Smuttynose Bouncy House interview

Smuttynose is coming out with a new 4.3% session beer called Bouncy House; it fits into the "session IPA" slot, but they're calling it an "All Occasion American Ale." I talked to Smuttynose brewer David Yarrington about it.  

Fun name, Bouncy House. And I see you call it Bouncy House IPA, but the term "session IPA" is nowhere on the packaging.

It was named by Peter [Egleston]. We went back and forth about that. The decision was to just call it "All Occasion American Ale." In our marketing, we’ll tell people it’s a session IPA, but we wanted to design a beer that wasn’t just a fad, a beer a year from now, people will say, 'Oh, session IPA.' Even using IPA on the label was a back and forth. But anything we can do to stop confusion is good. People like fanciful names! Look at some of the beers people are talking about, they have an interesting name. 

It’s a session IPA; the term people recognize, being a new style, how do you define it, and has it been defined? Isn’t it just an American pale ale?  

We wanted to differentiate from that. There’s a fine line because it’s so low in alcohol and has such a thin body, it can become too bitter. We’re trying to push that line so it’s more than a pale ale. It’s hop-forward. A big part is the low ABV, it’s sessionable. [Oh that word!] When we did pilots, it came down about half a degree Plato in each batch. We wanted to get it in the 4.2-4.3% ABV range, but still have enough mouthfeel.

The last sample you sent me was at 4.6%, and I chided you about it; that's when I was told you were aiming below 4.5%, and this was a work in progress, looking at malt. What did you wind up with on mashbill? 

 

The mashbill is our silo malt, an English pale, then Aromatic, Crystal 60, and Cara Hell. We wanted to add — the specialty malts are over 10% — more mouthfeel, didn’t want it to be thin, and a little color. We weren’t doing a hi-gravity beer; it starts at 10 P, so we wanted some complexity. Bittering is Magnum, we do a lot of Magnum. Flavoring is Calypso, aroma is a mix of Calypso and Saphir. We don’t know how much it’s going to sell, but we had to contract last year…and it appears that I cornered the market on Calypso! They asked me to release some of that back into the wild… Hey, look at me, I’m one of those guys who bought all the hops! But one of the effects of being as big as we are is that when I think about a new beer, [I have to consider]; if it catches on, am I using a hop that I can get enough of? Everyone wants Citra; what if it takes off? That’s why we like to blend dry hops, we could adjust it a bit if we had to. All those practical things the beer-drinking public doesn’t think about. 

Would you have made a beer like this five years ago?

Interesting question. For me, there was always a desire… at some point in the evening, I’d take a High Life. Charlie Papazian has been vocalizing for session for a long time. But five years ago, could I sell it? People weren’t buying. I thank Charlie for advocating these beers. It would have been hard to sell this five years ago; people were talking about the proof of beers at the time! People were eating it up. If I were running a brewpub, that would be different, 7 barrels would sell out. But Smuttynose is at a different scale.

One of the things I find fascinating is that we’re all aging at the same rate. We all came in when we were younger and could consume a lot. But the vanguard of the industry is aging. I’m in my mid-40s, and I’m not the guy out there drinking 10 pints. It’s nice to have a choice to have a session, have a few beers, chat with people, and still get up and go to work in the morning. It dovetails in with a movement I’m starting to see to German beers. I think you’re going to see more of the lighter helles and kölsches; difficult to brew, but they have a delicacy and complexity. I think that’s going to mesh well with the session beer idea. 

Making an imperial stout is easier than making these beers. We’ve all matured past saying that more alcohol and more flavor means more craft. I love dialing in a smaller beer, they show their imperfections. I don’t remember seeing beer snobs in the 1990s, but now, some of these places and people...wow. What I liked was that for five or six dollars you could have the best beers in the world. I like wine, but I’d never be able to afford to be a wine snob! I thought that was part of the appeal. But now this seems to be part of the beer snob.

We're told we don't have a beer culture here in America. Could craft session beers change that? 

For years, anyone who came back from England said; wow great time, drink those beers, and have a great time drinking in the pubs. I went, and I totally get what they’re talking about. They’re easy, anyone could sit there all evening. It’s so well-suited for having conversation and a few beers. I hope that’s what we’re moving to. It’s interesting to see other beer cultures and how they go about it. America still has some of that bingeing, some of that Prohibition feeling of ‘this isn’t right, so I better get it done.’ You don’t want people to see you drinking, and that’s a shame. I spent some time in Japan, and one of the things I love is that it’s always shared. You buy a large format bottle for the table, and you don’t pour your own beer; you top off other people’s. It’s a group experience. 

Thanks, David. Happy Session Beer Day!

Stone's new Go To IPA

Quick link to The New School's post about Stone's new "Go To IPA," so I can say a huge

THANK YOU!

to Stone Brewing for making this 4.5%: not 4.9%, not 4.7%, not 4.6%...but 4.5%. Stone says the beer is "hop-bursted," which they explain this way:

This beer employs the use of the “hop bursting” technique, which in essence is a hopping technique where all or most of the bitterness in the beer comes from late hop additions in the brewhouse, like at the end of boil and in the whirlpool, instead of the more traditional approach where most of the hop bitterness comes from earlier additions at the start of the kettle boil. The result is a beautifully aromatic beer with substantial, but somewhat mellow, bitterness. The hop bursting also enhances the flavor retention of the hops, and combined with the dry-hop, creates a very intense and complex hop flavor.

Whatever: I'm very curious to try it.

And of course, all brewers are encouraged to show us what they're made of and go lower...if they have the balls.

North Coast XXV Anniversary beer...is a 4% session beer

Sorry for the long silence; I was finishing a book, starting a new job, and getting through two massive events (WhiskyFest San Francisco and New York). I've been tweeting about the session beers I've had (@lewbryson), but haven't been able to post for a while. But this news brought me out of the hole:

North Coast Brewing, noted for big beers like Rasputin, Pranqster, and Stock Ale, has decided to celebrate their landmark 25th anniversary with a session beer! Here's the release, from BrewBound:

Fort Bragg, CA – In anticipation of long nights of celebration with the many friends we’ve made over the last 25 years, the brewers of North Coast have created a Belgian inspired session beer designed to promote a festive mood while minimizing the consequences of overindulgence.
Brewed with pale malts and fermented with the same yeast strain used to make Le Merle, our Twenty-fifth Anniversary Ale is sharp and spritzy with a delicious flowery, spicy dry-hop aroma. This limited offering (4% ABV) is available on tap at fine restaurants and drinking establishments. 750 ml bottles will be available at the Brewery Taproom and the Brewery Shop in Fort Bragg, California.

Add this to session beers being noted as one of three trends at the Great American Beer Festival this year,and the fact that I'm out tonight at a Pilsner Urquell event that celebrates and declares its session-strength nature (and drinkability), and you get more and more evidence of the acceptance of the session beer idea.

Once again: brewers, drinkers, marketers, please keep the meaning in "session beer" by using it only for beers at 4.5% and under. We got something going here, and it would be too bad to see it ruined by the same leveling as has hit "IPA," which these days apparently means nothing more than "with hops."

Carton Digger: a salute to session beer innovation

One of the common complaints I hear about session beers is that they're all the same. 'I don't want another bitter/mild/golden!' people tell me (ignoring the fact that there still aren't a lot of milds out there on the American beer market...). On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes I think that myself when I see all the "session IPA" labels out there; everyone wants to take a 450 hp V8 and stuff it into the back of a VW.

Well...there's all that, and then there's the new Digger, from Carton Brewing in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. I'll let them tell you about it. I wanna try this!

Digger

Gose with Clams and Lemongrass
ABV: 4% | IBU: 20 | SRM: 2

"Sure, there are oyster stouts, but we are a clam town. Are there any clam beers?"
"Not that I've ever heard of."
"Stout wouldn't make sense. Let's make it super pale. We can lean on the stoniness of our water to show the clams."
"We could make it a Gose, the salt would help push the clam idea even further."
"Nice. How should we hop it?"
"Something very simple but pretty, like Green Bullet."
"Let's add something to the boil to make it more like a pot of steamed clams, something like lemongrass."
"Okay. So a simple Gose dressed up with Cherrystone clams with a touch of Green Bullet hops, tied together with lemongrass."
"It should be cool when it gets nice and hot in July, like a day at a clam shack in a shaker pint."
Drink Digger because that happened.

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!

Deschutes River Ale

The folks at Deschutes gave me a heads up on this project back in fall, and, well, I was excited. One of my favorite breweries, jumping right into the Session Beer Project with a solid entry? Fantastic. And after waiting, after twiddling my thumbs as my samples got held up by a Great Plains snowstorm...here it is. 

Beautiful white head over a red-tinged golden body. Bright, peppy nose of grass and flowers, and a zesty freshness. A good gulp -- because you don't sip a beer like this, you've got to get it into you -- is like a pale ale dialed back a bit, and true to the nose: bright, zesty, with that grass and flowers backed by malt, flowing down to a bitter finish as the beer drains down the back of my throat. There's a nice fresh lingering flavor memory in my mouth.

This rings it. Like a bell, not a fence. It takes me back to my very first post on session beer, which was one of my first blog posts on Seen Through A Glass, January 31, 2007. Have a look at what I thought session beer was...and still do.

1. Alcohol under 4.5%. Once you get above 5%, things change, in my long experience with beer. Below that, you can drink at a moderate pace and not get heavily flummoxed. I always say that session beer is beer you can drink while you're playing cards, without worrying about gambling away your house.

2. Flavor in balance. A session beer can't be insanely hopped, syrupy with residual sugar, or funkier than hell. The whole idea of a session beer is that you can drink them smoothly glass after glass without anything cramping your palate. Plenty of flavor is fine, but nothing overpowering.

3. The beer doesn't overpower the conversation. Session beers shouldn't make you interrupt the conversation and start geeking about how marvelous the beer is. Session beer is more about backup than topic, it's something you drink while you're talking, not something to talk about.

4. Reasonably priced. There are some very quaffable beers out there that are, for some reason, wicked expensive. If you can afford to do sessions with them, God bless you. The rest of us? Reasonable is the keyword.

Well...this rings it. Like a bell. At least, I think so: Deschutes does price their beer reasonably.

More importantly, this is, for me, as validating as the Samuel Adams Belgian Session beer was a year ago; validating for me, for the SBP, for the idea I had that the time had come, the time was right, for session-strength beers to bring more variety to craft beer. I gotta tell you; when Deschutes gets on it, you know you've got something. Now...if Sierra Nevada would get on this...bet they could do an awesome Bitter under 4.5%.

Naked Brewing Carpe Noctem Black IPA

Carpe Noctem

I'm not nuts about "black IPA." I did a round of "robust porter" judging at the GABF a couple years ago, and I don't see a lot of difference between the two: a lot of hops, a lot of black, burnt malt, and a fair amount of booze. After tasting 11 of them, my palate was shot, felt like it had been scrubbed with a wire grill brush. A recently-used wire grill brush.

So I wasn't eager to try Carpe Noctem from local Naked Brewing Co., since it was a black IPA and a "session" IPA, which drives me a little nuts...but you know, there it was, on tap at the Hulmeville Inn, and I was driving, and it's only 3.9%...

Glad I dove in. Carpe Noctem has a hoppy, dry cocoa-tinged nose, and a smooth mouthful of well-balanced malt and hops, without that wicked burnt character, and a bitter finish. Nothing's really spiky, or aggressive, which is probably why the IPA-crazies aren't going nuts for it, but I liked it. Had more of it, too. Keep an eye out: they're spreading all over Pennsylvania; how, I'm not sure, but I hope they do well.

Victory Swing Session Saison

Victory dropped a little beauty into the session beer file this month with their new Swing Session Saison. Here's how the brewery described it:

 ----

Swing. It's a lively jazz rhythm, a vigorous sway, a change of view or even a roll in the proverbial hay. Now, it also means the welcome jolt of joy you'll experience upon your first sip of the session saison. Bracing but benign, this Belgian-style ale enlivens any experience with a spicy aromatic start, citrus snap and fresh finish. Swing into Spring with taste!
BEER STYLE: saison
COMPOSITION: Malts: 2 row German malts, rye, oats and wheat. Hops: Whole flower German and American hops. Spices: peppercorns and lemon zest. ABV: 4.5%.

----

It's right under our admittedly arbitrary limit at 4.5%, and let me tell you, it definitely hits the "flavorful enough to be interesting" and "balanced enough for multiple pints" points as well. I had some Swing at Memphis Taproom (a proud supporter of SBP) on Friday, and after a nightmare drive down there in which our 1984 Saab boiled over twice...Swing revived me ASAP! The peppercorn and lemon was like a dose of smelling salts, a wake-up call for my dragging spirits. The beer was lively on the palate, flashing and light, yet with a creamy touch that was simultaneously soothing: hot and hopping, but cool in style. The finish brought in the hops, bitter and gripping, to clean it all up and ready me for the next sip. Nicely done indeed, though that's no surprise from the brewers of such tasty session beers as Uncle Teddy's Bitter and Victory Dark Lager.

Big Wave (little ABV)

Just heard the following; session continues to roll on:

A longtime staple in Hawaii will soon make its way ashore, courtesy of Hawaii-born Kona Brewing Company. Big Wave Golden Ale will join Kona’s portfolio on the mainland that includes flagship Longboard Island Lager, Fire Rock Pale Ale and the trio of Aloha Series seasonals available at select times during the year. Brewed with tropical ingredients, the Aloha Series is comprised of Pipeline Porter, Koko Brown Ale and Wailua Wheat. Like Longboard, Big Wave Golden Ale will be a year-round offering starting August 13, 2012, and will be available in 6-pack bottles in all 30 of Kona’s mainland markets.

Kona Brewing president Mattson Davis said, “Big Wave Golden Ale is one of our original beers, first brewed at our Kailua-Kona home brewery in the mid 90’s. Like Longboard, it’s a great session beer with a bright quenching finish, and perfect for kicking back and talking story at sunset. For the tens of thousands of mainland craft beer lovers who have requested it, their day has come!”

Specs:

Bitterness:            21 IBU

ABV:                        4.4%

OG:                         10.3 P

Malts:                         Pale (Premium 2-row), Honey

Hops:                        Galaxy and Citra

MORE session-friendly brewers: two NEW ones

Nimble Hill Brewing Co. (at Nimble Hill Winery) is in Mehoopaney, Penn. (really, look it up), and is so brand-spanking new that according to brewer Michael Simmons, "Our first brew as a new brewery will be an English Mild, called Fuggle, at 3.5% ABV. It will be ready by April 7th! It will be available in draft only, at restaurants near Tunkhannock, Penn." That's west of Scranton, and proves again that even rural Pennsylvania is rapidly getting hip to craft and session beer.

Next up is a brewery far from the Wyoming Valley: Strike Brewing is based in San Jose, Calif. They recently told me that "We are a three month old brewing company in the Bay Area and launched with a series of session beers. Our Blonde is 4.6% [very close...], Wit 4.3% and Brown is right at 4%." 

Pretty cool stuff, and thanks to both Nimble Hill and Strike for giving session a shot!

Battlefield in Fred-burg goes session in a Scots way

Got a message from an old friend, Lyle Brown, who -- after years as a very accomplished homebrewer (won silver in the GABF Pro-Am in 2008 with a rauch; more on that shortly) -- has made the jump to commercial brewer at the new Battlefield Brewing Company at The Pub in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I will reluctantly, sadly, admit that I haven't had a chance to stop in yet (gonna happen, it's on the way to the brother-in-law's and Blue & Gray Brewing and A. Smith Bowman Distillery (home of Virginia Gentleman bourbon), where my good friend Truman Cox is about to take over as master distiller).

However! Lyle knows I like a good session beer, so he sent news: We now have Spotsylvania Scottish 70 on tap at 4.0% ABV. This beer is a malty sweet beer, with a mild balancing Styrian Goldings bitterness, yet light in body and ultimately drinkable. There's also Chancellor Pale Ale (4.6% ABV) an American style Pale Ale with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo hops.

I'm not going to quibble about 0.1%, I'd dive in on that Chancellor. Besides...Lyle said he's also got a Rauch Marzen tapping in a few days, and I don't give a damn what ABV that is; if I get half a chance, I'm getting some!

The Pub is at 4187 Plank Rd, Fredericksburg, VA 22407, 540-785-2164.  

Another "session IPA"

Just got a press release from North Peak Brewing in Traverse City, Michigan about their new "Session India Pale Ale" they call Wanderer. It's...well, I'll let them describe it:
"...a wonderfully-refreshing Session IPA, brewed with locally-grown hops on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City. Session IPA is an exciting new style, balanced with malt and hop characters with a clean finish. Hopped with Perle, Willamette, Centennial and Citra that give it a citrus and pine finish, Wanderer is rounded out with a generous amount of dry-hopping with Citra hops to fill the nose to give it a light, clean and stimulating body. This combination of full-hop flavor and lower alcohol gives Wanderer a wonderful drinkability, allowing the craft beer drinker to have multiple beers, within a reasonable time period or “session.”"


Hmmm...not sure about that "reasonable" time period! But otherwise? These guys seem to get it, even though I'm guessing it's probably over-hopped for my tastes. I'm seeing more of these hoppy session beers; smart brewers trying to give the people what they want. 


Wonder what they charge for it...?

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.

"Dry-heathering"

Scott Smith is making it work in Pittsburgh. His incredible Session Beer Series just keeps knocking out really interesting session strength beers. Witness the latest:

Session Ale #52 "Drayman's Heather Ale" is a long-boil Scottish ale that's been cool fermented, and has 3 separate heather additions. One for flavor, one for aroma, and another "dry-heathering" done in the fermenter. This beer is 4.2% abv, fitting nicely into our "Under 4.5%" Session Ale guidelines, that we follow... most of the time.
Some history: You may already know that hops don't grow well in the Scottish climate, so rather than pay the high prices for the hops imported from their "friends" in England, the Scottish crafted their beers to have very low hopping rates... certainly very little hops were used for such frivolities as flavor and aroma hop additions. At those prices, hops were just used for bitterness, and even then as few as possible. (Don't let Ron hear you say that...) Local plants were often used as a substitute bitterness source, and since Heather was in abundance, it seemed the likely choice. So we thought we'd give it a try here.
The long boil used to brew these beers develops more carmelization in the kettle which carries through to the glass.  And the cool fermentation temps give them a bright clear malt profile without all the esters you'll find in an English Ale.

The Scottish hopping theory aside (and I'll admit, I used to repeat it), this sounds like a truly interesting beer. Again. Cheers, Scott!

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!

More beers: Fratellos in Oshkosh has an English Mild

Just heard from Joe Walts at the Fratellos brewpub in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; he's brewed an English Mild that's selling well.It's even innovative:

I rejected the conventional wisdom of U.S. craft brewers in a couple of ways:
-I mashed at a low temperature to avoid the syrupy viscosity that kills sessionability.
-I used Belgian dark candi syrup to prevent the beer from being too thin (Shut up about Barclay Perkins deserves credit for highlighting sugar usage in British breweries).
The beer selling well and customers are enjoying it!

And that's more than being innovative by just throwing in more malt and hops. Nice job, Joe. Keep 'em coming, folks!

Foggy Noggin: Bit o' Beaver Bitter

Got an e-mail from Jim Jamison, the brewmaster at the new Foggy Noggin Brewing, located north of Seattle in a little town called Bothell. It's tiny -- 1/2 bbl. brewery! -- and it's new -- opened March 20! -- and their flagship is Bit O'Beaver Bitter, which weighs in at a non-hefty 3.4% ABV. Welcome aboard, Jim!

NOTCH: an all-session beer brewing project

I've been talking to Chris Lohring -- some of you may remember him as the guy behind Tremont Ale, the all-too-short lived brewery in Boston in the 1990s -- about a session beer brewery project he's been working on, and it's time to mention it here. It's called Notch, Chris is having two ales brewed at Shipyard in Portland as trial batches, and will be debuting them at the Slowfest in Boston later this month -- which is a session beer and slow food festival! If I weren't already committed to WhiskyFest Chicago that weekend, I'd be there, that's for sure. All brewers at the fest will be bringing at least one beer under 5% (they had originally called for beers using our definition, but too many brewers didn't offer anything under 4.5%...which kind of proves my point that there aren't enough of these beers out there), which is GREAT.And this is NOT any kind of April Fool's joke!

Check out the Notch blog/site here.  Welcome back Chris!