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...
Monday, May 9, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
About that 4.5% number...
A lot of discussion around the blogosphere lately about what the top "limit" on ABV should be for a session beer. There are some militant Brits who loudly proclaim that it's 4.0, and anything above that just isn't session; there are militant Americans who say beers as high as 6% are session beers "for them." Plenty of people say I have no authority to set a limit (they're absolutely right, too).
And then there's this brilliant bit from Martyn Cornell.
Martyn doesn't consider the ABV as important as the "quaffability." When I started this thing, I agreed with that, mostly, but "quaffability" doesn't lend itself to consensus, at least not among U.S. beer blog-readers and BeerAdvocate/ratebeerians. So I used a number.
I still like a 'definition' I came up with almost 20 years ago, when Malt Advocate was still a beer magazine. I was at John Hansell's house, tasting some aged Belgians with him and a couple other friends. They were great beers: fruit lambics slowly giving up their character, some nose-opening lambics (Boon just ain't what it used to be), a vertical of Chimay Blue. But I said (something like, can't remember the exact words), "These are great, but sometimes I like a beer that doesn't stop conversation, a beer that you can all simply enjoy without constantly interrupting your friends' stories to say, 'Yeah, that's great, but do you taste those coffee notes? That's awesome!' There's a lot to be said for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale." Even then, I was groping toward this idea.
And then there's this brilliant bit from Martyn Cornell.
Martyn doesn't consider the ABV as important as the "quaffability." When I started this thing, I agreed with that, mostly, but "quaffability" doesn't lend itself to consensus, at least not among U.S. beer blog-readers and BeerAdvocate/ratebeerians. So I used a number.
I still like a 'definition' I came up with almost 20 years ago, when Malt Advocate was still a beer magazine. I was at John Hansell's house, tasting some aged Belgians with him and a couple other friends. They were great beers: fruit lambics slowly giving up their character, some nose-opening lambics (Boon just ain't what it used to be), a vertical of Chimay Blue. But I said (something like, can't remember the exact words), "These are great, but sometimes I like a beer that doesn't stop conversation, a beer that you can all simply enjoy without constantly interrupting your friends' stories to say, 'Yeah, that's great, but do you taste those coffee notes? That's awesome!' There's a lot to be said for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale." Even then, I was groping toward this idea.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Drink Session on April 7th!
Thursday, April 7th, marks the 78th anniversary of "Repeal Lite," the enactment of the Cullen-Harrison Act, which made 3.2% ABW beer legal once more in the United States. Full Repeal, the ratification of the 21st Amendment, would not occur until December of that year, but starting at 12:01 AM on April 7th, 1933, Americans could drink beer that wasn't just "near beer." They drank it with gusto, too, consuming huge amounts as bands played "Happy Days Are Here Again" over and over and over, and no one seemed to mind at all. If it had been written yet, they probably could have played "It's a Small World After All," and everyone would have sung along...
3.2% ABW, of course, is 4.0% ABV, so I intend to celebrate the anniversary with a good healthy helping of ≤4.0% session beer. Please feel free to join me.
Hell, today's date is 4.5! Next year: this is Session Beer Project Day! Wish I'd thought of that sooner...
3.2% ABW, of course, is 4.0% ABV, so I intend to celebrate the anniversary with a good healthy helping of ≤4.0% session beer. Please feel free to join me.
Hell, today's date is 4.5! Next year: this is Session Beer Project Day! Wish I'd thought of that sooner...
Monday, April 4, 2011
Another "session IPA"
"...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...?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Great Discussion at NERAX!
The folks at NERAX asked me to come speak to their industry session last Friday afternoon. I'd never been to the New England Real Ale eXhibition, and it was a chance to see Thomas (and they offered to throw me a room), so I jumped on it.
NERAX is a 15 year thing, a unique event that takes place in a VFW hall about the size of two double-bay garages. It's determinedly low-tech (as befits a cask festival), but the beer's tremendous -- they pour about 90 British and American cask beers (and a few ciders), all in beautiful condition -- and the food is barbecue sammiches from Redbones. You pay to get in, and you pay for your beer, but you can get 1/4, 1/2 or full imperial pints; your choice. Awesome. You know how good it is? Paul Pendyck from the Bulls Head in Lititz was there Friday afternoon...and he had his own cask event the next day back home. He flew up and back on Friday because he wasn't going to miss NERAX.
Naturally I said I'd speak on session beer, and how cask is a natural expression for it. After getting in Thursday (and not making it to that night's NERAX session because I, well, got to drinking at Cambridge Brewing and just didn't feel like leaving; more about that at my other blog soon), I got in a bunch of work in my room Friday morning, and headed over to Davis Square to make the 1:00 opening. What a prime crew! Tons of New England brewers (I'd already run into Paul Davis at my hotel), and the NERAX folks (very friendly), Paul Pendyck (we ran out for lunch at a nearby diner), Chris Lohring (The Notch), my colleague Andy Crouch, and the BeerAdvocate Brothers, Jason and Todd Alström.
And all those casks. I chatted politely for as long as I could stand it, then excused myself to get a beer. I had -- that I can recall -- Portsmouth Whipper Snapper, Wachusett Black Shack Porter, Brains SA, Breconshire Cribyn, Meantime Yakima Red, Bray's Old Church Pale, and Gritty's Blue Porter...I think that was it. Half-pints, over three hours, and most under 4.5%. All very nice, though the Whipper Snapper and the Blue Porter stick out. I got a few in, filled up with the Yakima Red, and hung out in the foyer as I was introduced. Chris Lohring was there, and I asked him if he was available for tagging when I got into the cage match with the Alströms: he said he'd be on the turnbuckle waiting -- then grinned and noted that it was the first time he'd said the word "turnbuckle" in years.
The idea was to do what the Session Beer Project is all about: stimulate discussion. I got up there, talked about what session beer was and wasn't, and why I set my ABV number at 4.5% -- and why I was reluctant to set a limit -- and what session beer was and wasn't in the U.S., and how I'd be happy with another, better name for it, and ways to make session beer interesting (cask being a big one, of course)...and it was all stuff they pretty much knew, although the parts about how well session-strength beers are selling around Philly seemed to make them pretty happy.
Then things went off: I brought up the price issue. In a nutshell: session-strength beers cost less to make than "normal" strength craft beers -- say, 6% ABV beers -- but only a little: every cost is the same except for a small amount of materials costs, and maybe shorter aging time. The brewers nodded in agreement when I asked them if it was fair to say it was about a nickel a pint less, or about six bucks a half-keg. Now, you're talking about a keg of craft beer that's up in the neighborhood of $130 to $170, retail, less than that to the bar...six bucks cheaper? Even if it's ten bucks cheaper: the bar's going to charge the same for both beers, because "pint" prices generally increase in 50 cent increments...if you're lucky, and they don't jump by a buck. I'm running that, and the brewers are all nodding.
But the punters and the pundits weren't buying it. Andy and The Brothers were saying that it should be less anyway. (One brewer texted me later: funny how after all the brewers said the beers don't really cost less to make, the drinkers all said they should cost less anyway.) (Or maybe not: see the comments below, and my apologies to Andy: it was a bit fevered and multi-threaded!) Why, I asked, what are you getting less of if it's a good, flavorful session beer? Alcohol? In which case...why are you drinking, again?
The English folks in attendance (and those who have experience with English beer prices) know that the alcohol level has a clear link to increased price: that's how their taxes are set. But that's not the case in the U.S., and it's not even the case in mainstream beer pricing: Bud Select 55 is 2.4% ABV, and it sells for the same price at the bar as Miller Lite -- 4.2%.
Every time the discussion would flag, I'd toss something in. "How much do you pay for Taras Boulba?", the session-strength Belgian beauty from De La Senne, that goes for around $10. And they were off again.
Some interesting points did come up. I suggested that bars should charge a premium for cask, which upset some: it's hard enough to sell already, was the general tenor, don't make it harder (to which I'd reply, you have to give the publican something for all the extra work!). Andy made a good point: if you're charging "normal" prices for a beer you can and want to drink more of over a longer time, well, that adds up fast.
And both he and the Alströms were citing high prices in the area already; they wanted relief. I felt their pain: I'm still wincing about paying $10 for a pint of Cain's bitter at Dandelion last month. But that made me think of something smart people say about the "underage drinking problem," both here and elsewhere in the world: we don't have an underage drinking problem, we have a drinking problem. You don't have a session beer pricing problem; you have a beer pricing problem. Which is what they've been saying for quite a while; the session beer cost issue is, like I said, just a hope for some kind of relief.
I don't see that coming, and it's got nothing to do with session beer. When demand continues to be high -- and everyone knows that craft beer sales are still up, and growing -- and price increases seem to have no effect on it, let alone any effect from the worst economy in 70 years...I don't see anyone dropping prices. And piss you off or not, higher prices reassure the craft novice that this stuff really is good. After all, like I said: you don't think a case of Corona costs $28 because of cost of materials, do you? Price is part of the marketing equation, and it works. It's not lucky for those of us who already know the stuff is good, but there you are.
As Chris Lohring tweeted later that evening: "After a heated debate @NERAX on #sessionbeer price, taste and ABV, selling the hell out of Notch at 8.99 a six pack at an in-store tasting." The people have spoken. For the record, I was drinking the new Notch Pilsner at Deep Ellum the day before. And it was delicious.
It was a great afternoon, and a great talk. Afterwards I went to The Burren with Andy, The Brothers, Dann and Martha Paquette, Jaime Schier from Harpoon, Max Toste, and some other people (whose names I've clearly forgotten, and I apologize), and we all had some superlative Guinness. We talked some more trash, but mostly just talked. I think the Goose Island thing came up, and the Bourdain/Brew Masters thing, but mostly? Just breezin'. Perfect session stuff.
NERAX is a 15 year thing, a unique event that takes place in a VFW hall about the size of two double-bay garages. It's determinedly low-tech (as befits a cask festival), but the beer's tremendous -- they pour about 90 British and American cask beers (and a few ciders), all in beautiful condition -- and the food is barbecue sammiches from Redbones. You pay to get in, and you pay for your beer, but you can get 1/4, 1/2 or full imperial pints; your choice. Awesome. You know how good it is? Paul Pendyck from the Bulls Head in Lititz was there Friday afternoon...and he had his own cask event the next day back home. He flew up and back on Friday because he wasn't going to miss NERAX.
 |
| Deep Ellum's Max Toste and Chris "The Notch" Lohring at NERAX |
And all those casks. I chatted politely for as long as I could stand it, then excused myself to get a beer. I had -- that I can recall -- Portsmouth Whipper Snapper, Wachusett Black Shack Porter, Brains SA, Breconshire Cribyn, Meantime Yakima Red, Bray's Old Church Pale, and Gritty's Blue Porter...I think that was it. Half-pints, over three hours, and most under 4.5%. All very nice, though the Whipper Snapper and the Blue Porter stick out. I got a few in, filled up with the Yakima Red, and hung out in the foyer as I was introduced. Chris Lohring was there, and I asked him if he was available for tagging when I got into the cage match with the Alströms: he said he'd be on the turnbuckle waiting -- then grinned and noted that it was the first time he'd said the word "turnbuckle" in years.
The idea was to do what the Session Beer Project is all about: stimulate discussion. I got up there, talked about what session beer was and wasn't, and why I set my ABV number at 4.5% -- and why I was reluctant to set a limit -- and what session beer was and wasn't in the U.S., and how I'd be happy with another, better name for it, and ways to make session beer interesting (cask being a big one, of course)...and it was all stuff they pretty much knew, although the parts about how well session-strength beers are selling around Philly seemed to make them pretty happy.
Then things went off: I brought up the price issue. In a nutshell: session-strength beers cost less to make than "normal" strength craft beers -- say, 6% ABV beers -- but only a little: every cost is the same except for a small amount of materials costs, and maybe shorter aging time. The brewers nodded in agreement when I asked them if it was fair to say it was about a nickel a pint less, or about six bucks a half-keg. Now, you're talking about a keg of craft beer that's up in the neighborhood of $130 to $170, retail, less than that to the bar...six bucks cheaper? Even if it's ten bucks cheaper: the bar's going to charge the same for both beers, because "pint" prices generally increase in 50 cent increments...if you're lucky, and they don't jump by a buck. I'm running that, and the brewers are all nodding.
But the punters and the pundits weren't buying it. Andy and The Brothers were saying that it should be less anyway. (One brewer texted me later: funny how after all the brewers said the beers don't really cost less to make, the drinkers all said they should cost less anyway.) (Or maybe not: see the comments below, and my apologies to Andy: it was a bit fevered and multi-threaded!) Why, I asked, what are you getting less of if it's a good, flavorful session beer? Alcohol? In which case...why are you drinking, again?
The English folks in attendance (and those who have experience with English beer prices) know that the alcohol level has a clear link to increased price: that's how their taxes are set. But that's not the case in the U.S., and it's not even the case in mainstream beer pricing: Bud Select 55 is 2.4% ABV, and it sells for the same price at the bar as Miller Lite -- 4.2%.
Every time the discussion would flag, I'd toss something in. "How much do you pay for Taras Boulba?", the session-strength Belgian beauty from De La Senne, that goes for around $10. And they were off again.
Some interesting points did come up. I suggested that bars should charge a premium for cask, which upset some: it's hard enough to sell already, was the general tenor, don't make it harder (to which I'd reply, you have to give the publican something for all the extra work!). Andy made a good point: if you're charging "normal" prices for a beer you can and want to drink more of over a longer time, well, that adds up fast.
And both he and the Alströms were citing high prices in the area already; they wanted relief. I felt their pain: I'm still wincing about paying $10 for a pint of Cain's bitter at Dandelion last month. But that made me think of something smart people say about the "underage drinking problem," both here and elsewhere in the world: we don't have an underage drinking problem, we have a drinking problem. You don't have a session beer pricing problem; you have a beer pricing problem. Which is what they've been saying for quite a while; the session beer cost issue is, like I said, just a hope for some kind of relief.
I don't see that coming, and it's got nothing to do with session beer. When demand continues to be high -- and everyone knows that craft beer sales are still up, and growing -- and price increases seem to have no effect on it, let alone any effect from the worst economy in 70 years...I don't see anyone dropping prices. And piss you off or not, higher prices reassure the craft novice that this stuff really is good. After all, like I said: you don't think a case of Corona costs $28 because of cost of materials, do you? Price is part of the marketing equation, and it works. It's not lucky for those of us who already know the stuff is good, but there you are.
As Chris Lohring tweeted later that evening: "After a heated debate @NERAX on #sessionbeer price, taste and ABV, selling the hell out of Notch at 8.99 a six pack at an in-store tasting." The people have spoken. For the record, I was drinking the new Notch Pilsner at Deep Ellum the day before. And it was delicious.
It was a great afternoon, and a great talk. Afterwards I went to The Burren with Andy, The Brothers, Dann and Martha Paquette, Jaime Schier from Harpoon, Max Toste, and some other people (whose names I've clearly forgotten, and I apologize), and we all had some superlative Guinness. We talked some more trash, but mostly just talked. I think the Goose Island thing came up, and the Bourdain/Brew Masters thing, but mostly? Just breezin'. Perfect session stuff.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
More new session beers...
Gotta love the name, gotta love the love.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.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Session Beer Poll?
Yes, "Drink Craft Beer" has put up a TwtPoll asking "What is your abv% cut-off for a 'session beer?'" Choices are 4%, 4.5%, 5%, and "Over 5%."
Well, you know where I stand. And I think it's blazingly typical of American craft beer that currently "Over 5%" has a commanding lead. Go vote, folks, go vote. I'm perfectly happy to drive traffic to this poll, because it does fuel the discussion!
Well, you know where I stand. And I think it's blazingly typical of American craft beer that currently "Over 5%" has a commanding lead. Go vote, folks, go vote. I'm perfectly happy to drive traffic to this poll, because it does fuel the discussion!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Interesting trends on the west coast
Just got the following note from Ratebeer.com's Joe Tucker about a San Francisco Beer Week event he attended Sunday night, and of course found it intensely interesting. Read on...
The Session Beer Project, bearing fruit? I suspect it's more a case of being sensitive to the first small stirrings of a new direction in brewing. Whatever, we'll take it. Cheers to the choices!
I just wanted to drop you a brief note on something Ken Weaver and I took note of at last night's Nanobrewers mini festival at Social Kitchen in SF last night. More than several of the brewers:So...trend? Interesting question, considering that Social Kitchen had named the event "Breweries of Tomorrow." If you haven't hit the link, do so, and read how the breweries described their output. "Subtle yet complex session ales intended for the social drinking style of a traditional pub," and "session beers with character – the kind of brews you can enjoy more than one of, and won’t get bored with."
Additionally, several brewers articulated:
- were brewing session beers under 4.5% abv
- presented beers of English and non-English tradition (cask and non-cask, traditional hops and recipes and not)
While these weren't the dominant styles of beers offered at the event, the number of low abv offerings were grossly over-represented relative to their numbers in the existing market.
- a market demand-related reason for brewing lower abv beer
- a business/cost-related reason
- a business/sales reason (sell two or three pints of session instead of one burly beer)
- a health and safety reason
The Session Beer Project, bearing fruit? I suspect it's more a case of being sensitive to the first small stirrings of a new direction in brewing. Whatever, we'll take it. Cheers to the choices!
Friday, February 11, 2011
"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.The Scottish hopping theory aside (and I'll admit, I used to repeat it), this sounds like a truly interesting beer. Again. Cheers, Scott!
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.
Some Consistently Interesting Session Beer Commentary
Joe Stange's blog Thirsty Pilgrim has featured some interesting posts on session beers, and I've been neglecting reposting them here. So...
From October, a post about "session" as both adjective and verb, something that's gotten a few knickers twisted -- relax, it's just beer.
And from November and January, Joe notes the Public House Brewing Company in Rolla, Missouri is opening as an all-session beer brewery, and then visits and tells us about their "toasted-bready, dryish, full-flavored mild weighing in at 2.5% strength."
Keeping it up, he posted this week about the trumped-up "Session vs. Extreme CAGE MATCH!!!"...and suggests we should trump it up even more. And you know? Might be a good idea!
Check out Joe's blog; it's a good one.
(And thanks for reading the Session Beer Project! It's actually passed my 'main' blog in the Wikio ratings, which is kinda cool.)
From October, a post about "session" as both adjective and verb, something that's gotten a few knickers twisted -- relax, it's just beer.
And from November and January, Joe notes the Public House Brewing Company in Rolla, Missouri is opening as an all-session beer brewery, and then visits and tells us about their "toasted-bready, dryish, full-flavored mild weighing in at 2.5% strength."
Keeping it up, he posted this week about the trumped-up "Session vs. Extreme CAGE MATCH!!!"...and suggests we should trump it up even more. And you know? Might be a good idea!
Check out Joe's blog; it's a good one.
(And thanks for reading the Session Beer Project! It's actually passed my 'main' blog in the Wikio ratings, which is kinda cool.)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
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:
Cheers!
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!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
This is: Getting It.
Jason Wilson wrote a piece on session beers for the San Francisco Chronicle (which is just now starting a beer column? WTF?!) that definitely gets it. And not just because he quoted me extensively. Really. No, he clearly gets the whole thing, to the point where he recognizes that he has to up his session beer ABV ceiling to BeerAdvocate's 5% ceiling to come up with some beers to talk about...because there just aren't that many sub-4.5% beers out there.
Using BeerAdvocate's 5% is no real surprise: he quoted Todd Alström (and Sam Calagione, too) about the Extreme Session Beer Project. Which, by the way, is fine by me, great idea...except for the 5% top end and the totally misplaced anger. (And it's not new anger, either.) Check this out!
Using BeerAdvocate's 5% is no real surprise: he quoted Todd Alström (and Sam Calagione, too) about the Extreme Session Beer Project. Which, by the way, is fine by me, great idea...except for the 5% top end and the totally misplaced anger. (And it's not new anger, either.) Check this out!
As you might imagine, the editors of Beer Advocate, Todd and Jason Allstrom [sic] - who run the annual Extreme Beer Fest in Boston - take the opposing view. In December, Todd Allstrom announced the launch of an Extreme Session Beer Project. "For too many years the mainstream press and haters have attempted to pigeonhole extreme beer as being just about high-alcohol and unbalanced beers," Todd Allstrom says. "Let's be honest, they're f- clueless."
Todd Allstrom's project co-creator is Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head in Milton, Del., a renowned extreme beer producer. Calagione sought a more evenhanded tone. "I totally agree and find it really destructive when beer folk say session beer needs to supersede extreme beer. Or vice versa. Like they're mutually exclusive."
Thursday, February 3, 2011
This is: not getting it
First: 21st Amendment's Bitter American is a delish session beer, and I can't wait till it shows up in Philly, and I will drink it.
Second, this guy got that...but that's the only thing he got. There is so much wrong with this, it makes me want to cry, vomit, and commit mayhem.
Second, this guy got that...but that's the only thing he got. There is so much wrong with this, it makes me want to cry, vomit, and commit mayhem.
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