The Session Phenomenon

It was just one week ago, as the Beer Goddess and I were sharing an LTD 03 at the Brewers Games, that I first heard about Session Black. In the span of that time, everyone's heard about it: Full Sail had separate launch parties in Hood River and Portland, and there's yet another release cum meet-the-brewers at Saraveza next Thursday. And today John Foyston has an in-depth article in the Oregonian's Business section. It's a hell of a lot of heat and noise for what we must admit is surely a modest product.

And so here's the question--is it too much noise?

A Brilliant Idea
Releasing Session was a big gamble for Full Sail. So far as I know, no other craft brewery had or has attempted anything like it. The idea was born in 2004, during that period following the 90s shake-out when it appeared that the hearts of the next generation might be lost to PBR. On one side were craft beers and on the other industrial lagers, and the twain never met. What divides them seem as much to do with brand identity and customer loyalty as flavor--if you like a nice IPA and don't mind being seen by your brother-in-law throwing one back at the barbecue, Bud Lite is almost certainly dead to you. But if that fancy bottle and that thick goop inside seem like an unnecessary yuppie affectation--and a damned expensive one at that--you probably aren't about to give up your cooler full of cans.

Full Sail's brilliant stroke was to have a closer look at that macro market and see that it wasn't monolithic. There was the PBR phenomenon. The brand had managed to appeal to younger drinkers not because of its product (obviously!), but because of its downscale authenticity. (Support of indie music helped.) This was the amazing thing. Watch a tattooed 20-something walk up to a beer cooler, and there was a 90% chance he walked away with a half-rack of Pabst.

What Full Sail took away from their study was this: younger drinkers were drawn to Pabst out of a kind of nostalgia for local, regional breweries that had mostly been killed off before they were born. They didn't want micros, which lacked the working-class authenticity of tin-can beer, but neither did they want faceless corporate brands like Bud and Coors. Full Sail created Session to hit all the same notes. Even more, they knew it couldn't be called Full Sail. Foyston quotes Founder Irene Firmat:

"That's the way we planned it because we were trying to break out of the boundaries of being a craft beer. If we'd put out Session Lager in traditional packaging and with the Full Sail logo, we would've had a much harder time drawing in new customers who might find craft beers too big and challenging."

Session is available only in bottles and only in 12-packs -- no kegs, quarts, or six-packs. "We're sticking to that," says Full Sail brewmaster John Harris. "If we put out Session in longnecks or had it available on tap, we'd be just another me-too beer. This way, it stands out."

So now Full Sail has the best of both worlds--a beer to compete with PBR, and the impeccable reputation of one of the most storied founding American craft breweries. Here's where I get a little worried, though--is it possible to keep the wall up between the two?

One Brewery, Two Identities
American craft brewing is relatively young. It has evolved in just 25 years from tiny breweries making niche beers to substantial breweries making beers with large audiences. Imagine a line graph in your mind, with barrels on the left side--as that line keeps going up and up, eventually the sheer barrelage will dictate that breweries make more and more mass-market beers. We don't know what that means. Will more and more people buy IPAs, or will breweries begin offering beer that attracts Bud drinkers? Beer geeks tend to think of a future where craft breweries change the beer market, but what if the beer market changes craft breweries? Full Sail is a test case.

The good news is that Session is a good beer, and it looks like Session Black will be, too:

A Budvar schwarzbier (black beer) sipped on a recent trip to Vienna was the inspiration for Session Black, says Jamie Emmerson, Full Sail's executive brewmaster.... The result is a beer that looks black indeed, but is far removed from the thick, malty, roasty beer that lager drinkers fear. "We worked hard to make it a super-drinkable, balanced beer," Firmat says

The worrisome news? Session now accounts for a third of Full Sail's 90,000 barrel production. If we squint and look forward ten years, what proportion will it be? Twenty? Will the "Full Sail line" be a marginal, neglected sideline for a big, regional brewery? Could happen.

Maybe that's not so bad. So long as I can still get a sixer of Full Sail Pale, what do I care how much Session Full Sail sells? In fact, using my future-seeing squint, I can even imagine a day in which Session makes the Pale possible. Things change, and that's not always terrible. Still, worth watching this whole phenomenon to see how it plays out.

[Update. Okay, I'm sitting in the Pilsner Room with a bottle of Black (it's not on the menu). A very nice beer. This is going to please beer geeks even more than regular Session. A fine Schwarzbier, with a sweet, roasty palate. A year-round beer, it will do very nicely for those January Blazers games.]

[Later Update. There has been some confusion about Full Sail's annual sales. I just got an email from Jamie Emmerson. The 90,000 barrels are all Full Sail brands. They do an additional 50,000 of Henry's. All FS brands are up according to Jamie. Also, the Czech style that inspired Session is called--sorry, no proper diacritics--"Tmave." "Not as malty as Munich Dunkles, but not as roasty as Schwarzbier."]



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PHOTO: Abby Metty, The Oregonian (source)

Schwag and the Rise of the Micro Macros

At my Bailey's stop, I eschewed all the beers I would normally try--hoppy, rare, exotic, etc.--for Ninkasi Schwag, the latest experiment in a craft-brewed light lager. It follows the now roaringly-successful Full Sail Session and a spate of summertime brewpub offerings; it's not exactly Busch Lite, but at 10 IBUs, it ain't exactly Total Domination, either.

A number of questions arise: why are breweries bothering?; who's drinking this stuff?; is it any good?; does this signal the end of civilization? All worthy of response, and I shall come to them in due time. But first, let's review why these damnable beers exist in the first place.

The narrative, bits of which are probably apocryphal, goes like this: in the early 1900s, beer was good. Brewing was a regional craft, and the diversity of styles and quality mirrored that of Europe. In 1910, there were 1,568 breweries in the US. Then came prohibition, which landed a sucker-punch to the industry's breadbasket. When brewing was back again in 1934, only 756 breweries remained. Thus did consolidation and the loss of styles really begin to change American beer.

With canning (1935), refrigerated trucking, the loss of male drinkers (1941-'45), and the industrialization of brewing, beer became a commodity, not a craft. Consolidation followed precipitously: in 1950 there were just 407 breweries; in 1961, just 230 (140 independent). By the end of the 70s, there were 51 companies operating 80 breweries. Throughout this entire period, the number of styles decreased, and the remaining dominant style became weaker and less flavorful. There is now so little hop bitterness in a can of Bud that it is imperceptable.

But joy--the market works! Into this void stepped people of vision who foresaw a world of flavorful beer. You know the rest of the story--the craft beer revolution has produced a rennassiance in brewing and resulted in a number of breweries rivaling pre-prohibition numbers (1400, giver or take).

Which brings us back to the question: why on earth are breweries backsliding into this tasteless muck? Well, turns out a lot of people enjoy a mild, fizzy beer from time to time. Some of them like decent beer but don't like ales and find most micros too strong; some of them recall their misspent youths--shotgunning Hamm's, say, not that I'd know anything about that--and have a nostalgic feeling for the flavor of liquid tin. Not to mention the cultural resonance of some of the old advertising. And some, while they dislike Bud, don't like ponying up $5 a pint or $14 a half-rack. So there's a funky niche market there.

While I think Full Sail probably ran the numbers and saw some profit in Session, I think a lot of brewers like retro, and the idea of brewing a light lager is a challenge. So few ingredients--is it possible to make something that's actually tasty? I actually think it's less the end of civilization than evidence of the diversity of beer in Oregon. So robust is the market that there's room for even a light lager. I would place long odds on this becoming a trend among micros.

And that leads us inevitably to this: is it any good? Well. One hesitates at such a question, and a certain appreciation for Bill Clinton dawns as the thought arises, "what's 'good' mean?" Schwag is what it is: a light lager with 10 IBUs. Brewer Jamie Floyd employs the same strategy Jamie Emmerson did at Full Sail--squeeze some aroma and flavor out of your hops without boosting the bitterness. The malt bill is all-barley, evident in the richly golden color, and it has a semi-sweet, biscuit quality. The hops are fruity if somewhat indistinct (being so few). My pint wasn't quite as effervescent as I would have liked, but that's a quibble. It was a well-made beer with a little less character than Session but far more character than anything you'll find in a macro. I appreciate it far more than I actually enjoy it. And I will never, ever have another pint when confronted with the bounty of Bailey's.