Apropos of Session Beer Day

For all you nimrods who ask me, "Hey, do you drink session whiskey, too? Uh huh, huh, session whiskey!"

There is session whiskey, you dopes: we call it "cocktails." And St. George Spirits has a new whiskey designed for making the kind of cocktail I particularly like: 'tall drinks,' or highballs. It's called Baller, and it was made for mixing with a tall glass of club soda and ice.

So yeah. There is "session whiskey." This is what it looks like. Uh huh, huh.

What's Your Problem?

Jason and Todd Alstrom put an editorial in the latest issue of Beeradvocate magazine titled "The Problem with Session Beers in the US." They've had a passive-aggressive stance toward session beers from the early days, and this piece fits neatly into that. Because they have such a large bully-pulpit with the magazine, I felt I should at least respond. Because I only see ONE problem the way that they do; the rest of their problems are manufactured, questionable, or just plain wrong.

Pricing. This is a horse they've beaten well past expiration: if session beers are lower alcohol, they should be less expensive. Other people say it too. But we've had that discussion, and the truth is, lower alcohol beers don't really cost that much less to make or sell. Materials -- hops, malt, spices -- are only part of a beer's cost; there's energy, labor, transport, taxes, promotion, facility costs, debt service... If a pint of 4.5% pilsner is a good pint, a good-tasting beer, why should it be cheaper than a 6.5% IPA? Because it cost a nickel less to make? Or because it has less alcohol? I thought craft beer was all about flavor. If it's about the alcohol, well...why are you drinking it, again? Maybe you ought to think about that. In any case, I'd certainly encourage any brewpub operator or bar manager to think about dropping pints a buck just to encourage the multiple sales sessions are about, but it's not about session being a somehow "lesser" beer. We don't buy that, no matter what the price.

USA! Americans don't understand what session beer is, they say; we're not the UK (this ignores the session beers in Belgium and the Czech Republic, of course, but we'll let that go). Our drinking culture is different. Well...the biggest selling beer in America is Bud Light. It's 4.2% ABV. We get lower alcohol beer; the session beers we're supporting are lower alcohol too, only they have a lot more flavor. What's so hard to understand? We don't need to be told a story, as the Alstroms suggest. Judging from the success of beers like Founders All Day IPA, all we have to do is get a choice. And boys? Seven bucks for a "faux-pint" of ANY "beer that might be good" is more about the problem with craft beer, not session beer.

A Session What? There's no definition of a session beer, they say. Well, we're working on it. I think that the BeerAdvocate 5% definition isn't definitive enough; I like 4.5% better, and 4.0% is good too. But look at how long it took to define "craft beer." Oops...the Brewers Association is apparently still working on that one. Doesn't seem to be hurting sales, though. Yeah. Another non-problem.

Boring! I'll quote them here, because I agree with a little bit of this...but not much. "There's a serious lack of creativity when it comes to session beers. It's either an attempt at an old beer style, or a weak, watery failure. Even worse, some fool (or genius) created the 'Session IPA,' and it's taking over the session beer category thanks to bandwagoning brewers releasing hop water into the market in order to capture twice the hype."

This really is a 'Wow, where to begin' moment. "An attempt at an old beer style?" What, like much of "craft brewing?" Pale ale, porter, Pilsner, imperial stout, milk stout, Baltic porter, and yes, even IPA: all attempts at 'old beer styles.' What's so bad about that? We're adding mild, bitter, grisette, and Berliner Weisse to the list, oh horrors! If there are weak, watery failures, well, honey, there are overhopped, unbalanced monsters out there too (and they'll cost you a lot more, despite your fear of overpriced session beer).

Then there's the one spot where I agree with them: "Session IPA." It is taking over session beer, and it's about making money, and it's about a lack of real creativity and the worst kind of monkey-see monkey-do brewing. But...in a time where we have IPA, DIPA, TIPA, Black IPA, Red IPA, White IPA, Wheat IPA, Rye IPA, Blue and Green IPAs, and perhaps IPAs as yet undreamt of just waiting to be born...why single out Session IPA? Again, this is a failure of craft beer, not session beer. If the Alstroms really want to be muckrakers, and call for a better brighter world of beer, they need to step up and tackle the real problems.

Snobs. And this is the one that baffles me. "...we find that many proponents of session beer are snobs." Really? Where on earth do you find that? The people I know who are proponents of session beer are mostly just trying to get a couple taps, a few more choices. Complain about people who don't get session beer? Well, yeah, if those are the people who are keeping session beers off the taps! That's not snobbery, that's the same kind of frustration we felt back in the late 1980s when no one wanted to sell craft beer. Just put some on, we'll drink it! Sure enough...Founders makes a lower alcohol beer; it's now their flagship. Odell makes a session seasonal; sells so much they take it year-round. Brewers are finding that if they make a good session beer, it's going to sell well. Of course it is: it's a good beer.

They conclude by saying that these problems have to change for session beers to be truly accepted in the US. Well...okay. I mean, it's not like it's happening already, without the Alstroms' permission or anything. Heh. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha!

Sorry. In the meantime, tell me: what's it going to take for sour beers to be "truly accepted" in the US? Because while I love 'em, I think there's a much longer list of why they ain't going mainstream anytime soon. Gonna write that editorial next issue, guys?

Why I called Sierra Nevada "wieners" about their Nooner Session IPA

Heh, heh. It says Nooner. 4.8%? Really? Come on, SN! Can't get it down to 4.5? Wieners...

That's what I put up on Untappd* two days ago as my "review" of Sierra Nevada's new "session IPA," Nooner. If I felt really bad about it, or that I was out of line, I'd apologize. This is Sierra Nevada, after all; a brewery and a founder, Ken Grossman, which I honestly revere(and still do), one of a small pantheon of people and companies who can honestly be said to have started or substantially advanced what we generally call craft brewing.

And on Saturday, I called them "wieners."

I don't intend to apologize, because I think I'm right. But I do intend to explain, beyond saying, 'well, you know, I was pretty well into the day at that point, pints of draft, some whiskey, and maybe I was a little jovial.' Which I was, but I stand with Papa Hemingway on this: 'Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.' Or not. Yeah, I had been drinking, but I'm sticking by what I said, and here's why.

"Session IPA" is becoming a selling point, but it's an ill-defined "style" (and yes, that word bugs me some days, but let's work with it for now) at best. Look at the Smuttynose Bouncy House I just posted about earlier today: 4.3%, and they sidestepped the "session IPA" label. Their beer is a hoppy pale ale, but that's not why they didn't call it a session IPA. They did it because they thought it might be a played-out trend in a couple years.

I agree, and that's why, as I said in an interview with the good people at Craft Beer Cellar, the 4.5% bright line is important:

...not so much because of the alcohol. It’s because of the worth of the label. If “session beer” just means “as little as 0.1% ABV less than ‘regular beer’”, it starts to lose meaning. Session beer has to be significantly less than a regular beer in alcohol content. 4.5% is 10% less alcohol than 5.0%; that’s significant. I want it to mean something, and to continue to mean something, so I’m going to be picky.
We weren’t picky about what “craft beer” meant — Is it about who makes it? What it’s made of? What it tastes like? — or what an IPA is (it’s apparently anything someone chooses to call an IPA), and those terms are losing value. I don’t want that to happen to session beer, so I’m using every bit of influence I’ve earned over 20 years of writing about beer to try to fence it off. Making 4.5% a bright line and calling any brewer — like Sierra Nevada, even — to task who calls their beer “session” when it’s more than that, is part of the job. I’ll take flak. There will be backlash. Okay. It’s worth it. This was thankless in the beginning; I can handle it. 

Maybe I wouldn't have called Sierra Nevada "wieners" if I hadn't been drinking, but...hey, they called it 'Nooner' first! So I'm not completely off there.

I'm actually getting more concerned about the lame groupthink and sheep mentality represented by "session IPA," especially since it's Sierra Nevada. I really expected something better from a brewer that has produced an iconic, leading Pale Ale, Barleywine, American Stout. I expected a brilliant Bitter, a fearless Mild. But we got a following beer from a brewer that's a leader. I expect better.

I expect better from the whole industry. I should be happy on Session Beer Day, and to some extent, I am! It's great, we're seeing a LOT more session strength beers from notable brewers, and more and more of them at brewpubs. But...an unending parade of "session IPA"?  

GOD DAMN IT, AMERICAN BREWERS! You're BETTER than this! And I'm not just talking about session. American craft brewing has become a pathetic nation of followers. Look, a sour sold, let's make one! Look, session IPA sold, let's make one! Look, limited edition beers sold, let's make one! I weep for you. Truly. Show some balls, at least come up with your own name, like "fractional IPA."


I think it's significant that the brewer who's become something of the standard-bearer for the Session Beer Project, Chris Lohring at Notch, said this about his own session-strength IPA, Left of the Dial:

So, after all that, how does it taste? Like an IPA, but without any cloying sweetness and booze that fatigues and gets in the way of multiple pints and extended good times. Call it a Session IPA if you want, but to me it’s simply the IPA I’d like to drink, and I think Notch fans would like to drink.

Which makes me think of his Notch Pils; it's not a good session pilsner, it's a good pilsner. So if your beer is a good IPA, call it an IPA. If it's a pale ale...say so. And if it's a bitter, well, God bless you.

Here's hoping for a better selection next year. Now get out there: still plenty of time to get some rounds in. That's where I'm headed. Cheers! Drink small, drink often!


*And thanks so much for not dropping a Session Beer Day badge on us this year, Untappd. I know, I know, we don't have the money to pay you, and those badges cost you...no, wait, they don't cost anything, they're virtual. What the hell, Untappd?

Is Joe Sixpack®™ kidding? Or is he right?

Don Russell, who writes the Joe Sixpack column in the Philadelphia Daily News, is not what you'd call a huge friend of session beer. While he did write a column for Session Beer Day last year, he ended the column with this strangely boozy bit of snark:

It's an admirable goal, even if it ignores the obvious (if distasteful) alternative: Drink fewer beers. Which points to session beer's more troublesome challenge. Craft beer's success is at least partly due to its potency. Small brewers differentiated themselves from macro-brew conglomerates by offering full-flavored ales and lagers whose higher prices were justified because you didn't have to drink as much to feel the buzz.

Consumers may rightly feel they're not getting their money's worth if the alcohol content is lower, especially since the new wave of session beers are not substantially cheaper than higher-alcohol varieties.

And that, friends, is why Jack Cade declared small beer a felony.

As I've said, I wasn't aware craft beers were more expensive because they were strong (especially since there is no graduated tax on ABV, and malt is well under half of the cost of a pint on the bar, usually under a quarter), I thought we'd been told it was because of smaller-scale operations and the hand-crafted care they were made with. Then we find out from Don that the price is about how much you have to drink to feel the buzz? Well. Enlightening. (Or not: check this explanation of the comparative cost of big beer and session beer by someone who actually pays the bills.)

Of course, this is the guy who showed up last year at a session beer panel discussion -- featuring some of the real stars of craft beer bar ownership and management on the East Coast --  as a semi-official representative of Philly Beer Week and stunned a previously happy crowd to silence by telling them that "session beers" were unnecessary, ridiculous, and somehow vaguely disrespectful of craft beer's heritage. It was a special moment.

So I wasn't surprised to see another sideways slap at session beer in his column yesterday, in a tongue-in-cheek look at styles the GABF had somehow "missed" in their 142 categories of beer styles. He listed such recognizable clumps as "Chick Beer," and "Cult Beer," and "Imported Beer."And then we have:

Session Beer. "Any style of beer . . . [whose] drinkability is a character in the overall balance." Wait a minute . . . I'm not making that up. That's an actual Brewers Association head-scratching definition of an invented style that can smell, taste or feel like anything, as long as it's weak enough to drink all night. Aroma, flavor and body are reminiscent of a far stronger and superior beer.

And you look at that, and you get a bit pissed about that last sentence, right? "...a far stronger and superior beer." Superior because it's stronger? Kind of revealing, maybe.

But I've decided to look at this in the light of the Brewers Association definition that Russell quotes, because I've got real problems with it myself. The BA came up with this category as an apparent direct mirror image of the Other Strong Ale Or Lager category, which is where you go when you've got an Imperial Bitter, or a Triple Altbier (both of which I've encountered in judging that category at the GABF...). So when you have a Half-IPA, or a Baby Barleywine, or a Session Saison, this is where you go. I guess.

And I'll agree with Russell in that case: generally, these beers are echoes of a superior beer. The "session IPAs" I've sampled are overbalanced; the small saisons are often over-spiced; and the occasional bourbon barrel-aged small beers I've had...well, I'd have much rather just had the bourbon, thank you. There is a whole class of lower-alcohol beers out there today that just don't get it. You can't make a beer session-strength by simply cutting back on the malt. You have to carefully balance things, maybe even amp the malt a bit and ease up on the attenuation.

My hat is off, for instance, to Stone's Levitation. It doesn't blow my mouth open with hops, it's been carefully tweaked till it's a hoppy session-strength ale, not a "session IPA," and they wisely didn't call it that. A grisette is a nicely-balanced beer in the general manner of a saison, but powered for all-afternoon drinking.

So I'm going to go along with this one, Don. You can't make a session beer by just simple dialing down. There's more to it than that, just like you can't make a high-mileage car by simply cutting two cylinders off a V6; you've got to make a different car, built and geared to the power you have (believe me, as a guy who owns an old 4-cylinder Saab that really REALLY needs a turbo, I understand this). This idea is a silly one.

"Session beer" is not a style, any more than "extreme beer" is. (Or was, I hear that term less every day, it seems.) It's a whole group of beers, made to a variety of styles. That's why I like it; I like variety with my variety.

Sorry, but that's just silly

I love the guys at ShawneeCraft Brewing, I really do. The spot's cool, the logo's neat, and the idea of a co-op local support thing based on brewing is very cool. But this, from their website, is just silly (all emphasis added):

This is the trademarked image from ShawneeCraft's website. I reproduce it here as news, and will take it down if they simply ask.

There is no perfect consensus as to the definition of “Session Beer,” but beer drinkers can perhaps agree on the following: Session Beers are generally served on draft and average around 5% ABV or lower- so that you can drink multiple servings in a “session.” At ShawneeCraft we create Session Beers with the utmost respect for flavor and tradition but with only intermittent respect for the ABV conventions. Our Session Beers range in ABV from as low as 4.2% to as high as 7.2% and above, and are on draft at the Gem & Keystone and other selected establishments.

So you look at these draft offerings, and they're mostly just that: draft, as opposed to their "Heirloom Beers," which are usually bottled, but occasionally draft as well. They're mostly around 4.8%, which is too high for me. Still, I'm not going to call them out or anything on those, but... it's pretty simple that a 7.3% beer is not a session beer, and you can't fig-leaf that big swinging dick by saying "there is no perfect consensus as to the definition of 'Session Beer.'" Because even the YAAAA! EXTREME BEERS! guys at BeerAdvocate cap it out at 5%, and the DINGistas cap it out at 4%, and even Full Sail (who will, I'm guessing, likely be having something to say about that "TM" on "Session Beers") has their two at 5.1% and 5.3%. I retain hope that they'll eventually ratchet those down.

But be all "we're craft brewers so we do what we want" as much as you please, that's not going to make a 7.3% beer a session beer. It doesn't even fit in with the rest of your offerings in the line! So why not call them "Draft Beers" (and don't bother with the ™, "draft beer" ain't trademarkable and everyone knows it) and make more sense.

I'm not being a jerk. But if we don't set hard limits on this, it will soon mean nothing, and we'll have 6% session beers. If you're a brewer and don't want to put in the effort to make a great tasting beer at lower ABV, then just don't do it. And if you make a great-tasting beer at 7.3% -- which the ShawneeCraft Pumpkin Saison is, it's amazing -- why not just call it "Great-tasting Beer!" instead of trying to hop on the session beer bandwagon by calling your pig a parakeet.

"Sessionable"? Not here

I know, I know, I promised you a post about why session beer pisses off beer geeks -- and you'll get it -- but right now, another example of why beer geeks piss off The Session Beer Project. Take a look at this. Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Oregon, has released a new beer for the start of Major League Soccer in town: Yellow Card Premier Ale. Allow me to quote (emphasis is all mine):

Just in time for the kickoff of the MLS season here in town, we made a sessionable English ale that will help you keep your eye on the ball and cheering for the Green!
Yellow Card is light-bodied, dry with subtle bread character featuring a crisp, mild and spicy hop bitterness. You can get it on tap and in growlers to-go at Hopworks Urban Brewery and Hopworks BikeBar.
This beer is made for the ultimate soccer fan. This one’s for you TA!
30 IBU and 5.2% ABV.

Yeah, that's 5.2% ABV. Let me reiterate: if your "session" beer is over 5%, what's the point? It's not "session beer" just because it's lower in alcohol than your double IPA. This is the flip-side of the growing acceptance of the idea that a flavorful lower-alcohol beer can be very enjoyable: "session" becomes a tag that reaches a market, rather than an idea that encompasses great beer at lower strength (for all-day drinking).

But maybe the sneakiest thing here is that the words "session beer" aren't even used. The beer is described as "sessionable." This is pure geek-speak, the snarly rebellion that "if I can drink four of them, that's sessionable!" This is sneaking into the session beer conversation, and yet...what does it mean? That a particular person will drink more than four of them? That doesn't mean much, and neither does this word.

No, really, it doesn't: you know how when you put a word followed by "definition" into Google, and fourteen competing "dictionaries" offer their definition? The only one that offers a definition for "sessionable" is the Urban Dictionary (and it's a reasonable one (!), and there's a very good definition at "session beer" too; the first one, that is). Merriam-Webster, my go-to for definitions? "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary."

Therefore, I've made a decision: I'm not going to use the word "sessionable" anymore. It's become a weasel word, a dodge. I used it three times in past blog posts, and I've gone back and clarified those occasions, changing it to "session-strength." A small thing, but if this word's going to be misused, it's not going to be with my help.

Brewers? Step up. There are honest arguments over what ABV limits a session beer has -- 4.0%, my own 4.5%, BeerAdvocate's 5.0% -- but if you're over 5% and calling your beer "sessionable," sorry, you're just trying to latch onto the latest trend. And God help me, we worked too hard to make this a trend to let it be used...especially by craft brewers who should know better.

Steve Body's Still Not Getting It

Steve Body writes a blog for the Seattle P-I called "The Pour Fool." He doesn't get -- or like -- session beers, and he's made that clear. He made it so clear that when he got a bunch of angry responses to his misunderstanding and dismissal of session beers as the choice of drunks, he felt compelled to not only delete the comments, but to spend his entire next blog post in a weenie-like defense of himself -- without mentioning "session beer" -- and his actions.

Just to show he's not scared of us -- and that he hasn't learned a damned thing -- his latest post (a paean of praise to Pike Place Brewing, which I didn't mind at all: I like Auld Acquaintance a lot, among others) goes there again, even though he didn't really have to. At the end of his description of Naughty Nellie Golden Artisan Ale, he sticks this sharp stick in session beer's eye:

Pike describes this as a “session beer” and, despite my stated aversion to the idea of sessioning (which I refer to as “drinking too much”), it’s just a glorious beer for anyone who wants more than one of the same.

I'd leave a comment on his blog, but he'd probably feel compelled to delete it. So here's my comment. First, "more than one of the same" is a key component to "sessioning." I just want to be able to have four "of the same" compared to your two of the same, because I like my beer to refresh my thirst, and I like to hang out with my friends for longer than you, apparently. That's so reprehensible? Second, firing up my trusty Session Beer Equivelator®, I see that if he has the 22 oz. bottle of Old Bawdy he talks about, I can have five shaker glasses (the roughly standard "pint" glasses (that aren't really pints) of beer bars) of 4% session beer and take in the same amount of alcohol. Hey, maybe I just like drinking beer more, I dunno.

Of course, we'd have to do this later in the day, because Steve's got all kinds of rules about drinking. "I NEVER drink anything with alcohol in it before 3-4 p.m," he says later in the post. Must be tough to get all the tasting in. Me, I generally don't do any serious tasting after 4 PM, but I'd hardly call it a rule. This guy's wound a little too tight. Maybe he does need those high-proof beers after all.

Look, I'll be honest. I don't know Steve Body, and I'm only beating up on him because he seems to personify a lot of the misunderstanding about session beers. We'd probably agree on some things, though I'm not sure about people in 2011 who loudly proclaim that they're a "beer snob" and describe pilsner as Bud injected with flavor. But to be this assertively wrong about something, and deliberately try to get in someone's face about it...well, I can't let that go. I don't disrespect his choice of having a couple big beers; that's a choice. What's so wrong about choosing session beers?

This is: not getting it

First: 21st Amendment's Bitter American is a delish session beer, and I can't wait till it shows up in Philly, and I will drink it.

Second, this guy got that...but that's the only thing he got. There is so much wrong with this, it makes me want to cry, vomit, and commit mayhem.

RateBeer Top 100 reactions

The Rate Beer Best Beers in the World list is out -- which is nothing more than an aggregate of the 100 beers with the highest rating on the site -- and yes, no surprise, it is heavily weighted towards big beers, and heavily weighted towards a relatively small group of pants-wettingly hyped breweries (over half of the 100 "best beers in the world" come from only nine breweries?). I have no real problem with the second issue -- things like that happen in this kind of rating/voting -- but the first one? As Stephen Beaumont said,

"In the style listing of the top 50 beers, the word “Imperial” appears 39 times! The word pilsner? Zero times, in the entire 100."

Beaumont titles that post "Why Brewers Make So Many Strong Beers." Martyn Cornell, a strong voice for session beers and traditional British beers, takes it a step further, titling his post on the subject "Why extremophiles are a danger to us all," a post that has set off a tiny bit of a firestorm. Both posts point out that this kind of widely-reported excitement -- in what is essentially a niche within a niche -- has an effect on what beers are available for the average craft beer drinker.


It is not my intention to set off a firestorm today. Not my nature, you know. What I do want to say is that this is exactly the reason this blog is here: to draw more attention to session beers, beers "to the left of the dial," that are under the big ABV radar but still have deliciously full flavor. It's working, but maybe we need to deliver a louder statement. You know...set off a firestorm. 

Accordingly, I am reading manifestos this week, learning from the masters.

A specter is haunting American craft breweries -- the specter of Session Beer.
All the Powers of extreme craft brewing have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter. Where is the beer under 6% that has not been decried as "weak session beer" by its opponents in extremism? Where the extreme brewer who has not charged that session beers take attention from the extreme beers that fire the public imagination?*
Two things result from this fact:

I. Session Beer is already acknowledged by all extreme craft brewers and drinkers to be itself a Movement.
II. It is high time that Session Beer brewers and drinkers should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Session Beer with a Manifesto of the movement itself.

Or:

When, in the course of enjoying beer, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of drinkers to assume among the beer drinkers of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all good beer drinkers are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are beer, variety, and the pursuit of hoppiness; that to supply these rights breweries are instituted, deriving their just powers from the purchases of the drinker. Whenever any form of beer hype becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new movement, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its definition in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their drinking pleasure and happiness.

Hmmm...who would have thought Elizabeth Cady Stanton's writing would serve as a model for a drinking platform? Will wonders never cease? I am liking the manifesto idea. But I think I'll keep it shorter. Much shorter, it's got to fit on a t-shirt!


*Guys...absolutely all in fun. I know that all involved have made or enjoyed session beers. I'm just riffing on Karl Marx here, and his Manifesto is the most famous...and required a bogeyman. The manifesto I write for the SBP will not. Promise you that.

Mustang Brewing: gotta call you out, folks

Mustang Brewing has been out about two years now, but they've just come to my attention. They're Oklahoma-based contract brewers, and...well, here's their mission statement-ish manifesto from their website (emphasis added):

We created Mustang Brewing Company to make great, easy-drinking, session beers the people of Oklahoma can be proud to call their own. All our recipes are developed in our pilot facility in Oklahoma. We brew through partnerships with some of the country’s finest breweries. The end results are consistent, quality, craft beers that are full of flavor but light enough to enjoy. 

Sounds good, right? Our kinda place? Check the beers.

• Mustang Harvest Lager: 5.6% ABV.
• Mustang Amber Lager: 4.5% ABV.
• Mustang Washita Wheat: 5.3% ABV.
• Mustang Golden Ale: 5.3% ABV.

And the latest, Pawnee Pale Ale? Read what Mustang president Tim Schoelen said (at The Thirsty Beagle blog):

“Bringing the best of Old World East and New World West together is what makes Pawnee Pale a truly American-style pale ale. A tantalizing blend of German Perle and U.S. Pacific Northwest hops give this beer a moderate, citrus, hop quality. American, British, and caramel malts provide a rich maltiness not found in most pale ales. At 6% ABV and 42 IBU’s, Pawnee Pale is distinctly hopped, yet still carries that session beer quality you have come to expect from Mustang.”

Schoelen said Mustang has received many requests for an IPA, but struggled with how they could make one in the session beer range. Thus an American pale ale was the answer.

Actually, turns out that it isn't. When I see "6% ABV," I'm not thinking "session beer range." I'm thinking IPA, or bock, but not session. If 6% is a session beer, then 7.5% isn't strong beer? It's just...beer? The whole brewery seems to have this messed up: they want to be a session beer brewery, but four out of five beers are over 5%?

I'm not doing this to be a prick. Really. The last thing I want to see happen here is have it become all about a couple tenth-percentage points of ABV. Is your beer 4.7%, and you really want to call it a session? I'm not going to jump on you. I'm happy to encourage people who want to make session beers.

But. I see that the Session Beer Project is working, that people are talking more and more about session beers, that people are hating on session beers (sad, but at least we're talking!), that session beers are getting press...and that people are jumping on what they see as a bandwagon without really getting what it's all about. Not cool.

So I am going to say something, like I did about Full Sail's Session Lager. We're going to carve out an area here, an area where there's a real difference: lower alcohol beers with flavor. If the beer's over 5%...it's not lower alcohol. (Yeah, I know it's "lower alcohol" than a double IPA, but that's hardly the point.) I wanted to avoid this, but...I think it's time for a manifesto. Time to get militant.

Oh, and...enjoyed the hell out of the return of Milltown Mild at Victory last week -- took a growler home, and Cathy liked it, too; plenty of roasty malt in there -- and had a snappy Notch Hoppy Session at Redbones (great with the Arkansas ribs). And I got me a SBP hoody from CafePress (using that link up in the right-hand corner), and wore it all over Boston/Cambridge on Saturday: that baby is warm. Represent the Session Beer Project!