Session Beer: Meaning and Characteristics
You may have heard of session beer in passing. You might even have had session beer and begun speculating as to what it is. But you’re still wondering, “what exactly is session beer?”
Not only is session beer a delight to brew and enjoy, but it also has a long and fascinating history in the world of brewing.
What Is Session Beer?
A session beer, at its most basic, is a beer that has a low ABV and low carbonation but is still full of flavor. The idea is that you can drink several of these beers without getting impaired so you can’t drive.
The general consensus is that a session beer must be below 5% ABV but still packed with flavor.
Session beers todays stand in contrast to, and in many ways in response to, strong beers with high ABVs, like porters, stouts, and IPAs, and light beers that typically just taste like watered down beer. No one wants that.
But session beers are not new to the beer scene. In fact they go back much farther than most people realize.
History of Session Beer
If you ask around, you will likely find the history of session beer traced back to Great Britain around WWII.
The story goes that blue collars workers had work days broken into 4 hour “sessions.”
When these men broke for lunch, they would head off to the pub for some food and a couple (a few?) beers.
The problem?
Well, a strong porter comes in at 10% ABV. A stout can be as high as 12%. Just two of those brews can knock you off your game for the day and make it difficult to complete the second session of your workload.
And if you operate heavy machinery, say in a factory, putting down two strong beers can make returning to work dangerous to you and your coworkers.
The solution was never going to be for these burly men to simply not have beer at lunch. That’s crazy talk!
And, again, all attempts to make light beer had resulted in loss of flavor and body.
Thus, session beer was born.
Or should we say born again?
All Beer Was Once Session Beer
What many forget when telling this story of session beer in England is that session beer was not new. There was no burgeoning science to uncover, no reinventing this wheel.
The truth is that the history of beer tells us all beer was once what we now call session beer.
Remember that the alcohol content of any beverage is determined by two factors – sugar and yeast – not counting distillation. We’re talking specifically about natural fermentation here.
Yeast, a single celled organism always in search of food, consumes fermentable carbohydrates for energy and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide as waste products.
The more fermentable the carbohydrate, the higher the alcohol content will be, which is why we see wines with higher ABVs than beer. Grapes are full of fructose, a highly fermentable carb, while grains are rich in maltose, which is a much less fermentable carb.
Indeed, to get beer to have a higher ABV, brewers learned to roast their grains, which converts much of the maltose to glucose, a more fermentable carb.
The other factor, yeast, is a bit trickier. Of the hundreds of strains of yeast, some are more tolerant of alcohol and some are less tolerant.
Yeast with a lower tolerance will start dying off or lying dormant as the alcohol content rises, effectively producing its own poison.
So you can have a fruit or grain high in sugar, but a lower tolerant yeast will only produce a beverage with a low ABV that is on the sweeter side as a result of all that sugar that remains unconsumed.
In early beer history, most beer was made with less sugary grains, much of it untoasted, and with a low tolerant yeast.
As such, early beer hung in around 2% ABV and the entire family imbibed at every meal.
How’s that for session beer?
Brewers who wanted to produce those lower ABV, full flavored beers then only had to take a lesson from our ancestors.
Is Session Beer Weak?
One of the hallmarks of session beer is that it is decidedly not weak. It is not light, not watered down, and still fully satisfying without being filling.
So if you take a sip of beer and it lacks in flavor or tastes diluted, you are not drinking session beer.
Session IPA
Interestingly, the recent rise in popularity of session beer has come as a direct response to the high ABV craze of the early 2000s, when it seemed every brewery was in competition to make strong beer that would take you out after a single brew.
IPAs are the most notable among these competitors, and they are well known for having a ton of flavor along with their high alcohol content.
Then, as beer lovers looked to scale back, they also still longed for their beloved IPAs.
Fortunately, IPA brewers listened and responded.
Today, while IPAs normally run 7% ABV and even up to 10%, you can find session IPAs as low as 3% and up to 5%.
So IPA lovers can still enjoy their favorite beer without the rush to drunkenness.
Session Beers to Try
The session beer market today is packed with flavorful contenders, but if you’re hoping to start experimenting with those at the top of their game, and ideally learning from the best, here are a few to check out:
Cigar City Jai Low IPA
Coming in at 4%, this session IPA is full of bready malt and tangerine flavors.
Lagunitas Daytime
Rich with oats and melon, this 4% session beer can never be called “light.”
Jack Abby’s Post Shift Pilsner
A bit stronger, at 4.7%, this session beer pays homage to the classic Pilsner, brewed with malt and hops.
Cheers!
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