Of course not, but here’s one anyway: this Monday, April 7, is Session Beer Day. Founded by beer and whiskey writer Lew Bryson of The Session Beer Project, it is as simple as it sounds—a day dedicated to enjoying session beers.
Session beer is essentially low-alcohol, flavorful, balanced beer. It’d be easy to write a few hundred words and another blog post about the contentious ABV cutoff limit for session beers (the Brewers Association style guidelines call it as less than 5.1% ABV, others accept nothing over 4.0%), but the Session Beer Project’s 4.5% ABV or below cutoff is a good in-between.
I started searching for session beer inspiration by perusing draft lists of bars with a consistent, interesting selection of lower-alcohol beers. At Boston’s Deep Ellum, for example, an impressive six out of twenty-four beers on their current draft menu are under 4.5% ABV; ten are under 5.0% ABV. What makes their list stand out, however, is the variety of local and imported lower-alcohol offerings, such as the Guineu Riner, a 2.5% hoppy, unfiltered pale ale from Spain’s Brewery Ca l’Arenys, served in a .4L mug; or session beer company Notch Brewing’s Černe Pivo, a 4.1% ABV Czech-style black lager that comes in an imperial pint.