I tried to buy Carlos Brito an Ordinary Bitter but he just kept checking his portfolio.

That fucking Carlos Brito.

He never remembers anything I tell him. He's usually too busy fondling his wallet.

To repeat, Carlos, before you spend another zillion Euros taking credit for realities that already exist ...

The World's Largest Brewer Is Betting Big on Weak Beer (Reuters via Fortune)

Anheuser-Busch InBev, which will soon make almost 30% of the world’s beer, wants to serve more low and alcohol-free brews to drinkers trying to live a healthier lifestyle.

The Belgium-based brewer, on the verge of buying its largest rival SABMiller, has forecast lower and zero strength beer will grow from a small base to make up 20% of its sales by the end of 2025 ...

 ... have a goddamned "weak" beer that really matters (below), though I'm reminded that Reuters can join Brito in Beer Hell for using the word "weak" instead of "low-alcohol" or some such.

Weak?

My favorite session-strength style has enough hops to offend 90% of the typical customers in an Indiana sports bar, pointing to the fact that it isn't just the reduced alcohol, but the flavor.

Wankers. They're all wankers, each and every one. Now put down that Bud Light Dry Lime A Rita and learn something about "real" Session Beer.

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8A. Standard/Ordinary Bitter (BJCP 2008)

Aroma: The best examples have some malt aroma, often (but not always) with a caramel quality. Mild to moderate fruitiness is common. Hop aroma can range from moderate to none (UK varieties typically, although US varieties may be used). Generally no diacetyl, although very low levels are allowed.

Appearance: Light yellow to light copper. Good to brilliant clarity. Low to moderate white to off-white head. May have very little head due to low carbonation.

Flavor: Medium to high bitterness. Most have moderately low to moderately high fruity esters. Moderate to low hop flavor (earthy, resiny, and/or floral UK varieties typically, although US varieties may be used). Low to medium maltiness with a dry finish. Caramel flavors are common but not required. Balance is often decidedly bitter, although the bitterness should not completely overpower the malt flavor, esters and hop flavor. Generally no diacetyl, although very low levels are allowed.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium-light body. Carbonation low, although bottled and canned examples can have moderate carbonation.

Overall Impression: Low gravity, low alcohol levels and low carbonation make this an easy-drinking beer. Some examples can be more malt balanced, but this should not override the overall bitter impression. Drinkability is a critical component of the style; emphasis is still on the bittering hop addition as opposed to the aggressive middle and late hopping seen in American ales.

Comments: The lightest of the bitters. Also known as just “bitter.” Some modern variants are brewed exclusively with pale malt and are known as golden or summer bitters. Most bottled or kegged versions of UK-produced bitters are higher-alcohol versions of their cask (draught) products produced specifically for export. The IBU levels are often not adjusted, so the versions available in the US often do not directly correspond to their style subcategories in Britain. This style guideline reflects the “real ale” version of the style, not the export formulations of commercial products.

History: Originally a draught ale served very fresh under no pressure (gravity or hand pump only) at cellar temperatures (i.e., “real ale”). Bitter was created as a draught alternative (i.e., running beer) to country-brewed pale ale around the start of the 20th century and became widespread once brewers understood how to “Burtonize” their water to successfully brew pale beers and to use crystal malts to add a fullness and roundness of palate.

Ingredients: Pale ale, amber, and/or crystal malts, may use a touch of black malt for color adjustment. May use sugar adjuncts, corn or wheat. English hops most typical, although American and European varieties are becoming more common (particularly in the paler examples). Characterful English yeast. Often medium sulfate water is used.

Vital Statistics:
OG: 1.032 – 1.040
FG: 1.007 – 1.011
IBUs: 25 – 35
ABV: 3.2 – 3.8%
SRM: 4 – 14

Commercial Examples: Fuller's Chiswick Bitter, Adnams Bitter, Young's Bitter, Greene King IPA, Oakham Jeffrey Hudson Bitter (JHB), Brains Bitter, Tetley’s Original Bitter, Brakspear Bitter, Boddington's Pub Draught

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Session consciousness: Welcome to the British alcohol unit.

Lew Bryson pointed to this article, and I cannot praise it enough, even though it is filled with mathematics.

I'm not a math guy, but I'm a Session Head.

Read it.

Why you still get drunk drinking “session” beers: The difference between a 4% and a 5% beer is much wider than we assume, by Joe Stange (Draft)

 ... Unfortunately—perhaps dangerously—American breweries have abused the word, even as their marketing folks have seen that session, like sex, sells. Or maybe we’re seeing a general misunderstanding of what a session ought to be, based on how our bodies process alcohol. Inevitably this leads to wider misunderstanding among drinkers—though ultimately the responsibility for smart choices rests with us and us alone.

So let’s clear this up, and maybe we can all make better choices.

At NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse: Session Head on the 29th, and EFC is running full bore.

Just because I'm on a leave of absence doesn't mean I can't disseminate information. Session Head's almost here ...

NABC’s 4th annual Session Head begins Sunday, March 29 at Bank Street Brewhouse

For the fourth “small” year, NABC is delighted to help raise session beer consciousness with Session Head. While April 7 remains the actual nationwide date for observation of Session Beer Day, NABC will mark the occasion on Sunday, March 29 at Bank Street Brewhouse so that a very special guest can join us for the fun.

It’s close friend and former NABC employee Richard Atnip, who will be in attendance on the 29th along with four session-strength beers brewed by his current employer, New Holland Brewing Company of Holland, Michigan.

 ... and Earth Friends Cafe is rounding into its full program. BSB is open longer hours, meaning more chances to drink good beer with excellent food.

Earth Friends Cafe now open at Bank Street Brewhouse, hours and menu here

Alstroms have a problem with session beer, and Lew Bryson begs to differ.

Note that these days, it is my custom to refer to RateBeer and BeerAdvocate collectively, as RateAdvocate. However, in this instance, I must defer to the correct usage, since the actual reference is to BeerAdvocate, the magazine.

Aww, what the hell.

It's been a while since I visited RateAdvocate, and I'm happy that Lew posted his thoughts on the session beer editorial. Admittedly, given the depth of my feeling in favor of session beer, I probably haven't done enough to educate local beer drinkers. I constantly vow to do more, and some day, there might actually be time. Until that day comes, it's honestly the case that most of the beers I drink fall into the session boundaries.

When I feel like something stronger, there's always Thomas Family Winery's Gale's Hard Cider or gin. Am I becoming a Session Snob? It's a badge I'd happily wear.

What's Your Problem?, by Lew Bryson (The Session Beer Project)

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.

Pete Coors 1: We have an "algorithm and an app" to verify our rotary dial of a light beer.

Nothing the scion of swill says in this passage applies exclusively to the "premium light" brands of watery alco-pop his companies and his brethren produce.

Pete Coors 2: "We bought a craft brewery in Georgia" and can Keystone it as we please.

Given that bar owners worth their salt are replacing crap with craft on tap, and relegating "premium light" to bottles and cans in the back bar cooler (seems like a "fact" to me), as a response to palpable demand, Pete's "research" comes off somewhat tainted. Bar owners can switch brand loyal customers to bottles and cans because brand loyal customers are neutered drones, locked into a dreary towpath, and unwilling to change.

But even if we accept the Coors flailing as legitimate in the context of dinosaur death throes, keeping a customer in his seat an extra 18 minutes (not 17, and not 19) might just as likely be achieved by combining the best of both virtues; keep a genuine session beer on tap, one that is lower in ABV and milder, yet flavorful, fills that stool for another pint and resists the Silver Bullet's fundamental vapidity ... at a higher return, no less.

Pete Coors can blow it out his reactionary ass. The sooner the dinosaurs are extinct, the better.

Pete Coors, big beer industry continues to grapple with craft beers, by Jeremy Meyer (Denver Post)

... “Basically the biggest trouble we have is on-premise sales,” he said. “We have a lot of bar owners who are enamored with craft beers. They are beginning to take off the premium light handles and putting bottles behind the bar instead and replacing the handles with craft beer handles. We lose 50 percent of our volume when that happens.”

The company is trying to compel bar owners to keep their beers on tap by impressing them with facts.

“We have done research that shows it’s not in the economic benefit for a bar to do that,” he said. “Having a premium light brand, whether it’s Coors, Miller or Bud on tap actually improves the economics of their business. People stay in their seats an average of 18 minutes longer when they have a light premium beer on tap. That means they are spending more money, leaving bigger tips. We have a little algorithm and an app that we give to our distributors to evaluate and analyze these businesses and bars.”

Speaking of radical insurgencies, Session Beer Day is Saturday, April 7.

David Pierce brought this to my attention this evening, and I can't think of a craft beer concept that appeals to me more at the present time. Props as always go to writer Lew Bryson, who has been pushing this session consciousness notion for a while now. NABC will take part in this exercise, and our Extraordinary (Ordinary Bitter) will be ready for drinking by the 7th, but you'll need to give us a few days to come up with details.  

Session Beer Day, April 7!

I suggested to the members of the small (but rapidly growing) Session Beer Project page on Facebook that we should make April 5th (4.5) or April 7th (Little Repeal Day, when 4.0% ABV beer became legal before repeal of the 18th Amendment) our day, Session Beer Day. We could ask for session beers at our favorite bars, and brewpubs, and suchlike, invite people to try them, gin up plenty of social media whoopee, and all dat. 

NABC Smoked Abzug ... later in 2012.

One of the major themes of my year in beer was a growing preference for session-strength pints.

"Session" is a topic that has been discussed here many times in the past, and I always like to follow the trail backwards in time to Lew Bryson's pioneering advocacy: The Session Beer Project.

Hence, the gorgeous specimen pictured above: NABC Smoked Abzug. I hasten to add that currently, the only place on the planet where this beer is on tap is the keg box in my home garage, so don't get any ideas.

Former NABC brewer Jared Williamson originally formulated Abzug as a low-gravity lager (California Common yeast) with a short maturation curve; it was our first attempt to produce a session-strength golden lager for serving at our two on-premise locations. We've since started using Bavarian yeast to brew Bat Out of Helles, which will be the inheritor of the Abzug notion.

Later, Jared came up with the idea of lightly "smoking" his Abzug, thereby creating a lower gravity version of something resembling Bamberg's Spezial. The last keg of it is in the garage, and with around nine months of down time, the liquid is now a brilliant "bright" amber, and as MASH's late and lamented Colonel Potter might have said, there aren't enough O's in smOOth to describe it. The Weyermann smoked malt is beginning to fade in intensity, but it's still present. The flavor is clean and delicious, and at less than 4% abv, you can have a few without hitting the floor.

Look for the next batch of Smoked Abzug in October of 2012. It will be available on draft at the Pizzeria & Public House, Bank Street Brewhouse, my garage, and selected Cavalier Distributing accounts in Indiana that opt for NABC's forthcoming "session tap" program. As always, stay tuned.

A Saturday filled with beer, beer and more beer after that.

First, the bad news.

Apologies go out to readers who ventured down to New Albany's waterfront last evening and learned that Bubbles and Bluegrass had been cancelled. I wouldn't have known myself had I not left an RSVP at the event's Facebook page, and been informed in cursory fashion just before 5:00 p.m. the gig was off. I was busy, and the belated notice didn't leave me with enough time to try getting the word out. We'd sold a keg of Elector to Studio's Grille & Pub, which was catering the show. Let's hope that they elect to pour Elector at the bar instead.

But the remainder of Saturday's update is favorable, unless one or all of the following is cancelled by reason that some day, somewhere, it might snow. Don't rule it out.

At the Public House, another of Sandkerwa's gravity-dispense "Anstich" kegs is being tapped right about now: Lindenbräu Vollbier, from Brauerei Lindenbräu in Gräfenberg. The first three were simply wonderful country lagers served cool and fresh by gravity pour. I'll biking that way shortly to do quality control on today's specimen. Next Thursday (October 1), the cycle begins anew with one Anstich keg on Thursday, two on Friday and one on Saturday.

Today is Ales for Tails at Bridge Liquors, and NABC will be there. It is my understanding that Elsa von Horizon will be among our sampling choices.

At roughly the same time is BBC's Hop & Harvest Festival at the original brewpub location in St. Matthews. H & H is an homage to local agriculture, and Jerry Gnagy brewed a wet hop harvest ale in the same fashion as NABC, using hops grown in the Knobs at the farm of the owners. If my sources are to be trusted, NABC will have Hoptimus on hand.

If the preceding isn't enough weekend for you, there's always Sunday Bloody Sunday" at Bank Street Brewhouse from noon to 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. John's "build your own" bloody mary bar is unique, and offers a fine and novel way to decompress. Cigars are permitted on the patio, and the three members of NABC's "session series" are on tap: Abzug, Community Dark and Tafel.

Making advance plans? Fringe Fest will be starting before you know it, and the evolving schedule merits a glance.

"Mug Shots" today in LEO: "Taste great and less filling?"

Tastes great and less alcoholic?

Mug Shots: Taste great and less filling?
Occasionally a cliché bears passing resemblance to reality. Recalling the eagerness of every politician to stump by heaping effusive praise on the genius of good, old-fashioned American workplace creativity, permit me to note that this characterization is spot-on when it comes to American craft brewing.