An interesting discussion has broken out here, initially among brewers and beer writers, about "session beer" and whether anyone can define it. (Hip-hop head nod to Alan.)
In particular I want to take issue with a few arguments there:
(1) the notion, put forward by Weyerbacher head honcho Dan Weirback, that a beer of 6% strength is a session beer because many people think it is.
(2) Jack Curtin's argument that (I'm paraphrasing) we shouldn't pin a number on the alcohol content of session beer because different people have different levels of tolerance.
(3) the suggestion that stronger beers can be sessionable if we just drink them more slowly.
A really nice thing about supporting an idea like "more session beer, please" is that we don't have to respect what is. We support what we think ought to be. People can confound our hopes. American craft brewers can keep making 6% and 7% craft beers because they perceive that it's what drinkers want. But I'm getting fairly sick of having them and some drinkers tell us that such beer is sessionable. No. It ain't. Not for anyone.
It was the largely fruitless hunt for more drinkable beer in the U.S. that led me to write this:
"[T]he market is the market, and I’m a critic by nature. Somebody has to step away from the endless subjectivism of 'to each his own.' Somewhere, we must draw a line and say, 'Enough of that bullshit. We ought to have more of this.'"
A much more compelling question, and one that I'm investigating now (stay tuned), is whether there is any money in making or selling the stuff. It might well be that there is generally more money in craft beers of higher alcohol levels. If that's true, we're simply asking for charity. And that would be a bigger and more interesting problem.
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I have to admit a certain amount of suspicion when a brewer wants to define a "session beer" by the parameters of the beers he already makes.
ReplyDeleteWe are very lucky here in central VA that places like Devils Backbone are committed to always having at least one session beer, as defined by Lew, on tap. At the moment they have 5 beers under 5%, four them being less than 4.7%.
Al, thanks for mentioning Devil's Backbone... I'm compiling a list of places like that (brewers and pubs dedicated to tougher definition of "session beer"), and I had overlooked that one. Sounds friendly.
ReplyDeleteYou would like my 2nd most recent post!
ReplyDeleteI've had complaints because I describe a 5.7% beer as 'drinkable'. That's British drinkers for you!
I know I bang on about Devils Backbone a lot on Fuggled but it is an awesome place to drink, with consistently good beer, top food and in Jason Oliver a top, top brewer.
ReplyDelete"It might well be that there is generally more money in craft beers of higher alcohol levels..."
ReplyDeleteHello! Take a product that requires 10% of the cost be allotted to actual ingredients, double those ingredients to create a super strong version for 110% of the cost but charge 200% the price! Of course these beers are more profitable than session beers.
Alan, that is more or less my working hypothesis. But I also see a couple of potential problems with it:
ReplyDelete1. Cheaper to make. Session beers require fewer fermentables yet can be sold at more or less the same price as other pints (although we'd prefer less, as usual).
2. Volume. Everyone makes more money off beer that sells faster. Theoretically the money-making beers at the end of the day should be the ones in big glasses that beg for another and another. As opposed to, "Well, that was interesting, what else have you got?"
We need not point at industrial lager to find examples. Boulevard in Kansas City is the house that Unfiltered Wheat built. Boulevard technically might more profit off of Double Wide IPA (I wonder) but the moneymaker is Wheat. And the beer checks in at 4.4% abv.
Joe, I agree with you. I chuckle every time I see someone claim that a 6% or even higher ABV beer is a "session beer" or "sessionable" because of some bastardization of the word "session".
ReplyDeleteMost people drink beer at a similar rate, say, 2-3 pints per hour comfortably as far as volume goes. This is the volume that should be considered for a session, and a "session" should be a few hours (at least).
Bring on the good 4-5% beers. I will buy them.
One of the main problems is that in the minds of many consumer the % of ABV is proportional to the quality, or others feel they are getting more for their money. So when those people see a bottle of a 4,5%ABV top of the range "craft beer" and a bottle of an average, say, Belgian Ale with at leat 7%ABV or less at about the same price, they will go for the stronger.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the factor that Alan mentions. The cost of making a that 7% beer aren't much higher than those of making a 4% one, yet this one will fetch a disproportionally higher price.
Not having a proper pub culture doesn't helpt, either.
That's me, Pivní Filosof, BTW, signing under another one of my many aliases :)
ReplyDeleteRegarding my previous comment...
ReplyDelete"We need not point at industrial lager to find examples. Boulevard in Kansas City is the house that Unfiltered Wheat built. Boulevard technically might more profit off of Double Wide IPA (I wonder) but the moneymaker is Wheat. And the beer checks in at 4.4% abv."
Indeed, I double-checked with Boulevard and the Wheat still makes up more than 60% of its sales.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteRegarding Boulevard and their Wheat, New Belgium is a close example with Fat Tire clocking in at 5.2%. I don't know the numbers, but I assume Fat Tire is still a huge part of their sales.
Very true, but 5.2% is a fairly mainstream abv and too strong to be a proper session beer. I'm sticking with Lew's limit of 4.5% with a debatable fudge factor of 0.5%. Any more than that and we are talking regular-strength beer in the US (and strong beer in the UK).
ReplyDeleteOK. 4.5% or lower flagship beers are very few and far between in the US.
ReplyDeleteI would still argue that the vast majority of beer sold by craft brewers is lighter beer. Of course us geeks are big fans of hops or dark richness, but I would say almost any brewery/brewpub sells way more of their lightest beer than their strongest. That's because most customers, even of brewpubs, aren't beer geeks.
ReplyDeleteI think the real crux, though, is that those light beers that sell out aren't really the session beers we want to see. We want more Boulevard Wheat and Stone Levitation: big flavor, low abv. That's where the supply may not meet up with with the market (beer geeks who want lighter beer).