Look at any tap list today and you’re bound to see a beer calling itself a “session” beer—ostensibly a 3–5 percent (the upper limit varies depending who you ask), drink-more-than-one style, or a lower-octane version of a bigger style. As a beer drinker, I’ve long been a proponent of lower-ABV beers, in part because I like to take my time and drink a full pint of something, but also because I like to try a few things from the list! If all I’m looking at are full-strength IPAs, Trappist ales, and imperial whatevers, sampling more beer is simply not an option if I hope to be functional for the rest of the day (and maybe the next day)! When I see a nice 3.2 percent bitter on the tap list, I’m done looking.
But as with many other aspects of beer brewing, drinking a session beer and brewing a session beer are two different beasts (and the brewing is usually harder). This week we’ll take a quick look at some tips for brewing session beers, and while each of these probably deserves a post of its own, this should be more than enough to get you started down the right track!
Not (Exactly) a Question of Scale
The first thing you want to do is realize that you’re not doing a linear scaling. If your 6 percent beers usually get a certain amount of a specialty grain, then don’t assume that your session recipes need half that amount. In fact, given that you’re not getting body from quite as much residual sugar and not tasting the flavor of a larger dose of alcohol, you need to be rather more conscious of what’s in that recipe. This is the brewing equivalent of Pascal’s assertion that he would have written a shorter letter but lacked the time!