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Douglas W Hoyt wrote:

I feel sorry for anybody who sits down for the night with one particular
beer at one of these "sessions" I keep hearing about.

Well, if you're talking about feeling sorry for someone who drinks the
same beer all night, yeah, I feel that way, too.

You're both idjits.

Seriously, what's wrong with drinking one beer in a given evening? If you
were talking about drinking only one beer, period, you'd have a point.

But I challenge you to go to someplace like Zum Uerige and drink the altbier
all night and walk away disappointed with your lack of variety. Or spend a
evening drinking nothing but fresh casked Fuller's ESB or nothing but
Augustiner's Edelstoff.

I'm a big fan of variety.

I'm also a big fan of quality. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with
sticking with an enjoyable beer for an evening. In fact, I admire the hell
out of a brewery that produces a beer that I want to drink over and over
again. Some of my favorite places in the world serve just the one beer, and
I've been far from disappointed with sticking with their single offering for
the night.

Lew Bryson adds some interesting other criteria in his recent blog
entry, which I think are important to a session beer-

"1. Alcohol under 5.5%.
2. Flavor in balance.
3. The beer doesn't overpower the conversation.
4. Reasonably priced "

I'd agree with three of Lew's four. His abv is still too strong (although I
realize he's adapted to an American audience).

One of my pet peeves is, even as the new Prohibitionists have grow in
strength in the US, both the alcohol level of many beers and serving sizes
have grown as well.

I agree on the former. I'm heading off the UK in a week, and I can't tell
you how much I'm looking forward to drinking some amazingly flavorful beers
that clock in at 3-3.5 percent abv. To me, the brewer who can make
outstanding beer that's small is loads more impressive than so many
"bigger-is-better" American breweries. It's why I yawn at the likes of Stone
(also because while I like hop monsters, I find flavorful balanced beers to
be a far stronger test of the brewer's art).

(I really should stop picking on Stone. While the AB is a ****ing mess of a
beer, they brew some outstanding ones, and they found a niche. There are
plenty of other breweries that go big that aren't anywhere near as good.
Say, Rogue or Lagunitas.)

Where once the common serving size in most bars was
a "glass" (6-8 oz. sham pilsner was common in my part of the country) or
a "mug" (10-12 oz), now the "shaker not-quite-a-pint" is standard but
some joints will offer a "large" 22 oz. weisse beer glass, as well. (I
suspect those larger sizes are more for the convenience of the bar,
tho').

Maybe. But I think the larger sizes are better - if balanced out with a beer
that's not too strong. The English serve their beers in imperial pints, the
Germans and Czechs serve most of theirs by the half-liter. I think those are
good sizes.

If I do go into a bar with a good draft selection, I'd much
rather drink several small glasses of a variety of beers.

Depends on my mood. To be honest, it's rare I'm in checklist mode anymore. I
may wander a bit, but I'd rather find a good beer I'm happy with and enjoy
it for the evening. Then again, maybe my perception was warped by living in
Munich and having been to so many of the world's great brewing centers.

In the UK, even tho' we were told that "half pints" are for women, we'd
drink them in free houses and came to notice that the fellows with the
more manly imperial pints were still working on the same one while we
were finishing up our third or fourth "half".

That's not a bad thing. It's not a race.

-Steve