The return of beers that won’t knock you out

Each week in this space, we better our beverages together.

After several years of having to endure brutish brews with amped-up alcohol and stupid names like Skull-Crusher and Bits-Basher and Coors Altitude, I am elated to see beer industry players (big and small) ever-so-gently swing the pendulum back toward lightness. It’s true that lighter beer is often less flavourful, but the exceptions are so numerous that there’s really no need to suffer all those trendy 8 per cent sledgehammers on occasions when you would rather get through mowing the lawn or a visit to the pub without some kind of alcohol-related catastrophe.

In big brewer news, Miller Lite — SAB Miller owns a lock on that misspelled spelling, by the way — has returned to Canada this summer after an absence of several years, looking for a piece of the light/lite action. It has descended like a fine mist upon all provinces but Quebec. They must think there’s a future in light beer in Canada.

The craft beer movement is trying to popularize its own preferred euphemisms for low alcohol — namely, the terms “session” or “sessionable.” The trouble is that no one has defined what a session beer is, beyond the notion that you’re supposed to be able to survive a “session” out with your friends and not make an ass of yourself. Some brewers are slapping the session label on 5 per cent beers, and that’s too high. I would say 4.5 per cent is even pushing it. Joe Stange of Draft magazine got a bit miffed and argued, using some math, that there’s a big difference in how your body processes a 4 per cent alcohol beer and a 5 per cent. Breweries that nudge the definition of “session” to include 5 per cent beers have “abused the term,” he argues. I agree. I’m a lot happier to see numbers all the way down to 2.3 per cent, which is what Toronto’s Bellwoods Brewery has done with its beer called Stay Classy.

My perfect session beer is always an ale, because I feel lagers tend to require some alcohol for backbone and substance. A session ale is malty and bitter, but not so assertive that you get sick of it. It’s a beer, in short, that doesn’t get in the way. Britain is the country that invented the session, and it does seem as though British-influenced Ontario is leading the way on session beers in Canada. Some nice examples: Muskoka Detour, which is sweetish and herbally fresh at 4.3 per cent alcohol. Great Lakes Pompous Ass English Pale Ale (4.2 per cent) is more aggressively aromatic and pleasantly leafy and grapefruity. The Witty Traveller from Railway City (4.2 per cent) is a Belgianstyle white, or “witbier” (get it? “Witty?”). It smells like pepper and orange juice and yeast. Failing those, I like to supply the fridge with a can or 12 of Wellington County Arkell Best Bitter (4 per cent), which you can slurp on semi-distractedly while finally tackling that summer reading list. The season is short. It’s best to crack one that lets you keep on enjoying these vanishing warm nights.