About: Session ales are attracting an increasing amount of attention lately in craft beer circles. For years it was the big and bold beers that caught the eye of craft beer enthusiasts, brews that were intense in both their flavor and alcohol content. While everyone still loves those bold beers as much as they always have, beer lovers and brewers alike are beginning to investigate what possibilities there are at the opposite end of the spectrum.

This means beers that are low in alcohol and more balanced in their flavor, brews that are more laid back, rather than in your face. Although there is a rich history of brewing beers in this style, it is only in recent years that major American craft brewers have begun putting out beers that meet this criteria. One of the first was Anchor Small Beer, which debuted in 1997 and is brewed in the partigyle tradition.

As we discussed in our article on how beer is made, one of the key steps in the brewing process is steeping grains such as barley in a hot water mash to extract the sugar contained within them. These sugars are later used as food by yeast, producing alcohol, CO2 and creating beer. Partigyle brewing is when a second running of hot water is passed through the mash, resulting in a different set of sugars and as a result, a different beer from the very same ingredients.

In A Nut Shell: Anchor Small Beer is worth a try as an example of partigyle, but it leaves much to be desired

Review: Anchor is a partigyle brew made from the same grains that are used to create Anchor Old Foghorn Barley Wine, which is a massively sweet and hoppy brew that weighs in at 9% ABV. In contrast, Small Beer is just 3.3% ABV and in stead of a huge malt and hop flavor it has a lightly toasted flavor, which reminds me more of a pale ale than a barley wine. However unlike most pale ales the hop profile is almost non-existent, leaving the grains to do much of the heavily lifting. The result is a bit uneven and frankly unremarkable. While I hardly noticed that the beer has such a small alcohol content, in the end Anchor Small Beer is worth trying only  for it’s unusual brewing method.

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Many of you may be wondering what exactly is “craft beer” and how  it differs from regular beer. For a better understanding of this sometimes loose term let’s turn to the Brewers Association website, which states:

An American craft brewer is small, independent, and traditional.

Small: Annual production of beer less than 2 million barrels. Beer production is attributed to a brewer according to the rules of alternating proprietorships. Flavored malt beverages are not considered beer for purposes of this definition.

Independent: Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.

Traditional: A brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of it’s volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.

This all boils down to beer that’s made by people who take a hands-on approach to brewing that emphasizes quality over cost. The first American craft brewery as we know it was Anchor Brewing Company, makers of San Francisco’s famous Anchor Steam, who under new management in the early 1970s changed their recipe to only include hops, barley, yeast and water. With this change they became one of the first breweries in Post-Prohibition America to make beer free of additives and adjuncts and since then craft beer has grown to include over 1500 American craft brewers.

Team Beeriety is looking forward to sampling just a fraction of the amazing craft beer the US produces. We’ll be twittering live from the event (#ACBF hashtag) and letting you know what we’re drinking with the Beeriety #mybeer hashtag!