Bryson recognizes a similar evolution of the craft beer industry, and those who drink craft beer. He credits extreme beers as helping to draw interest to all craft beers—and he now considers the increasing allure of low-alcohol beers to be a sure sign of beer-drinker maturation. He says more and more beers of 4 percent ABV and lower are appearing.
Which could have something to do with money—at least in England, where lawmakers recently enacted a tax break that gives brewers a 50-pence (about a buck) savings per pint of beer containing 2.8 percent ABV or less. The same set of new rules, which took effect last October, meanwhile hiked the tax on beers containing 7.5 percent ABV.
Lohring at Notch Brewing won’t get a tax break, but he has released a 2.8 percent Tafelbier—and at Craft Beer Cellar, it’s selling about as well as any big beer ever has. Schalow, the store’s co-owner, says she is now certain that the session beer craze is not just a trend or a fad, but a legitimate movement, maturing as consumers develop a genuine taste for more subtle beer styles.
“It’s a thing now,” she says. “It’s not just a trend. It’s a fact. People want these beers. People now come into my shop, and they know what they’re looking for. They go straight to the shelf, grab a four-pack of Notch Tafelbier, and say, ‘Great, it’s finally here.’”
And the excitement over beers containing 10, 11, and 12 percent alcohol?
“It’s tapered off,” Schalow says.
It’s All About Conversation
One of the first unofficial rules about session beers is that we aren’t to be talking about session beers—at least not while drinking them. Yet a conversation is happening. A Facebook event held on April 7 billed itself “Session Beer Day” and invited hundreds of beer fans to open their favorite session beers and post public messages extolling the pleasures of less alcohol and great flavor. And a July 15, 2012, Google search of “session beer” turned up 67.2 million results in 0.18 seconds, while the search engine found just 30.7 million results in 0.33 seconds for “extreme beer.”
But nobody seems certain that session beers really are increasing in number or volume. Several writers—including a regular contributor to All About Beer Magazine, Ken Weaver, have analyzed RateBeer.com’s ratings data and calculated that session beer production may actually be decreasing and that the average ABV of American beers is holding steady at 6-7 percent ABV.
“We don’t see a decline in alcohol levels,” Tucker confirms. “ABV seems to be rising—maybe peaking, but it’s not going down.”
