On Session Beers

The Kernel's Table Beer

For a long time I favoured beers with an ABV of between 6 and 8%. Beers of all strengths have their place, but there's something I've been looking for more and more recently, which is  highly flavoursome beers on the lower end of the spectrum.

There are a number of great session beers available, but what I'm talking about are brews that are high impact, well balanced and sub 4% in strength. To my mind, there are two beers beers that have absolutely nailed this, Brewdog's Dead Pony Club and The Kernel's Table Beer.

The Kernel's offering is one of the beers I keep going back to at the moment. It's a light, fresh and fruity 3.2% ABV pale golden ale that retains character and balance without a big hit of alcohol. It's perfect as a first drink of the night or as an accompaniment to a wide range of food, or if you just fancy something tasty without too much booze in it.

Dead Pony Club, is a California pale ale hopped with simcoe, citra and HBC hops, that has an ABV of just 3.8%. It's lively, citric and fruity on the palate and much like the Table Beer, has a decent balance despite its low alcohol content.

Brewdog's Dead Pony Club

Both these beers will of course be very familiar to a lot of people, but the question you have to ask is why there aren't more sub 4% beers being made by craft breweries? The simple answer is that it's pretty hard to get right. Dead Pony Club and the Table Beer both have real body and mouthfeel, much beyond many lower strength brews.

It's worth mentioning here that Redemption make Trinity, which is also a great lower strength beer with real character, but there aren't many others. It would be brilliant to see a few more emerge in 2013.

There are quite a few best bitters which come in below 4%, but personally although I do like bitters from time to time, they're far from my favourite style of beer. They also usually lack the complexity of flavour that you get with beers such as those mentioned above.

Does anyone else know of any superb session beers that are below 4% ABV? Or do you know of a great little brewery that has one on the way? This year, I want to search out more brilliant session beers to have alongside my favourite stronger brews.