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!

SESSION BEER DAY 2015

Is it on? Of course it is. 

Certain issues beyond my control have kept me from posting here, and I apologize. I blame myself for the proliferation of over-4.5% ABV beers tagged as "session beers" recently; I blame myself for the number of stories in the news that have categorized session beers as "generally considered to be 5% ABV or less." Mea maxima culpa. I'll pay for it, and Lent certainly seems like the right season to begin.

What better way to start than to declare that 

Session Beer Day 2015 is on for April 7!

Displayed in Italy, Session Beer Day 2012

Of course it is. Because this is our victory lap. After several years of being on the cusp, of thinking 'okay, this is the year session beer goes mainstream!', we're here. Almost every beer bar I walk into these days -- hell, here in Philly, almost any new bar I walk into -- has at least one session beer on tap. Every major brewer has a session beer in their portfolio (or comes grudgingly close; I still won't call Founders All Day IPA a session beer at 4.7%). There are session beer events regularly, there are brewers who make only session beers, session beer has been recognized as one of the major trends in craft brewing.

We can do Session Beer Day right this year. If you're a bar manager: please consider putting at least three beers on tap that are 4.5% or under. If you really want to support things, don't make them all "session IPA" choices; the Session Beer Project has always been about expanding choices. Lead, don't follow. Find something different, and reward it. If you have equipment for cask ale, by all means put the session beers on if possible; that's where they shine.

There are so many choices now! Try Smuttynose's new Hayseed (at 3.8%!), or the usual SBP favorite: anything from Notch Brewing, where Chris just keeps cranking out the great lower-alcohol beauties. Here in Philly we've got an embarrassment of choices: the consistently popular Yards Brawler, PBC's citywide Kenzinger, Sly Fox's traditional Chester County Bitter, Victory's nitro-fueled Donnybrook Stout, and not a session IPA in the bunch! Boston Beer has added Rebel Rider to their regular portfolio (and I just picked up a sixer yesterday), Green Flash -- Green Flash! -- has a series of Hop Odyssey session IPAs, Deschutes has their River Ale, New Belgium is on board with Slow Ride...and there are hundreds of others.

But insist on 4.5% or less.  If it ain't significantly less, it ain't significant. We've watched "IPA" become an increasingly meaningless marketing term; even "craft beer" is being hollowed out by arguments over what is and what isn't. I welcome the discussion of whether session beer should be under 4.0%, but I dismiss the idea that it is under 5.0%. There's just not enough difference to be different there. If you want more on why, I've written plenty: have a look.

So let's do this. Brewers, get your little beers ready; bars, get your little beers on; and the rest of us? Start asking if YOUR local is doing anything for Session Beer Day, start planning what you're going to do, get creative! If you've got good stuff, let me know! Tweet it up: #sessionbeerday

Get ready for OUR DAY. Session Beer Day. April 7. Dream Big for Small Beer!

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?

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."

And the Beat Goes On...

Heard from a regular SBP reader recently (and not just any reader: Steven Herberger, the guy who designed our logo!) about something he heard at an industry celebration. I'll let him tell it.

Russ Klisch is a bit excited about this.

Was at a 25th Anniversary tasting for the Milwaukee micro Lakefront recently, and a question was asked of founder/owner Russ Klisch: What do you see as the next big thing in craft brewing?
"I think more sessionable, lower alcohol, but highly flavorful beers are what you'll see next.  We're planning a highly hopped beer with a low ABV." (Not verbatim, but the gist of his answer.)

To which I replied, "That's great to hear."

Yeah, I know: he said "sessionable," and that's verbo non grata around here, but it's the gist of what he said -- as Steven put it -- that's important! That's another solid craft brewing figure who's of the opinion that session beer is the hot trend. Of course, Lakefront's summer seasonal, Wisconsite, is already at 4.4%, so he's putting his malt where his mouth is.

And let me just tell you...there's a LOT more people going to drink (and buy, brewers...buy) session beers than there are ever going to be drinking sour beers, the beer that most alpha beer geeks would note as the hot trend.  Sours have their place, and they're trending, and I love 'em (especially now as the weather's heating up again), but it's a niche. Session beer could blow things wide open.

Session Beer Month in California!

Hats off to Drake's Brewing, Magnolia Pub, Mavericks, and the California Brewers Guild -- and Jay Brooks -- for ramming through Session Beer Month: this month, in California. It's loose, it's not overly organized, and it's mostly just brewers and drinkers saying that it is, without a big organized push behind it...perfect for session beer.

They've even come up with an interesting compromise on the ABV limit: 4.5% please...but up to 5% is being tagged as "extreme/imperial session beer." Well, look...that's okay, but I reserve the right to make fun of any brewer who isn't good enough to make a great-tasting beer that's 4.5% and under. Try harder next year!

I'm happy to repost the Manifesto for The Month, as writ by Kelsey Williams at Drake's (you know me, I'm manifesto-mad):

A Manifesto:

Beer lovers, we are in the midst of a revolution. We have thrown off the fetters of the fizzy yellows and clamored for change. To supplant the sameness, we sought and found the EXTREME. We now have Triple IPAs and World Wide Stouts, Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperials, Belgian Quads, and all manner of High Gravity beers stuffed with fruits, spices, malts, hops. We’ve reached for the outermost precipices of beer, and succeeded.

Yet, in our noble quest for more innovation and more experimentation we have flown past many classic, well-loved, craft beer styles that may have seemed, due to their modest alcohol contents, a little too close to the weak, yellow, fizz water we’d escaped.

We have left behind these beers of import, beers perfectly suited to a long conversation at the pub, a picnic at the park, a post-hike refreshment, or a mid-summer beach trip, and beers that one can happily imbibe over the course of a few hours and leave satisfied and still standing.

We call to you beer lovers. Do not disregard a well-made, flavorful Bitter, Mild, Scottish Ale, Dry Stout, or any other Session beer because you perceive a lower alcohol content as a sign of the weak and bland. Allow us to prove that these beers are worthy of consideration. They, just like the extreme beers, have their place in our fridges and on our local taps.

We declare the month of May for Session beers. Beers that need not be analyzed, dissected, sipped, or sniffed in abundance. Delicious beers that not only enhance a good conversation but can extend it through multiple rounds.

Raise a Pint. Raise a Few. Spread the word in May; Less is most certainly more.

Yes indeed. There's a Facebook page, and Kelsey is Tweeting at @SessionBeerMay (and you can always use the #sessionbeer hashtag).

Now get out there and have some fun!

"I come in praise of session beer"

Pete Brown has a great beer blog, and you should read it all the time.

It's tempting to just let that stand as the whole of this post -- and it would be good enough! -- but I didn't realize that he's also writing a column for a website called London Loves Business, and when he posted a link to one on Facebook, I started reading back through them, and came to this one: Step aside craft beer, it's time for our "session beers" to shine. Please, go read it and come back for a discussion. I'll wait here.

Nice piece, right? I loved this bit:

The only problem, if not with beers like this [big flavorful 'craft' beers, by which I'm pretty sure he means 'American-type craft beers'] then with some of the people who drink them, is the tendency to think in binary black and white. If extreme and experimental beers are exciting and flavourful, it follows – in some minds at least – that traditional, lower strength beers must be boring.
I’ve never believed this.
I’ve always disagreed with it in principle.
But I have found myself, whenever I’m given a choice, opting for the adventurous.

I tend to do that myself...or I did. Now I find myself shying away from the huge palate wreckers -- mostly, I still grab one occasionally, and it's probably a 'vacation' -- and seeing what's offered 'on the left side of the dial.' Can a brewer make interesting low alcohol beers? That's a talent, a skill, and I'm curious to find it.

Now, let's take this on:

The British tradition for the low strength sessionable pint is unique in the world. The craft beers we enjoy now are heavily influenced by North America where, lacking the British cask ale tradition, high alcohol levels are an important factor in delivering character to a beer.

That first sentence, of course, is the drum that beer contrarian Andy Crouch pounds here until the head breaks. "In choosing the ‘session’ banner, American promoters have knowingly wedded themselves to a beer culture that is entirely foreign to this country." We have no session beer culture, Andy says, so this seed will fall on stony places, and because it has no root, it will wither away.

I say this underestimates both craft brewing and the American beer drinker. In fact, if you paraphrase Crouch's piece and substitute "microbrews" for "session beers," it reads almost exactly like it was written by a smug mainstream brewer in 1992: micros get lots of press but they don't actually sell; ales aren't American and they're heavy so most Americans won't like them; they cost more than anyone's going to pay; the whole idea's too complicated because we really just want to drink a beer; it's too much work for a bar to carry or a bartender to answer questions about so it won't work.

Well, it took 20 years, but every one of those points has been crushed. I see the same kind of thing working out for session beer (and cask, for that matter: after years of muddy crap and struggle, more and more American bars are regularly serving cask beers -- often session beers -- in good condition). What's more, it's working faster, because we've already been here and we know how it works: good beer, talking to bartenders, spreading the word, and not worrying about naysayers. We've also got brewers who have seen a philosophy of "We're brewing it because we like it, and we'll keep brewing it that way" work, so if they're session fans, they're just going to brew it, and give it a chance to catch on. (Just talked to John Trogner at Tröegs yesterday, and he said, "We're going to be brewing more session beers." Out of the blue, just like that. They want them for the large new tasting hall they have. Smart.)

But...are we doomed to ridicule because of the number issue? Is Andy right when he poses the setpiece question, "Is 4.5 ABV session worthy or must it be 3.5 or lower? Often obsessed with the numbers, the side of session beer that promotes balance and flavor harmony is lost in the process. Belaboring such beer minutiae escapes or disinterests most drinkers."

It's an issue, but I disagree that the idea, the love, of balance and flavor are lost in the process. Those are the keys for me, but you can have balance and flavor harmony in beers of any alcohol level. The numbers are necessary -- if it's not below a certain ABV level, the whole idea of a low alcohol beer with balance and harmony is lost -- but the friction is not. The GABF's "definition" of session beer has not helped things at all; forget the ABV levels -- which are laughable -- it's that "session beer" is defined as a lower strength "version" of a style (more on that here). That's a problem for the next post: "session" is not "imperial," because I believe that's where the whole issue is bogging down.

Meantime...I'll leave you with Pete's close, because I loved it:

So let’s hear it for the session pint – the pint you can drink at lunchtime without falling asleep at your desk in the afternoon. The pint you can sink quickly on a hot day without setting a trajectory towards oblivion, via the kebab shop. The pint where the aromatic hops stroke your cheek rather than punch you in the face, and where flavours dance subtly rather than pogo on your tongue.
My love for strong, heady craft beer will never die. But sometimes you find yourself at a bar where every beer you want, you want it to be the last beer of the night. That’s when you yearn for the session pint – your trusty friend with whom drinking responsibly doesn’t have to mean not drinking enough.

Stout Day!

I posted over at my other, main blog about St. Patrick's Day, and while some of it's about whiskey, there's a good chunk about how this is a huge session beer day. People suck down dry Irish stouts of various manufacture -- mostly Guinness -- and they're almost all under 4.5%. It's a good day for session beer, and I should have done more to point that out. I have to think about this stuff!

Hmmm...maybe April 5th -- 4.5 -- as Session Beer Day?

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.

A Landmark: Samuel Adams Belgian Session

I got this sample in the mail yesterday. Samuel Adams Belgian Session, Boston Beer's new summer seasonal, coming in April. Here's the description they sent along:

Samuel Adams Belgian Session is a crisp, bright version of a traditional Belgian beer with fruity, slightly spicy flavors from the Belgian yeast. After many trial batches made from a finicky Belgian yeast, the brewers redefined the typical session beer style, using subtly sweet toffee and caramel notes from a blend of pale and honey malts to harmonize with the yeast's distinct fruity and spicy flavors. By definition, session beers contain no higher than 5% ABV (Belgian Session is 4.3%), allowing the drinker to enjoy multiple beers during a "session."

Okay, I'm not overjoyed about the "By definition" part, but you know, Jim Koch lives too close to BeerAdvocate's Alström brothers, so I'll cut him some slack...because you undoubtedly notice that while they quote the BeerAdvocate definition, the beer actually goes by the SBP definition you see over there to the right. Nicely done.

I'd give you a quick tasting note, but we're cleaning the oven right now, and all I can smell is burnt sugar and meat drippings, so I'll put that off and add it tomorrow. Meanwhile, as I said to Cathy when I pulled this out of the box and caught the name...we've moved the earth. Okay, we've moved American craft brewing. If Boston Beer makes a Samuel Adams label out of a type of beer you've been championing, that's a good day.

Next up: why session beer pisses off beer geeks.

Philly Homebrewers: time to show off your session chops

I heard from Mat Falco at Philly Beer Scene magazine that they're running a homebrew competition specifically for session beers! Check the details here; it's actually a bit more complicated -- and interesting! -- than that. It's a two-round competition, run through the area's homebrew shops; homebrewers affiliate with a shop and enter their first beers by March 3. (Update: there's a session competition in Pittsburgh, too: see below!)

The first round is the session beer one. Competitors may brew any 'style' of beer, as long as it is 4.5% ABV or under: "Anything over will not be considered. There are no other restrictions for this round." Furthermore, no style guidelines are imposed. "Good beer is good beer no matter how close or far off it is from the style it’s categorized as. We are looking for a well-brewed, flavorful interpretation of a session beer." I'm all for that; part of the impetus for the Project is to engender innovation in flavorful lower-alcohol beers.

Here's where it changes, and gets really interesting. For the second round, the top two brewers from each of the homebrew shops then brew another beer, using a pound of beans from One Village coffee roasters (supplied by the homebrew shops; not all the beans must be used in the beer)...and just to make it fun, there is a stylistic restriction on this one: no stouts or porters, the usual suspects in coffee beers. (Not to make a suggestion, but I recall a coffee-infused dark mild Gordon Grubb made at Nodding Head that was quite tasty; called it Up All Night, I think, and it was definitely not a porter.) Winners will be announced during Philly Beer Week.

Great to see this kind of interest and love for session beers!

Got word that TRASH, the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers, is also doing a homebrew competition with a session component -- and also using the 4.5% limit, thanks! Details are here; the winner will be scaled up and brewed on commercial scale at East End Brewing, where Scott has been a friend of The Session Beer Project for years.

Dark Lager Light

When I stopped in at Victory Brewing’s Downingtown pub on my way home from Lancaster Tuesday night, I was figuring on a nice pint of Uncle Teddy's bitter for the trip. But then I looked at the draft board and saw first that Dark Lager, one of my favorite Victory beers, was available, which is always a fleeting thing; great beer, but way underappreciated, so they only make the one batch around this time of year, and it’s draft-only.

Then I looked again, and realized that it was pegged at 3.9% ABV! I had to have it, and man, was I glad I did. Delish as always, assertive, fresh...and 3.9%? Wow! I spread the word a bit on Twitter (@lewbryson, which is my tag for #sessionbeer posts too), but I decided to get hold of brewers/founders Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet for a short interview and find out why Dark Lager was suddenly a session beer.

It turned out that, well…it was a mistake, but as Ron said, “Two wrongs sometimes do make a right. The brewhouse yielded a lower-than-expected gravity, and the fermentability was weaker than expected.  Bingo: a nice, lower alcohol beer with some body.  In my opinion, it stylistically resembles a Czech dark lager.  Interestingly, this beer is and always has been a great example of what double decoction can do for darker beers; it’s made from 100% Munich malt.  The decoction adds quite a bit of color.” Flavor too, I might add!

“It was always intended to be a Munich dark lager,” Bill confirmed when I asked about the beer’s origins, “but with this two-step Mother Nature intervention, it came out more like a Czech dark lager.” It was quite a change, too; Bill looked back in the brewing records while we were talking, and while Dark Lager was usually around 5%, back in 2009 it went up to 5.7%...which is more where I think Ron originally wanted the beer.

See, I actually was in on the beginnings of this one, peripherally. Way back, Ron and I were wandering around the brewery one day, just chatting, and he asked, what do you think we should do next? A dunkel, I said immediately, a nice Munich dunkel, thinking of how much I loved drinking Andechs’s dunkel. Yeah, he said, excited, a good dunkel, right around 12°, something with some body. I smiled, and nodded, and thought to myself, well, no, I was actually thinking right around 10° so we could drink liters of it — I guess I was hooked on session even then — but I didn’t say anything. And when Dark Lager came out, I loved it, and took visiting friends by to try it — I’m looking at you, Stephen Beaumont — and did what I could personally to keep the sales figures up.

However, as Bill notes, “The beer is not a runaway success in sales. We like it, though, and we find there are other people that enjoy it as well…just enough to bring it back on draft every year.” So if you screwed it up, does that mean it may not go as well this year?

“We’ll probably keep it as is,” he said, meaning the new lower alcohol. “It’s unique. It’s a new twist, so tweaking it, as long as it doesn’t go in a way Ron or I don’t like, could be a way to go. I think we’re moving in the right direction with this beer.” Me too!

That fits right in with Victory’s overall plans, which are to have some fun and offer beers for everyone. “I’ve made this joke all the time,” Bill said. “People ask me, ‘Why do you have so many beers here?’ Walk around Downingtown and try to find some other kind of fun! We brew a lot of beers because it’s fun!

“At the same time,” he said, “we want people to enjoy themselves but get home safely. Lower-alcohol options are in everyone’s best interest. We don’t stand on a soapbox about it, but there is the option.

“We also have the restaurant to think about,” Bill continued, and this is something he’s referred to in the past as their ‘secret plan’ for craft domination. “I can’t point them out to you, but I know there are some dads sitting in here drinking Donnybrook, or Dark Lager, and they had just put down their Miller Lite because Mom and the kids wanted pizza. We want them to have a good experience with full-flavored beers. We’re not pandering to anyone, we drink them ourselves, but we’re not turning anyone off, either. We’re very bullish about the future of craft beer. Why can’t we make beers with nice texture and good flavor that everyone can enjoy?” As I’ve often said, brewing a good kölsch or helles or blonde ale is no less “crafty” than brewing a double IPA, right?

He wrapped it up with a mention of how that kind of angle gives them confidence about going into the new Xfinity Live Complex, with a 400 seat beer hall in Philly. “We’re not intimidated [by mainstream crowds],” he said. “If some Coors Light drinker wanders in there, we’ll have something for them. And that’s good for everyone.”

In context, I’d remind everyone that your Coors Light drinker…is the natural target for conversion to craft session beer. He (or she) is already drinking a 4.2% lager; just get some more flavor and variety in there, and we’ve got a win.

Now…I gotta get on the road. As fate would have it, I’m taking my daughter up to Lancaster for an interview at Franklin & Marshall College (or as my wife and I call it, Alma Mater), and I think there’s a pint or two of Dark Lager waiting me on the return trip…

More press, more session beers

Just saw this piece on the Boston Globe blogsite, and while there are a few things off the cam (like tagging Coors Light as "a lousy 5 percent beer" -- it's 4.2% -- and his claim that he's been "predicting -- and hoping -- that the new trend in craft beer will be session beers" while the blogposts tagged in his read-more pile are all about imperial stouts and "heavy-duty ales"), hey, he's pinning it. I still say 5% is too high, but we're on the right track when he makes much of Narragansett's new Summer Ale (4.2%, and I'm getting a Citra-hopped sample this weekend) and our friends at The Notch.

But wait, there's more! That's right, Advertising Age had a piece on session beers today! Just the title tells you what's going on:
The New Drinking Session: How Craft Brewers Are Drawing in More Consumers -- Lower-Alcohol Varieties Pump Volume by Allowing Beer Fans to Have More Brew

See, brewers: session beers make business sense. Okay, I don't really think their lead example makes sense -- 5.3% Redhook Pilsner vs. 5.8% Redhook ESB -- in fact, it's a walking example of why I think the top limit should be 4.5% rather than 5%. This is more about another great idea, though: craft CAN get big numbers if they make some great interpretations of beers that are quite drinkable and craft-respectable: helles, bitter, dunkel, kölsch, English summer ale, mild, brown ale, just to name a few. You'll notice that there's cross-over with session there, and if you can put out a great-tasting sub-4.5% beer, you'll have a beer that people will have more of, and more people will have. What's more, the Miller Lite guy in this story will learn how badly he muffed it.

Session's getting its due! Which means, of course, the backlash is coming in about six months. Be prepared...

More Session beer coverage!

Thanks to Steven Herberger (who is also the designer of our nifty logo!) for sending this link to a story in last Friday's Chicago Tribune on "Session Beers: Easy drinking beers, yet still flavorful." The story mentions Revolution Brewing's Workingman's Mild, Metropolitan Krankshaft, and Two Brothers Long Haul Session Ale (great name for a session beer!), and here's the money quote:

"I'm a fan of less is more and balance," said Doug Hurst, Metropolitan brewer. "It's about subtlety rather than being hammered over the head."

Right on, brother Doug!

Steven and I were kind of curious, though...how do you do a story on session beers in Chicago and not mention Goose Island Honkers Ale? It's 4.2%, it's a good drinker, it's everywhere, it's Chicago-brewed... (I forgot to mention Goose Island's equally good Green Line; not just session-strength, but ecologically sustainable, too!) Is it the "not a craft brewer" artificial stigma? Is it "too big"? Is it too well-known? Dunno, but here's my suggestion to folks in Chicagoland: go get some of all of these beers, and let us know what you think?!

A Virtual Session Beer Summit

Sean Ludford creates a "virtual summit" on session beer at his BevX site by quoting "James Murphy, proprietor of the famous Murphy’s Bleachers in Chicago, Aaron Zacharias, proprietor of The Bar on Buena and the Fountainhead in Chicago, and Lew Bryson, a great Beer & Whiskey writer, when Lew has something to say about Beer – you listen." Sean says quite a bit as well, and it's more proof that session beers are getting more attention.

Still More Session Beer Notice

One of the first session beer posts I made, back in February of 2007 (I was so prescient...), was a re-post of action steps for session beer suggested by Stan Hieronymus. Take a look.

Now take a look at this: "When You're Having More Than One", in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, by Tim Redmond. I'll cut to the somewhat buried lede:

I've taken quite an interest in session beers — craft brews with an ABV (alcohol by volume) level of less than 4.5 percent. You can drink a session beer at lunch and still go back to work. You can drink a couple-three after work and not be too blotto to make dinner and put the kids to bed.

Ah... I'm well-pleased. More and more folks are picking up on the 4.5% and under number, and that's good. It's kind of like the speed limit: you know where you're supposed to be, and you're going to push a few mph over, so it's good to have it a little under where people should actually be driving. If we had given in and said 5%, sooner or later we'd have 6% beers people were calling session beers...kind of like you still see people doing on BeerAdvocate and west coast beer blogs. I'll stick with the 4.5%, thanks.

Is this victory, triumph, success? No. It's another step, another notch along the way. We're getting there; time to celebrate with a few rounds...and then get back to work!

The Session #40: Session Beers

I haven't participated in our monthly 'blog carnival,' The Session, since November; a couple of them I wasn't interested in, I was really busy finishing up PAB4, and, well, once or twice I just dropped the ball. But this month, The Session is about just that: Session Beers. As our host, Top Fermented blogger Erik Myers, put it, "There are a thousand ways to approach this." Indeed.

Turns out that I've got a pretty acute sense of hearing.

Back in February of 2009, not long after I started this blog (itself an outgrowth of a two-year series of session beer-related posts on my main blog, Seen Through A Glass, that started here), I wrote a piece for Ale Street News in which I suggested that the faint, first rumblings of the collapse of extreme beers could be heard. Earlier, I did a piece titled "Extremely Annoying" for BeerAdvocate magazine (which you can find here, and thanks to Teri Fahrendorf for that!), a single contrarian voice in an entire issue devoted to -- pardon the expression -- ball-washing extreme beers in which I suggested that making extreme beers wasn't that big a deal: throw more stuff in, get a bigger monkey. That, in turn, was an expansion of my "it's just a bigger burrito" argument, originally made here in October of 2006. In short, and in a nod to Barbara Mandrell, I was session when session wasn't cool (that's assuming, of course, that it is now...but we'll get to that).

At the time, I was excoriated for this. Sam "Mr. Extreme" Calagione wrote a response to the Ale Street piece, crying that I'd dissed extreme beers, that I was wrong, that I was portraying an opinion as a trend (one thing I definitely did not do, Sam), and that I was saying imperial beers must die so that session beers could thrive (Oh, please. I bent over backwards to avoid that impression: "I’m not saying the imperial beer is dead, and I hope it never dies." Direct quote, dude). There were angry responses to the BeerAdvocate piece before it even saw print. And The Brothers Alström penned an editorial in which they accused unnamed people of dismissing extreme beers (“their target enemy”) to call for more session beers: unnamed, but when you’re the guy behind The Session Beer Project, quoted and cited in every recent major piece on session beers, it’s hard not to feel targeted yourself.

I wrote a really, really long response that I never posted. Here's some of it:

At no time did I ever intend or say that this [increased] attention [to session beers] should come at the expense of extreme beers, I didn’t even wish for it. In fact, two years ago, when that was obviously unclear, and I felt uncomfortable with the people who were allying themselves with me on that basis, I made this statement on my Seen Through A Glass blog:

I guess I'd better clear this up now. Just because I'm starting this blog partly as a platform for this loosely defined Session Beer Project, it does not mean that I do not like big beers, do not like experimental beers, do not like (deep breath here) extreme beers. I do like them – to a point.

The main point of the Session Beer Project is to give session beers a little tiny bit of equality of attention, attention that's mainly going to the so-called extreme beers right now. Because, really: most of the world, every day, drinks beers that are under 5% ABV. Really.

Note that I did not say “take away attention from the so-called extreme beers to give session beers a little tiny bit of equality of attention.” Nor did I say I intended to stop talking about extreme beers, and I have not; just put ‘tasting notes’ in the Search box [on STAG, not here], and you can see how many big beers, beers with unusual ingredients, sour beers I’ve reviewed, and liked (or not liked; I never said I’d give them a free ride, either). I have occasionally drawn direct comparisons between the two categories, because they represent two poles of craft beer, but I’ve presented them simply as two choices, not Good Choice, Bad Choice.

I always planned, intended, and promoted The Session Beer Project as something that would add to the excitement and acceptance of beer in general, that would bring to the fore an under-represented, under-appreciated meta-category of beers. If I ever wanted it to come at the expense of another category, fear not, true believers, I was with you: let it come at the expense of macro-brewed light lagers (if only because they have so much to give!).

There’s plenty of room for both session beers and extreme beers to thrive, because they are so entirely different – they do not compete! That is the beauty and main raison d’etre of the Craft Beer Revolution: difference, variety, choice. It always has been, and I have been saying that for years, while other voices talked about quality, and smallness, and artisanal craftsmanship. Those things are great, but they are part of the variety that is the overarching theme.

To sum up, I wasn’t talking about crushing imperial beers to make way for session beers; I never have. I was only speculating about whether they might be coming to the end of their fifteen minutes of fame…which would only mean that it was some other beer’s turn, and I’ve observed that session beers have been doing well in my local market lately. No beer stays on top forever, whether in sales or hype. That’s been true since way before the Craft Beer Revolution.

Can we stop the rabble-rousing? This is not about “Session Vs. Extreme Beers,” there’s no “versus” involved. I want to see craft brewers do well. I want to see the variety of beer choices increased, everywhere. I don’t want whole categories of craft beers slammed. (Okay, maybe American hefeweizen. And pumpkin beers. Maybe.) What I really want is for session beers to get some more attention – and that’s working, and I do see a few more session beers on taps – and maybe for the brewers and promoters of extreme beers to be a bit less defensive. Is that too much to ask?

Told you it was really long: that was about a third of it. But writing it was cathartic: I got over it, and moved on.

That's when things started to percolate. I started getting e-mails, and seeing results on my Google Alert on "session beer" that were more than yet another blogger saying something like "at 8.5%, it's no session beer" (guys...you say that way too often), and hearing from brewers who were making session beers. Philadelphia Brewing has two great year-round beers that are session-strength (Kenzinger and Walt Wit), as does rival Yards (Brawler and Philly Pale), right here in America's Best Beer-Drinking City™. Chris Lohring, who's boomeranging back into brewing, has started Notch, an all-session brand that's currently in joyously experimental test marketing in the Boston area.

I heard the first faint trickles back in 2007, more of them last year. It's still no flood, or even a stream. But session beer is catching on in the American market.

So...I should maybe stop there, but I won't. Instead, a bit of a manifesto. I'll start by reiterating the session beer definitions I've been working with here:

For our purposes, 'session beer' is defined as a beer that is:

► 4.5% alcohol by volume or less
► flavorful enough to be interesting
► balanced enough for multiple pints
► conducive to conversation
► reasonably priced

If that seems vague...it is. Here's another definition: low-alcohol, but not low-taste. It's subjective.

I think any definition should stick closely to that 4.5% ABV figure. I'll admit, it's my figure, but I reached it after much consideration. Simply, it's like speed limits. No one goes 55 mph in a 55 mph zone; you'd get run off the road. By saying 4.5%, we're letting you know that your 5.4% pale ale simply is not a session beer, quaffable and delightful though it is...which a 5% definition would make harder to sustain. I'd like to see American brewers working to get good flavor under 4.5%. It can certainly be done -- I've had them -- and you can do it without tart/souring or hopping to the bejayzus, although that works too (Lambrucha and Stone Levitation being excellent examples). Work with malts and yeast, and you can achieve amazing things; I've had them, too.

But don't get completely caught up in the number game. Zythophile blogger Martyn Cornell told me that defining “session beer” was not about alcohol percentages.  “What makes a good session beer,” he said, “is a combination of restraint, satisfaction, and ‘moreishness.’ Just like the ideal companions on a good evening down the pub, a good session beer will not dominate the occasion and demand attention; at the same time its contribution, while never obtrusive, will be welcome, satisfying, and pleasurable.”

That's what this is all about. Session beer is about enjoying the totality of beer, the entire beer experience and culture. I have a dream about a session beer festival. It's not a bunch of brewers and sales reps standing behind a bunch of tables hawking 3 oz. samples of 4.5% beers to standing crowds who dawdle in front of the tables, pissing off everyone in line behind them. It's a hall, where a variety of bars serve a wide variety of session beers...but the real focus is on the people drinking the beer, and what you're talking to them about, or the next hand of pinochle, or a quiet contemplative smoke of a nice pipeful of good tobacco (yeah, really; they can have their own room), or a round of pool. We'll stay all afternoon and into the evening, have four or five pints each, and it will never get out of hand, just loud and happy with the sound of chatting and laughter, the clink of glasses.

The Year of Session Beer is not here yet. It's coming. When it gets here, we're going to drink to it. Cheers!

DSSB II: Valley Brew London Tavern Ale

Ken Weaver's next Desperately Seeking session Beer installment is up.

More Session Beer Love

BevX has a new piece up on session beers. Thanks, Sean, welcome aboard!