The Session #40 Session Beer

Session beer. It’s relative. It’s as relative to Americans as
Thanksgiving, which in historical fact, had little to do with the
spirit of camaraderie and togetherness that Americans now associate
with the holiday. At our Thanksgiving table we have a bevy of
nap-inducing deliciousness: candied sweet potatoes, salty stewed
artichokes and creamed corn and while very few at the party are brave
enough to touch it, we keep a Jello mold ring of cranberry sauce
because that’s what Grandpa Jim loved and we all loved Grandpa Jim.

For many, session beer is simply beer that is highly drinkable.
Certainly “drinkability” and low alcohol content are all part of the
cultural understanding of what makes a session beer. However, for me,
a session beer is a beer that is more defined by the occasion than the
style. There are countless occasions that call for a session beer.

My session beer is a beer that calls for no particular fuss. It’s good
to go—right out of the bottle (or can). Sure, it may have desired
glassware, a tulip or a snifter, but often I’ve found the best
“sessions” were not one predicated on which beer was drank.

To me, “sessions” are all-encompassing conversations which start with
beers but end with opinions; on politics, culture or the nature of
good and evil. Session beer is beer that knows its role. You can drink
it warm, as sometimes sessions will drag on late into the evening. In
these conversations debate is so intense that everything else in the
world, save your conviction, becomes unimportant.

One of the earliest “sessions” I can remember occurred while I was 18.
It was my great aunt’s 90th birthday so up to Ft. Kent, ME, a town
bordering Canada, my family of New Yorker’s went. Once we arrived at
our cousin’s house, Rob, my cousin who was 16 at the time, informed me
that aunt Precilla was the only one in his immediate family who voted
for George W. Bush. When we got to Aunt Precilla’s cabin my extended
family was drinking Coors Light, Bud Light and Shipyard IPA. I had
never seen a brown bottle with such an artistic label. I saw my older
cousins drinking it and nobody objected to me having a few.

After several hours of political diatribes and philosophies bantered
about, folks were tired out. 90-year-old Aunt Precilla gave each one
of her children a big hug and all was well despite the evening’s chaos
of conversation. During the lull, I came to find out from my Uncle
Phil that our distant relatives were actually rum runners in the
illegal alcohol trade. One relative in particular went beyond the
simple racket of running booze in trucks across the border into New
England and became the captain of a “contact boat”, the small ships
that took liquor from the big boat, floating outside U.S.
jurisdiction, and brought the Canadian whiskey into Maine. Throughout
the course of the history lesson I had a few Shipyards.

Then a few more and then a few more.

A few turned into too many and too many was then followed by a few
champagne toasts and long story short I was VERY dehydrated the next
day. But in the midst of my first monster “session” I came to love
Shipyard IPA for its then-odd smelling and strange tasting flavor. I
think part of the mystery, beyond the fact that I had yet to try an
English-style American IPA at that point in time, was the fact that
the beer actually tasted different at different points in one bottle.
When first pulled, freezing-cold, from the cooler it had an unfamiliar
fruity flavor. Being completely unfamiliar with fuggles at the time, I
suspected the picture on the bottle was of a Maine blueberry bush
without blueberries. The single-hopped brew at a mere 50 IBUs made me
cringe! I’ve since had barley wines weighing over 100 IBUs. But yet I
was certain that somewhere in the brewing process blueberries were
added. As it got warmer, the fruitiness dissipated. The beer tasted
more bitter and fuller.

This fuggle-only beer initially demanded attention. Throughout the
course of the evening the beer got out of the way and discussions took
over. Discussions of politics and great grand-cousins; booze smugglers
of some local acclaim.