Session in the Abyss

 This is not my typical blog, just a warning shot. I am not going to talk about food or pairing it with beer that much in this one. The main reason is that this is more of a ranting than a “normal” post for me, not that I don’t get fired up about something in every post but this is a prolonged one. It’s about everybody’s new hot girl, the session IPA and session beers in general. I am a hop-head, I love hoppy beer, and they make me happy. Not that I don’t love all forms of the magical brewed libation, but these are my sweet spot as most people know by now.

First off we have to define a session beer. More or less it means a beer with lower alcohol (my guess is somewhere between 3% and 4.5% by volume) for the purpose of having more than 1 or 2 in a session of drinking them, hence the name. A good explanation is on Beer Advocate, it gives a history definition of the term. It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of great beers that could be but are not defined as session beers. A good amount of British, American, and Belgian Pale Ales and other categories of beer fall in this range. Some are hoppy and some are not. There are literally thousands of choices that are session-able.

 For years we have been offered IPA’s that are big, bold, and sometimes ridiculous. It seemed like a contest between brewers to see who could come up with the next big hop bomb or the next melding of hop varieties to kick your palate around, not to mention hopping up other styles like black IPAs and Belgian IPAs that are now a sub- genre of sorts to IPA’s in general. So now you are going to tell me that the next thing everyone wants to do is a hoppy, lighter bodied, lower alcohol beer and call it a “session IPA”. The basis of the craft beer movement is and was to not give a flying fuck what advertisers, the general public, and everyone else thinks and make real beer. That idealism seems to be lost on these beers. Think Metallica’s black album.  No more metal up your ass, but an over-produced to fit the general populations taste so we can get more  ”fans”. The sell-out album. Session IPA’s are the sell-out beer. Mass appeal, watered down, still ok but not as good as what they should be. I am not saying they are not well crafted just to get that out there before people start throwing rocks at me. Now I am all for full flavored beers in whatever ABV range they fall in. Good well-crafted beer is good beer, period. This all being said I think that the use and apparent need to define a beer as a “session” beer is absolute bullshit. Also the other notion of the public wants lighter alcohol beers is another bullshit reason. My beef mostly comes with the necessity for a label. I am over all of the buzzwords like session and just slapping IP-fill-in-the-blank to make it a marketable beer. Spare me. So what’s next a Session Imperial Bourbon Barrel India Pale Stout? That would cover all of the buzz words and styles.

 I have tried a bunch of these beers and there are a couple that are really good. I enjoyed Fat Head’s Sunshine Day Dream and Stone Go To but they are not IPA’s in my opinion, they were aggressively hopped pale ales. Which is good.This my opinion and I am not the only that feels this way I am sure of it. I just want good beer without mass marketing ploys, and buzzwords, and all of that other bullshit that has been popping up. To sum it up from a previous point: What I am saying is I want Ride the Lightning not Load or Re-Load.

A Little Ranting to Start Off the Year

Since we are in the New Year, I guess it’s time to do a synopsis of the year in beer, or a resolution. For one I am not one to make a resolution for the New Year. Not a freaking chance in hell of that of that. I am not going to a gym, eat kale and eat some horken fiber grain mix to make my diet healthy, just to throw it out the first chance I get to have a beer and some bar food with my friends. We are adults, you should be able to figure that kind of thing out without pledging something dopey. I wake up daily trying to be better at who I am and what I do, I don’t need to create a device to do this. I am not going to go over last year either. It’s the past, there were some great beers made and we loved them, I am personally more excited about the year ahead. One thing I will leave you with is a quote from Greg Koch the brilliant, arrogant in a good way, leader of Stone Brewery said.

 It is something that I personally back 100% and will start implementing daily in my conversations and writings about beer.Sorry if I disappointed everyone by not contributing to the normal year-end/new year bullshit. It’s not my thing.

 As I am writing this we are having the Polar Vortex pay a visit here in the Great Lakes (or as I like to call it winter), I am just hanging around the estate in lovely, frozen Lakewood, Ohio. I was thinking that this time of year, the post-holiday pre-spring release time of year is the most underrated time of year for beers. I love the fact that most if not every brewery/brewer goes out on a limb more and more, and create crazy one-off brews during the year. This time of year is great for that. I am a fan of the beers that get right up in your face with flavors and styles that are not the norm and out of your comfort zone.
 If you want to get me out of my beer comfort zone, one way is to give me a barley wine, You know the beers that start appearing this time of year that are usually named “Old” something or other. I am not a huge fan of this style. To me it’s just a way to brew a huge beer for the sake of it being big. They are for the most part cloyingly sweet and very boozy. Most hit around 10% ABV(Alcohol By Volume) on the bottom end and I have seen some that are upwards of 14-15% if not more (although not in my current state of Ohio which has ancient, absurd ABV laws for beer set at 12% - this is a rant for another day). A great deal of them do have a hoppy finish and I do like that. I am leery of the sweet-not-stout/Baltic porter which work for me, I am not saying that barley wines are bad beers at all. They just don’t hit the right notes for me. The high ABV% isn’t a bad thing but higher alcohol beers for the most part tend to have that burn on the back end. Which can make a beer great, or ruin it for me. Contrary to what some folks believe higher ABV doesn’t equal better beer. This is where I take a little side trip.

Let’s talk ABV, or more importantly, the “I only drink beer that has 9% alcohol or higher” guy. I know some of you are reading this, too. Well I am about to piss you off. I find this attitude to be one of, if not the most annoying, stupid, and outright fucked up ones out there. Don’t give me it’s your preference, that’s all BS. If it was just a preference you wouldn’t be hammering anyone for drinking, or brewing good beer with lower alcohol levels. You are not an Elitist; but more or less a drunk. All this says to me is that you want something to get you fucking hammered quickly rather than revel in and enjoy great beer. You are no different than the hobo drinking a Lazer malt liquor out of a paper bag to get trashed. No I am not putting high ABV beers in the level of Lazer so back up, I am putting the dopes I mentioned above there. If you have a problem with that fire away, not going to change my mind on this. Anyway that red-faced rant is now over, so back to barley wines. I do have a couple that I have had in the past. I am a big fan of Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot. It is big, bold, has a dried fruit-like sweetness that is evened out by a good resiny, piney hop finish. I also like Victory Old Horizontal; it’s not as hoppy as Bigfoot but it carries a lot of similar flavors. This is just one of many types of different beers you see this time of year.
 I encourage everyone to follow your favorite breweries on the various social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, for example) we have right now. They will for the most part give information on releases and other info so you can see what weirdness they are planning. I can go on and on about what else is available right now but hit social media and there’s a good amount of info to be had. Now go out there and get out of your comfort zone find some different beers and have some fun!