Today is Session Beer Day 2016

Hey bartender! Draw one, draw two, draw three more glasses of beer!




"They say there's twenty-seven pubs from here to Odsal Top
And tonight we'll have a pint in every one."

It's Session Beer Day. Go ye out and have some great session beers. 

Places to go: I'll be at the Bulls Head Pub in Lititz, PA (World Session Beer Day Headquarters!) from noon to 6:30, feel free to drop by for their total session tap takeover, all beers under 4.5%, all beers $4.50 a pint! Deep Ellum on the Boston border is hosting the Notch crew again for small beer in big glasses. The Olympic in Rockford, Illinois has a bunch of session beers plus a cask of Stone Go To. Akasha Brewing has a variety of local session beers, and you can hook up with OG Beer Guy Roger Baylor for a Session Beer Day Brewery Crawl that winds up there. There's always session beer at the Victory pubs in Downingtown and Parkesburg (Penn.), and of course there's Yards Brawler and Philly Brewing Kenzinger all over Philly (Yuengling Lager is a session beer, too!) In the Bay Area? Magnolia  and Drake are always rocking some good session ales, as is 21st Amendment! See more? Tell us here!

FOR THE BEST SESSION BEER DAY, DO THIS:

• Keep it under 4.6% (look for lower!)
• Tell us about it (post a comment here, or tweet with #sessionbeerday)
• Tell stories, play cards, sing songs, talk to people.
• Buy rounds!
• Eat some food, spend some money, tip your servers.
• Remember: It's low alcohol, not no alcohol. Cab, Uber, Lyft, transit, walk.

Have fun!

Building the Session Beer Train: Chris Lohring

Chris Lohring. Notch Brewing. Session Beer.

Photo by Mass Bev Biz

Great interview.

I'm proud to note that we told you about Chris Lohring and his fantastic idea for Notch Brewing, an all session beer brewing project, first, right here on the Session Beer Project blog, six years ago this month. And ran an interview with him here, back in 2012. And I've talked about him a lot since then; naturally, it's a session beer blog, and Notch was the first American brewery to commit to brewing only beers at 4.5% and under. We've seen eye-to-eye since Day One, and that's why when Notch opens their Salem brewery this summer, the SBP — okay, me — will be there, live blogging, tweeting, and drinking their small beers in big glasses.

But this is about a GREAT interview done with Chris this month by Brandy Rand (in a magazine I've been writing for since 1998, Massachusetts Beverage Business, the trade book for the Massachusetts wholesale/retail alcohol beverage industry, and there are some GREAT articles on their website; you should check them out). Chris lays down some session beer basics here, and shows he's got a firm understanding of the new beer market. Check this stuff out (as always, the added emphasis is mine):

MBB: Session beer was a bit of an anomaly back then; what’s it like now to be a session brewer and do consumers finally “get it”?CL: Many do get it, and they are clearly driving our growth as more consumers step away from a “strength = good” perspective and become more knowledgeable. They understand and value beers of full flavor at a modest strength, they understand the benefit. But there is still the machismo consumer that drinks ABV as a badge.

MBB: What are you most excited about for 2016? 

CL: Brewing in my own brewery again [Chris opened Tremont Brewery back in the 1990s, and left brewing after it closed.] – it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. The creativity we will have here is unlimited. You’ll see a very large focus on German and Czech lagers brewed with  traditional methods, and as a brewer, this has me the most excited.

MBB: Explain your Single Series.CL: It’s a new beer brewed every month and draft only. You can’t ignore shifts in consumer preference, and “what’s new” has been influencing draft beer selection. In accounts that constantly rotate drafts, we always have something new to offer every month. Some are one and done, others come back each year with changes. The Single Series will also be available in cans later in 2O16 when our Salem brewery opens. And for a session-beer-only brewery, it’s allowed us to demonstrate the wide array of styles you can brew at under 4.5%.

MBB: You have over 18,000 Twitter followers; has social media been a big part of growing your brand? What has been the key to making it work for you?CL: Without question – it’s the great equalizer. Larger brands cannot compete with us being ourselves. We don’t program, we live our life in beer and share it with our fans. You can’t buy that, you need to live it. The consumer sees right through the larger brewer bull shit. The key? Being real. Having a point of view. Engaging in conversation. Not playing it safe. Not being contrived or obvious. Making fun of ourselves. Taking responsibility and ownership for everything we do.  Calling out BS. Defending our friends. Championing our supporters. Being a person, not a brand. 

MBB: What are the biggest challenges you face as a small craft brewer in trying to grow the brand?CL: The stranglehold larger brewers have on distribution channels. When I say larger brewers, I’m not only taking about Bud, Miller, Coors, but the largest craft brewers. Some are publicly traded, others owned by private equity, some owned by Bud or Heineken, and they have enormous power in the marketplace.

And that's only part of it. Go read the whole thing, and get fired up for Session Beer Day!

SUPPORT SESSION BEER DAY IN 2016!

Session Beer Day -- April 7 -- is only twenty days away!*

What's the deal? Pretty simple, really: it's a day to drink small beer in large glasses, a day to celebrate the diversity of tasty lower alcohol beers, a day to consider day drinking that won't ruin you. It's this. I like session beer anytime (and I like big, fat beers, and whiskeys, too!), but April 7th is a day to make a BIG deal out of LITTLE beer, to bring it to people's attention that a small beer can have plenty of flavor and be enjoyed with gusto. I love drinking beer, not just sipping it, and session beer is the thing. That's what we're suggesting for the beer drinker: try something new, try something session!

In support of that...if you run a bar, own a bar, order the beer for a bar...please consider supporting Session Beer Day! How? Well, put some session-strength beers on! Almost every market has some craft-type beers that are under 4.5% these days (see the SBP definition of "session beer" to the right), and there's always our old pal, Guinness Draught Stout. We do strongly encourage you to draw a bright line and stick to beers that are 4.5% and under, to make the point that a real difference makes a real difference. We don't need no creepers on Session Beer Day!

You can do a few, or you can go all in, like SBP supporter Paul Pendyck at the Bulls Head Public House in Lititz, Pennsylvania, which I'm naming: 

WORLD SESSION BEER HEADQUARTERS FOR 2016

Paul the publican and the beautiful Bulls Head bar; I'll be here on April 7, 2016, come in and have a pint!
(photo: Lancaster News)

Paul is not only a great guy and a strong supporter of great cask ale (session beer's best friend), but he's a huge fan of session beer and has committed to a TOTAL SESSION BEER TAP TAKEOVER on Session Beer Day. Every one of the Bulls Head taps (including the beer engines) will be pouring session beers at 4.5% and under! This is where I'll be on Session Beer Day in 2016, and I invite you to come out and join me for a pint; get in on the Tweeting! The list so far: New Belgium Slow Ride, Ballast Point Mango Even Keel, Yards Brawler, Neshaminy Croydon Cream Ale, Sierra Nevada Otra Vez, Schlenkerla Helles, Victory Donnybrook Stout (Nitro), Steigl Radler,
Jacks Abby Calypstra (possibly).

Or how about Notch Brewing, which is going to be celebrating Session Beer Day at Deep Ellum in Allston (Boston) again, this year with FIVE SESSION LAGERS! Check that crazy cold-brewed shit out here. Special shout-out to Notch as they make daily progress toward opening their all-session beer brewery in Salem, Mass. later this Spring!

Also in Massachusetts, but not in a bar, the New England Real Ale eXhibition (NERAX) will be taking place that week, and Session Beer Day falls smack-dab in the middle of it! NERAX has always had plenty of session beer love -- comes with the casks, baby -- and in April of 2011 we had a kind of dress rehearsal for Session Beer Day there. Get a ticket, go drink great cask beer at session strength!

The Olympic Tavern in Rockford, Illinois has been a strong session beer supporter, and they're right there this year with an event titled (I'm blushing) Session Beer Day -- Thanks, I'll Have Another. Stop in, have a session beer, tell 'em I said hi!

Here in Philadelphia, which is a blithely unconcerned center of session beer (we have solid-selling year-round session beers from local brewers like Yards, Philadelphia, Victory, Sly Fox, Weyerbacher, and more, in a variety of styles!), I may be stopping in for an end of day session at the Grey Lodge Pub, where Scoats is cooking up one of his signature crazy events: some kind of session beer shoot-out is evolving, more details as I get them. 

Get on board, bar people! People want to drink session beer (sure, there are some grumblers, but they get their variety 364 days a year (okay, 365 this year...)), and they want to drink more than one or two. Get it on, get it out there, and leverage Session Beer Day as a way to make folks aware that you have a beer that tastes great and they can feel better about having two of with dinner. If you're doing a significant Session Beer Day offering, please leave a comment on this post!!

That also still leaves time for brewers to put together a great new session beer; as I said in January (January? My God, how time flies):

Take this opportunity to show off your skills and make a session-strength beer, 4.5% or less (you can do it; you can go lower!), that doesn't rely on shouting hops for all its character. We get it, brewers know how to make a light, wildly hoppy beer: EVERY brewer's doing it.
Be different! On April 7th, show us some real innovation, or some real skills to make a beautiful example of a classic session-strength beer that stands apart from the herd of 'monkey-see, monkey-do' dialed-down IPAs. Work with specialty malts or non-barley grains, a different yeast, light souring, smoke, herbs or spices, wood-aging, or sure, a light hand with the right hops, a pale ale, there's a thought. Make it tasty but not crushing, make it something "more-ish," as Michael Jackson used to say. Show the world you're not a monkey, thumb your nose at the "me too me too" crowd, and who knows...maybe find your next big seller.

Truly, folks: one of the great things about lighter session ales is that they're fast. So brewers, there's still time. Call a meeting, get serious, get thinking, make something really cool, and release it on April 7th! Tell us about it, and we'll blog it, Tweet it, Face-the-Book out of it. Really. We're serious. 




(I'd have been yelling sooner, but I've been sick like a dog; sorry!)

SESSION BEER DAY 2016 IS ON!

As I've noted elsewhere, I'm back writing about beer and whiskey as a freelancer. That means more time to do Session Beer Project stuff, which means Session Beer Day 2016 is on!

Session beer has made a huge impact on American beer drinking in the past five years. We've made a difference, and people are drinking lower-alcohol beers, and loving them. Brewers are making them and succeeding financially; not all, but there are some notable successes, like all-session beer gypsy brewer Notch, which is going to be opening a real brick and mortar brewery this spring, shortly after Session Beer Day; congratulations! Yards continues to sell a LOT of their non-hoppy Brawler. Victory always has at least a dry stout and a delicious bitter at their taproom. Hell, Yuengling Lager is a session beer; that's pretty damned successful. (There's session elsewhere, of course: I just happen to be in Pennsylvania.)

So...has the Project succeeded? Do we take a victory lap and happily shut down, liter mugs in hand, well-done, thou good and faithful servant?

No, we do not!

The continued success of session beer in America — and yes, in the world, I'd argue — is threatened by two things. First, ABV creep, the same thing that got us here in the first place: a slow, persistent rise in the alcohol content of craft beers, leading to our call to offer some session beers as a real choice for beer drinkers faced with an increasingly 7+% tap array. We saw success there, but inevitably, ABV creep set in.

"Session beer" has become a trend and a desirable label, which makes it subject to overuse, much like "IPA." It is successfully being applied — as a marketing tool — to increasingly strong beers that are still under 6% but range as high as 5.5%, sometimes even more. Brewers may simply call these beers "session!" and move on, they may justify it with the lame (and somewhat worrisome) "that's 'session strength' for us!", but the fact is...yes, that seemingly small gap between 4.5% and 5.5% is significant. For one thing, well, this, Joe Stange's exposition on how drinking 5% beer will get you drunk significantly quicker than 4% beer. For another, 4.5% is supposed to be an upper limit, a ceiling, not a target! If brewers had some serious session skills, they could make deliciously drinkable beers at 4% and lower, not pussyfoot around at 4.8% and say, "Well, that's almost 4.5%, and it's really hoppy, so what's the difference?"

And that's the second thing: really hoppy. Like the rest of the non-mainstream beer category, session beer has been plowed under by the hop lovers: "session IPA" is an inexorable binding of two of the hottest brands that has crushed the possibilities for variety in this budding category, where the promise for variety was so sweet. American brewers have played it safe, gone with baby IPA as a sure thing, sticking with hops as the only tool in the box when it comes to customer enticement and ignoring the fact that the session beers of the rest of the world rely on all the ingredients of beer to make great lower-alcohol everyday drinking beers. It's a farce, nothing less, that American "craft brewing" continues to trumpet the self-congratulatory message of their vaunted innovation when their best idea for making a good, enjoyable lower alcohol beer was simply to make a lower alcohol version of the category best-seller, followed by a Cascading rush as everyone else then raced to imitate it. In case you didn't get it, let me note: that's about as innovative as the big brewers who made a lower calorie, lower ABV clone of their light lagers, called this even-lighter lager "light beer," and then raced to imitate each other. Is that what you've become?

Before "session beer" becomes a 5% IPA, I'm going to propose a challenge to the brewers who are innovative, who have the will and the skill to make something different and delicious for Session Beer Day 2016. This year:

Show Us Your Session Smarts!

If you're a brewer interested in participating, it's simple. The "session IPA" has taken over the American session beer category, when it was supposed to be a meta-category, a category that would include many different types of beer at 4.5% and less. Session beer awareness is supposed to be about increasing choices for the beer drinker...and we largely got one extra choice out of it.

Snap out of it! Take this opportunity to show off your skills and make a session-strength beer, 4.5% or less (you can do it; you can go lower!), that doesn't rely on shouting hops for all its character. We get it, brewers know how to make a light, wildly hoppy beer: EVERY brewer's doing it.

Be different! On April 7th, show us some real innovation, or some real skills to make a beautiful example of a classic session-strength beer that stands apart from the herd of 'monkey-see, monkey-do' dialed-down IPAs. Work with specialty malts or non-barley grains, a different yeast, light souring, smoke, herbs or spices, wood-aging, or sure, a light hand with the right hops, a pale ale, there's a thought. Make it tasty but not crushing, make it something "more-ish," as Michael Jackson used to say. Show the world you're not a monkey, thumb your nose at the "me too me too" crowd, and who knows...maybe find your next big seller.

Lots and lots and lots of great tasting beers!

If you accept the challenge, post a comment here, or send me an email (sessionbeerday@gmail.com), and let us know who you are, and where you'll be representing that beer on Session Beer Day, April 7. We'll help get the word out.

Bar owners/managers, beer stores, and yes, beer drinkers: we've got ideas for you too. The brewers need more lead time. Your suggestions for a successful Session Beer Day are coming up.

And if you feel threatened by this, or think that beer must be hoppy or else, or that only big beers have flavor, or that "session beer" is a fad that's over...your opinions are always welcome. Just try to keep them civil. Thanks.

More Good News About Notch

The deal means more of this stuff, too!

The first American beer company dedicated to brewing only session beers (to my knowledge, anyway), Notch Brewing, has signed a contract with Two Roads Brewing (a new brewery built to offer capacity to the new generation of contract/gypsy/whatever brewers) to ensure expanded, steady brewing capacity and canning capability. The story is here, on BrewBound.

Notch, which embraces the SBP's 4.5%-and-under definition of "session beer," has survived as a one-person contract brewer, and grown to 1200 bbls. in sales in its second year; owner Chris Lohring projects 2,000 barrels in 2013. He's hired his first full-time employee, former Narragansett marketing manager Zac Antczak. Zac did a fantastic job at Narragansett, and is already spreading Notch sales outside of the "beer geek" zone.

Well, you know? What can I say? This is fantastic news. Small, but fantastic. Add it to the news from Boulevard, Odell, Deschutes, Stone, and all the other brewers adding session beers, and we're looking definitely trending.

Drink small, drink good, drink session.

Notch Issues Session Beer Day Manifesto

Okay...is this thing on? Check, check, one two...Hey! 

Good to see everyone, good to see everyone. Everyone got a beer? Yeah?! Well, me too, so CHEERS!

So hey, this Session Beer Day, April 7, is a pretty big thing, all right? And Chris, you know, at Notch? Chris decided we needed a manifesto. Yeah, to tell everyone what this is all about. I got it here, hang on... [pats pockets, finds and unfolds piece of cardboard with crayon scribblings] Yeah! Here it is. Check this out... 

The 2013 Session Beer Day Manifesto

This Session Beer Day, founded by the father of American Session Beer, Lew Bryson, Notch shall celebrate Session Beer as follows:

Beers of  4.5% ABV or less, flavorful, and built for multiple rounds. No negotiation, no interpretation.

Larger vessels, such as the Willi, Nonic and Glaskrug shall display your allegiance!

Stemmed glassware and all its variants shall be shunned!

Vessel sizes of 1/2 liters, imperial pints and full liters shall be celebrated!

Vessels sizes of less than 16 oz shall warrant a surcharge (said surcharge all ready applied in most locations)!

Toasts must be boisterous and plentiful, and begin with a rousing "hear, hear"!

Speak no ill will of beer, but speak not of beer! Speak of politics, religion, sport, art, love and friendship. But never bore your comrades with beer geekery!

Evaluating beer through swirling, excessive sniffing or discussion (see above) shall bring a swift boot!

Non-verbal actions, such as nodding one's head in approval of beer being consumed is allowable.

Note-taking or mobile app rating of any beer shall be cause for expulsion from any fun, forever!

Social media sharing of Session Beer Day shall be encouraged, especially during boisterous toasts of Glaskrugs and general session beer awesomeness! 

All right! Pretty cool! And look, that thing about mobile app rating...you guys want to get your Untappd badges, okay, but get it done and stop noodling. Drink and talk, drink and sing, drink and laugh, but here's my addition to the Manifesto: Session Beer Day isn't about the beer as much as it's about the drinking and the drinkers, and what we do while we're drinking. Have fun, enjoy the day, enjoy the company. Be German: talk to your tablemates. Be English: buy rounds. Be Czech: drink the same good beer at a steady pace all day. Be American: be loud!

Thanks to Chris Lohring of Notch Brewing for this very much tongue-in-cheek manifesto, and for all the great beer and great thinking he's done for session beer!

Notch Lays It Down: Left of the Dial IPA

The first thing I'm going to say about Notch's new beer is this: you can, if you want, skip reading this post and just go straight to what Chris Lohring has to say about Left of The Dial IPA right here. Because he nails the whole "session IPA" discussion, and explains why he brewed this beer, and what it is and what it means, much better than I could.

But...I'd like to pile on a bit. I'm totally jazzed that he's done this beer, that it's clearly a statement, that it's coming out the week of Session Beer Day, and that he's doing it with such a great name, the sloganish phrase he's been using for great tasting session beer for over a year now. The only downside is that I probably won't get any, because Notch is still very much an eastern Massachusetts phenomenon, and I'm not getting up there anymore.

Why a session-strength IPA? Well, like I told a writer who was interviewing me yesterday (about beer selection strategies for beer bars' taps), IPA is not going away. Someone or other has been predicting the fade of IPA since the mid-1990s, and IPA just thumbs its nose and keeps growing. Betting against IPA, I told her, was like betting against vodka. Ain't happening. So roll with it. That's just what Chris is doing, because it's going to sell like mad.

Or maybe not: read this:

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. It may be the only time you see this beer, because it broke the bank, so I hope you enjoy!

Yo, up in Boston! Drink my share!

Notch Celebrates Session Beer Day!

Notch Brewing -- which I think was the first all-session beer brand in America -- is celebrating Session Beer Day in ye olde high style, with a 5K fun sponsored by Dig Boston's beer blogger, Heather Vandenengel (do like I do and read her posts here: The Honest Pint) that kicks off at 3:30, then the first "session" at Deep Ellum, an old friend of session beer and the SBP, starts at 4:00 with complimentary Notch liter mugs for your first round! Small beer, big glasses, as Notch-man Chris Lohring puts it. At 5:30, things shift to The Silhouette (take your mug along!), and run on till 7 PM.

Expect fun from this event (these events?), because Notch gets it. Check it out:

And we have a Session Beer Day Manifesto ready, with proclamations released periodically leading up to the big day. There is no cost, just pay as you go (hopefully in rounds) and keep your liter mug as a reminder beer can still be fun and not at all like homework!

That reminds me...I did talk about a Session Beer Manifesto. Back to work!

Session Beer Day is Coming!

Much to the distress of the Big Beer Cabal (and to Uncle Jack), the Session Beer Project is not dead! I've just been dealing with other matters, and happily watching session beer cruise along on autopilot. But our newly christened annual Session Beer Day -- April 7 -- is coming up, and it's time to beat the drums.

Consider the drums beaten...

First, I have our first Session Beer Day event to announce: Bulls Head Pub in Lititz, PA, home pub of Paul Pendyck, who has brought cask beer engines to many bars and brewpubs in America, will be celebrating by putting 4.5% and under beers on all their taps (including the beer engines) for the whole day, and selling them for $4.50 a glass! (And Paul uses imperial pints for most of those beers!) What's more, with Paul's permission, I am challenging as many session beer-friendly pubs as possible to match this event! Plenty of time to promote it, plenty of time to get people fired up. Show your session beer love!

Lemon zest & peppercorns

What else? How about some great new session beers? Wachusett is releasing their new Light IPA in cans in March, to join their year-round line-up: 4% ABV with 37 IBUs (and only 121 calories, if you care). Victory has a new spring seasonal, Swing Session Saison, at 4.5%, that launches today in the Philadelphia market. The Lion has a new formulation of their Stegmaier Pale Ale at 4%, and it's crisp and zesty in the mouth and rushing with hop aroma (out soon, I got some samples). There's a whole LINE of session beers coming from Mavericks, under 4% and aimed at the active life (no reason Michelob Ultra should have that to themselves, right?). And of course, speaking of entire lines of session beers, I know Chris Lohring will have new beers from Notch Brewing's line of great, tasty, and traditional session beers of all types (Saison has gone year-round, BTW!).

What else? Well, if you use Untappd, we need to ask them politely to set up a Session Beer Day badge. You can email them here, or leave a note on their Facebook page. Something like: "Can you please repeat last year's Session Beer Day Badge for Session Beer Day on April 7? Thanks!"

Any journalists, bloggers, Tweeters, movers and shakers: please spread the word. April 7 is a day to celebrate beer in big glasses, all-day beers, great beer with great flavor and low alcohol. I'm available for interviews or quotes, but the day is about the beer!

And...I have realized that I will not be in the U.S. on Session Beer Day. I'll be in Scotland on a whisky research trip, but you can bet I'll find a few glasses of session cask that day: Cairngorms, or Deuchars, or something small and local, I hope. Run with it, we're going to do this!

I'll be posting more this month. Get excited, we're gonna drink lots of beer on April 7!

Blatant Session

I picked up some beer in Newton, Mass at Marty's last Friday when I picked up Thomas from BU; a sixpack of Notch Pils -- just cuz -- and 22 oz. bombers of Cambridge Brewing's Audacity of Hops, and Blatant Brewery's IPA and Session. I'd seen pictures of those three on Facebook, and made a stop at Marty's mostly to get some (and partly because I'd just done a telephone interview with Marty Siegal two weeks before, and was really interested in seeing the store -- rightly so, it's freakin' awesome). Of course they had Blatant: their distributor is Atlantic Importing, run by Marty Siegal's son Sean. I brought them home and have been waiting for the right moment.

Tonight we had burgers grilled outside in the cool evening, and we wanted something not to boozy: we're closing on our refinance in about 15 minutes. Blatant Session, at 3.9%, sounded perfect. Cathy's first sip put a smile on her face: "Oooo, that's yummy." It was a bit like Stone Levitation, but without the forward malt, and without quite as urgent a hop character. Tasty, bitter, good malt backbone, and very finishable.

I'd like to spend some time at a bar with this, three Notches, and the Sam Adams Belgian Session on tap, and play some cards, and talk some politics, and watch some baseball. I feel that day may not be so far away anymore. Maybe I was wrong about last year being the Year of Session Beer. Maybe it's this year.

Chris Lohring is Cool...and by extension....

I swear, it's not that I'm piling on with Chris Lohring and Notch Brewing. But about half an hour ago I got an email from The Daily Meal that Lohring made their "60 (Plus) Coolest People in Food & Drink" list. Okay, it's not a James Beard award, but when you're the ONLY brewer on the list (and yeah, I know Notch is contract, but Chris is definitely a brewer) and there are people like Sam and Greg and Garrett and Adam and The Bros and Dick out there...it's a definite tip o' the cap.

So congratulations to Chris, because what he's doing is cool, and he's being very cool about it -- just read the blog sometime -- and the write-up of his inclusion definitely gets it:

Low-alcohol, "sessionable" [there's That Word again...] beers may have everyone in the craft beer community buzzing right now, but back when Lohring started Notch Brewing that was certainly not the case. Frustrated by the oversaturation of high-alcohol craft beers on the market at the time, he went against the grain, developing a balanced, flavorful line of brews that check in at less than 4.5 percent alcohol by volume. An ahead-of-his-time guy who strove to make a better-tasting beer that you can drink more of without getting sloppy drunk? Definitely cool.

Chris: gonna steal some of your cool here. Not for myself, not for the SBP at all...but it would appear that if Chris and Notch are cool...session beer is cool.

Damn right it is! Keep it coming, people: ask your local bar to carry some good craft beer under 4.5%, ask your local brewpub to make one, and then drink them! If you don't ask, it may not happen...unless someone as cool as Chris Lohring comes along.

Interview: Chris Lohring of all-session Notch Brewing

I was going to do a post on the 2^nd anniversary of Notch Brewing, which founder/brewer/everything Chris Lohring is celebrating tomorrow with the seasonal launch of his Saison — now in 12 oz. bottles! — so I asked Chris if he could answer a few questions, just to get some quotes to spice up a small post. Well…I asked some good questions, and I happened to hit him when he had some time (and a good cup of coffee)…so I’m just going to run the interview. It’s a smart encapsulation of how session beer is really starting to roll, in a picture of the first two years of a brewer dedicated to only making beers at 4.5% and under.*

When you started Notch, did you have a hunch that you were about to catch a small wave of interest in session beers? Or did you just take a chance on something you liked, like so many other small brewers?

It was a combo of all, except the wave part. I never imagined the interest session beer was about to gain. It started with my own habits. When I got out of brewing for a few years, I found it increasingly difficult to find interesting and fresh low ABV beers, because the focus had moved to the extreme. Even the 5.5 to 6.0% craft beer standards (Harpoon IPA, for example) are still higher alcohol beers in my mind. Notch Pils is 4.0%, Harpoon IPA is almost 6%, and that is 50% more alcohol. That adds up quick. As an avid runner, I was also very aware of the calories packed into a 6% ABV beer.

As a former professional brewer, I knew it didn't need to be this way. We could make wildly flavorful low alcohol beers, but the craft industry chose not to. They instead ran to high margin, high ABV beers. Would this really grow craft beer to its full potential? Session beer to me was a logical path to expanding craft beer market share, for new consumers (session beers are great gateway beers) and for what people smarter than me call usage occasions (there are many times session beer is far more appropriate than a fully loaded beer).

From a business perspective it's simple; there's a gap in the market. But the question remains, and needs to be proven, how many beer drinkers find value in session beer. How many find value in having one beer when they normally thought it was out of the question, or having 3 or 4 and walking a straight line out of the bar. I asked around before launching Notch, but I realized consumers are poor at evaluating a concept, it needs to be real. The only way to test something is to make it and sell it. So, Notch was born.

And for the record, without the Session Beer Project providing some glimmer of hope, I'm not sure I would have jumped so quick.

Can you give me any kind of growth rate numbers for your second year? Are things going okay, really well, hard to keep up with?

The first year was me brewing small, draft only batches that were used to convince retailers and wholesalers "session" had viability. (Just think about that two years later.) Year two was the bottle release, so growth was huge, but we were starting from nothing. I sold so much out of the gate in year 2 that I was consistently stocking out, and had to keep my distribution territory to greater Boston only. My host brewery, Mercury, increased capacity, so I was able to go statewide in September.

But a really odd thing happened last year. I sold more beer in December than any other month, and I sold more Pils on draft in December than any other month. It proved to me that session beer was not a summer concept, that it had relevance year round. At a time when other breweries were pumping out barley wines, strong ales, and highly hopped bombs, there were consumers drinking a whole bunch of unfiltered Czech style lager. Let’s just say that demand was not in my production planning, and it took me a few months to catch up.

Saison's coming out in sixpacks; do you think you'll be able to keep up with demand?

I have no idea what to expect from a 3.8% Saison in a six pack at $8.99. I'm not sure anyone has done something like that in New England. While I hope demand is strong, I certainly have a knack for picking difficult beers to brew from a production standpoint. I really need to give Mercury Brewing and their Head Brewer Dan Lipke credit for allowing me to have such freedom and creativity. But I ran a production facility for years, so I know when to admit something is not practical. Saison yeast is on the edge of not practical.

Any plans for a brewery yet?

Not for full production. Without reasonable scale and solid margins, a physical plant is extremely risky. As long as I have breweries that allow me the production I need with the ability to be extremely hands on, I'll be happy for awhile. If my volume grows to where it makes sense to build, I'd evaluate it, but that's a long way off. A small R&D brewery for one-offs with a tap room and beer garden? That makes more sense to me.

Session beer has a lot of interest, and that's showing in the number of beers that are tagging themselves as session beers or "sessionable"...even when they're over 5% or even over 6%. What's your reaction when you see a beer like that?

Jumping a train is easier than building one, and calling something session beer is easier than actually brewing it. Those beers are standard or slightly higher than standard ABV (Look at the CDC's measurements for standard drinks: 12oz beer at 5%, 5oz wine at 12%, or a 1.5oz measure of 80 proof spirit). Session beer is LOWER than standard, it is that simple. Some brewers are using session when they are referring to easy drinking. Not the same.

In Massachusetts, we've had a number of brewers come out with session beers in the last year that fit the Session Beer Project definition. Maybe we're better at math, or maybe we don't lie to our livers?

Are you enjoying the ride?

I've been having a great deal of fun these last two years. I work seven days a week [seriously, he does; following his Twitter feed -- @NotchBrewer -- makes me feel like a slacker] and rarely feel like I'm working. It's been rewarding to have so many beer fans come up to me and thank me for making session beer. That helps.

Thanks Lew, and thanks for all the support the last two years, you've been a big part of the ride.

*Disclosure: Chris is an acquaintance — I got to know him back when he ran Tremont Brewing — but I have no financial interest in his business — or any plans to have one — and there has never been any coordination between us except the one time we did an event together. Essentially, I write about Notch and Chris so much because he’s dedicated Notch to brewing only beers under 4.5%, and that’s made it a natural experiment for the SBP to follow.

"...the very basic function of a Bitter"

Fantastic post by Chris Lohring of The Notch today, about brewing a batch of cask bitter. It's long, and detailed, but it's a great look into why "contract brewing" shouldn't be a bad word. This guy busted his hump to get a batch of beer brewed, fought problems both under and out of his control, and won through to a batch of German-malt, German-hopped bitter, under 4% and subtly dry...and there are some great bits of insight here.

• "...here’s the hard reality of brewing in too many places with too many variables and not enough time, resources or money."
• "Bitter is a subtle but beautiful beer style, and the subtlety is the key. The beer’s elements must line up in a way that is balanced, yet interesting enough to draw you in for another sip." 
• "The subtle complexity of Burton Bitter is something which is certainly out of favor in modern US craft brewing. And this subtle complexity is regularly bashed by beer snobs who like the opposite. As if it’s a binary option, and one can not exist with the other"
• "...with session beer, there is not a lot of time to set the bed, as the malt mill runs dry pretty quick."
• "Plan B Bitter would have been a good name for the beer, but I don’t really give Notch beers fanciful names. It seems silly for session beers, which are modest by definition."
• "The whereabouts of my Firkins are still unknown, and this is part of the cask game I loathe. Some brewers use other brewers casks without guilt. Maybe they think they are lost? Surrendered? Cast off? Who knows, but if a Notch cask is filled with another beer, that cask has been stolen. It’s that simple."
• "Two ounces of hops per cask, just for a bit of subtlety. More would have been fun, but a little predictable and it would have masked some of the delicate malt characteristics."
• "...it was at this point I knew Notch Bitter was the beer of the damned."
• "Notch Bitter fits the very basic function of a Bitter, which is to not get in the way of the conversation, or be the conversation. It’s simply a delicious session beer that can be the backbone for a fun afternoon or evening at your local. If you can’t get your head around that, you’ll never get your head around session beer."

Go read it. Thanks for all the hard work, Chris.

Session gets more good -- smart -- press

Financial news site TheStreet.com has a piece on session beers and canned crafts this week -- "Cans? Low Buzz? What's up with Craft Beer?" -- that really does get it. One of the things they get is how session beer is fighting a real headwind: low-alcohol = low flavor/quality.

As craft brewers embrace beers with less than 5% alcohol by volume and can packaging long held to ridicule after being stacked in "beeramids" and smashed against one too many frat boy foreheads, they're battling both for market share in an increasingly crowded segment and against longstanding beer stigmas passed down through generations of drinkers. 

True. But craft session beer also addresses a problem, as ratebeer's Joe Tucker (a strong ally of session beer) points out: 

"We have a 'usability' problem -- average alcohol by volume is way too high to be sipping multiple beers down at the river, cutting the lawn or at the game," says Joseph Tucker, owner and operator of RateBeer, who sees session beer as a solution to craft beer's summer quandary. "High-alcohol beer is more filling, it has more calories and it's dehydrating, and this makes the average craft beer a problem in the summertime."

Can you drink big beer in the summer? Sure: that's what air-conditioning is for. I had an Otto's Double D during Philly Beer Week in the coolly chilled Grey Lodge Pub, and it tasted great. But when I was sweating it at a packed event later in the week, doors and windows open wide to try to get a breath of air into the place? Nice cold Kenzinger, baby.



One problem I continually struggle with is the folks who want to up the definition of session to include 5% and even 5.5% beers. I don't want to get to be an ABV Nazi, but the fact is, if most world beers, if average beers home in around 5%...that makes "session beers" no big deal, and once again stuffs 3.5% beers down into the "not enough" category we've seen expanding in beer judging, and in the pale ale, IPA, and even double IPA categories, a real "go big or go home" mentality that I've pegged as the "get a bigger monkey" syndrome. Keep "session beer" defined as 4.5% and less -- or 4% or less -- and you'll get a more level playing field for these beers, and you will see more creativity and more flavor at that level. We're seeing it already.

Chris Lohring, at The Notch, doing all session beer, naturally thinks a lot about the subject, and offers this:

"If it's fine to call something 'extreme,' and the craft beer community has really embraced that term, then what's so bad about embracing a term that's the opposite of that in 'session'?" 

Indeed. What's so bad about it? What is everyone so scared of? Summer of 2011, baby: the Summer of Session? Finally? 

Big piece on session beer (it's good; I wrote it)

I did get to write a lengthy piece on session beer -- local session beer -- and it came out yesterday in Massachusetts Beverage Business, a trade journal I've been writing regularly for since about 1998 (sad to say that this is their last issue as an independent magazine). Check it out; I think I hit most of the bells on this one. Love the bit about the line out the door at the Lower Depths: people lined up to get openly-declared session beer. That's pretty damned extreme...

More new session beers...

Not only are The Notch Session Pils and Session Ale now out in bottles, I just got news from Ale Industries (in Concord, California) that they're celebrating their second anniversary -- congrats! -- with the release of two new beers, one of them a session beer! Check it out:

The first is simply named “2012 Table Beer, the Beer of the Future”. This beer is what we call a Light Belgian Dark Ale, and has a very sessionable 3.0% abv. The beer was brewed with a blend of yeasts which were borrowed from the newly formed Oakland Brewing Company. Go co-operation! 2012 Table beer, the Beer of the Future was brewed in the same vein as many Ale Industries beers, to achieve layers of depth in the simple but under-rated form of session beer.

Gotta love the name, gotta love the love.

Extreme Session Beer, Part II

After that last post about the Alström's Extreme Session Beer Project, it was interesting to see this post on The Notch blog. Chris Lohring is brewing a grodziskie, a mostly extinct Polish style of beer he described as "a beer made from 100% smoked wheat malt, very low ABV, very high hop character, fermented with an ale yeast, and served unfiltered yet with out yeast turbidity...True Grodziskie involves oak smoking green wheat (steeped and germinated wheat) while being dried and kilned."

I've had a shot at a (I guess non-traditional) grodziskie made at Yards, and it was really interesting and bold -- bacony, really, but refreshing.When I read that Chris was brewing one for The Notch, well, that's kind of exciting.

I was let down to read this, though:

"...the email came regarding Extreme Beer Fest. I was not on the invite list for participating brewers, as invites go to “brewers known for brewing extreme beers.” And it didn’t surprise me, as I understand I am the new kid on the block (at the same time being from the old school). We built our reputation at the Tremont Brewery on well balanced beers and were quick to call out extreme beers as gimmicks. So I had this coming to me.

Quite phlegmatic, Chris; tip of the hat to you for being mature about it. Why invites wouldn't go to both brewers known for extreme beers and session beers, I'm not so sure, but it is the Extreme Beer Festival, and the "Extreme Session Beer Project" is a subset within that, so... Anyway, the cool thing is Chris's reaction to suddenly not having an automatically appreciative audience for this quirky beer:

"I was too far down the path to Grodziskie to turn back."

Atta boy! He got the smoked green wheat malt (at Valley Malt, in Hadley, Mass., a very small husband-and-wife-run custom maltings) and went ahead and brewed a pilot batch. And now he's waiting on, as he put it, maybe the most important question:

how does Grodziskie taste? Is it in the dustbin of history for a reason? Well, it’s been one week in the fermenter, and I should have some sense of what this beer tastes like in another week. And then I can make the decision if this beer can scale to a commercial brewery, with commercial potential. With no captive audience to rely on at EBF, this beer will need to be sold to bars, and willingly purchased by craft beer fans. Something to ponder while I  gear up for the bottle release of Session Ale and Pils later this month. Sleepless nights are becoming common.

That's ballsy. Session beers are not for the faint of heart when it comes to brewing and selling them; at least, not yet. Tom Baker tells me that the session beers are a tough sell at Earth + Bread and Brewery (and they don't have one on, currently), only Victory seems to have no problem selling bitter at their pub (or maybe they just always have Uncle Teddy's on because Ron likes it, I dunno). All I ask: if you see a session-strength beer on at your local brewpub or bar, try it. And if it's good, tell me -- and I'll help get the word out, here, on Twitter, and on Facebook -- and most importantly, have another. 

Cheers! 

The Notch: Success!

The Notch, a brand/project that has kind of become the poster child/test-case for the Session Beer Project, has apparently succeeded! Owner-creator Chris Lohring has posted the following at his blog:

Back in April I launched a limited Summer roll-out of Notch Session Ale with the hope of proving out a theory that session beer had a rightful, more visible place in the US craft beer scene. The goal was small – bring session beer back into the conversation – but success was uncertain. Was a session beer brand viable? Where it went beyond this summer was truly anyone’s guess.
Four months later, with Summer now in the review mirror, I am happy to announce that Notch is real. We passed the test.
What does this all mean? Wider availability of Notch in draft this October, and Notch bottles following this January. I’ll also have a few surprises along the way, and the one-off small batches will continue.
Availability will be spotty until mid-October, but hang in there, it will be worth the wait. Exciting times!

 "The goal was small -- bring session beer back into the conversation." Yup. That's all we're trying to do here, too. And this has succeeded -- like The Notch -- beyond anything I'd hoped for. Check out what my colleague in beer-writing Jay Brooks has to say here, for instance.
Cheers to The Notch: up Session!

The Notch: my experiences

I've mentioned Chris Lohring's session beer concept here before: Notch is a planned brand of all session-strength beers. He's currently brewing test batches at Kennebunkport Brewing (where he brewed back in the 1990s before opening Tremont) and selling them in the Boston area. As some of you may know...my son's started at Boston University, so I've had a couple trips to Boston this summer, and got to try two of Chris's beers.

The first occasion, which led to the picture at right (that's Slowfest* co-founder Jim Stanton, Chris, me, and Slowfest founder Jeff Lawrence) at the Lower Depths, right on Commonwealth Ave after the first day of BU Orientation (Thomas was off getting acquainted, Cathy was off to the right, having some well-deserved quiet time with her beer). We were sampling the Notch Summer Session. It was light, just a bit hoppy, refreshing, and three-pint drinkable. Really, I know! (Afterwards, we rolled out and grabbed a Sazerac up the street at Eastern Standard, where we ran into about four BU deans...getting drinks and dinner. I like this school.)

The next time was when we dropped Thomas off this past weekend. After moving him in (fourth-floor walk-up...oy), it was time for lunch. Where to, I asked him. "How about Deep Ellum?" he said, making me feel so good about all the money we'd spent on his education! Not only did they have Notch Hoppy Session, they had it on cask! Man, that was excellent, and the way session ales should be: zippy bitterness and puffy hop aroma, with a great depth of character you can only taste in a low-alc beer when it's on cask: malt, esters, and bitterness rolling around and loving your tongue. I had another.

Notch works, and it's selling, too. As I would urge you with any session beer, please support them whenever you can -- assuming you find you like it. This is all about good session beer, after all; this is not like the early days of craft brewing where we bought it because we were supporting them, not supporting them because we liked it. But...I'm pretty sure you'll like Notch!


*Is this awesome, or what: Slowfest was(and will be again) a festival of local food and session beers.about killed me that I couldn't make it up there to attend. What a fantastic idea, and why can't we have this in Philly? Steve Mash, I'm looking at you, brother. You're the man to make this happen! Need help?


**Despite Chris wearing the shirt, and pimping SBP at every given opportunity, there is no financial link between The Notch and me. I may well end up doing some events with him at some time, but other than that? I just love promoting any kind of session beer, and Chris happens to agree with just about every tenet of SBP. It works.

Notch-ing up a Month

Chris Lohring's Notch Session beer brand has hit a month, and the initial supply of the first two beers in the experiment is running low. He's going to have two new beers out in mid/late-June, and more coming every five weeks. I think the idea is to do market research...but maybe he'll just keep messing around. In any case...I kinda wish I were drinking in Boston!