Here Ye! Here Ye! The Pub is in Session.

The term “session beer” gets used quite a bit these days, but what exactly does it mean? Its wide use has taken away any truly fixed definition. Basically, a session beer is a beer low enough in alcohol to be consumed in quantity over a long drinking session.
 
The English consistently use the term to refer to beers almost exclusively below 4% ABV. This covers a great many British milds and even bitters. American craft beers tend to be higher gravity, but a relatively recent move toward session beers has been a great boon to those who like to drink a few pints with friends at the pub, rather than going out to get drunk. Even so, plenty of American beers that are closer to 5% are generally regarded as session beers.
 
Martyn Cornell, noted English beer historian, gets to the heart of the matter:
 
A good, quaffable session beer should have enough interest for drinkers to want another, but not so much going on that they are distracted from the primary purpose of a session, which is the enjoyment of good company in convivial surroundings. Like the chamber music that Mozart and Hayden wrote for their patrons’ soirees and divertimenti, a good session beer is a backgrounder to human interaction, capable of being appreciated as a work of art if you pause from the conversation and consider it, but good-mannered enough not to intrude unless asked.
 
This is a very apt description of how civil drinkers enjoy their pints at our establishment.
 
Here’s how Beer Advocate defines session beer:
 
Any beer that contains no higher than 5 percent ABV, featuring a balance between malt and hop characters (ingredients) and, typically, a clean finish—a combination of which creates a beer with high drinkability.
 
So the higher limit on alcohol fits the American palate a little better, but notice the emphasis on balance. Again, this is what we always strive for, the judicious use of hops and the celebration of the richness of high-quality malt, a richness that should never come off as cloying.
 
Since the day we opened, the Civil Life has excelled at brewing flavorful session beers. Old-timers recall, the day we opened our pub, we had four beers on tap: American Brown Ale (4.8%), British Bitter (4.2%), British Best (4%), and German Wheat (just around the upper limit of 5%).
 
We have also brewed a mild ale and a Belgian table beer that registered under 4%. And when it came time to brew some higher gravity beers, our Big Beer Series kept it civil at a modest 6.5%. But no matter the alcohol content, we have always brewed flavorful, enjoyable beers.
 
The big domestics have made “drinkable” synonymous with bland. Let’s take back these terms and celebrate them for their centrality to beer and pub culture. Spending an evening at the pub with friends is a supremely civil activity. Like our fellow drinkers in England and Germany, we know beer is not just a drink, it’s a celebration of our shared humanity.
 
What does session beer mean to us? As we like to say, Drink Civil … Be Civil. Thanks for sharing our philosophy, and thanks for supporting our constant task of keeping pints filled with balanced, flavorful, drinkable beers. Cheers!