Friday, June 8, 2012

Defining a Session

A couple of Fridays ago I posted about what I consider to be the upper limit of hop bitterness when it comes to session beer, which I put at about 40 IBU. That post generated quite a bit of discussion and prompted further questions about the nature of session beers, it also floated the question about what actually constitutes a session itself.

Lew Bryson, in his definition of a session beer, says that they are the kind of beer which you want to drink multiple pints of. To gauge opinion about how many pints would be required for a trip to the pub to become a session, I posted the poll over on the side of this blog.

Clearly the majority of Fuggled readers believe a session to be a minimum of 3 imperial pints, the equivalent of nearly 4 US pints, by a ratio of exactly 3:1. Personally I think a session is a minimum of 6 imperial pints, or 7.5 US pints, mainly because taking an abv of less than 4.5% as the norm for a session beer, 3 pints would be lunch. Well, it would have been back in the Czech Republic, and admittedly it would have been half litres rather than the extra 68ml to get to a full pint.


I realise that the poll only had three options and perhaps fails to reflect the nuances of opinion out there as to how to define a session. So imagine, if you will, you are sat in a pub, drinking a 3.8% bitter, or whatever or sub 4.5% tipple of choice would be, how many pints will you drink before you settle in for a proper session?

3 comments:

  1. Five pints is what I'd go for. No reason why.

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  2. Good post. I think the voters are about right, though. Three pints is the minimum for the start of a session. Two (or so) is what you are allowed if driving and three is the most you'd have at lunchtime, if working.

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  3. Five, unless the session starts at noon and at multiple locations and then it would be eight minimum.

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