stumped in my local beer shop. Huge selection but of course not organized by ABV. I could only think of Guinness Draught (too familiar) and Stone Levitation (too expensive in NC for regular consumption). A few British beers too but they're generally overpriced compared to good American beers.
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