A topic that has been coming up lately at Cask Socials is the concept of session beers: lower alcohol but fully flavoured (which is to say not light/lite) brews.
I think my first exposure to this line of thinking came at my wife's uncle's place. He had brought back a tin of beer from England for me that read "Strong Ale". My first sip prompted the sort of reaction where you nod your head and give your fist a bit of pump: very flavourful. Then I read that it was 3.2% alcohol.
I suppose this is the opposite of those high school kids who seek out today's equivalent to our Brador because it is 5.5%.
I can imagine how a pub-keeper would want to have customers spending more time, drinking more beers, without having things get out of hand. Customers are hard to come by, let's have them stay a while.
From the opposite side, I hate to imagine someone trying the latest IPA at 9% and treating it like an every day beer, not knowing its strength, so I suppose there is the element of being able to make an informed decision built into it.
My feeling is it will be craft beers that break the ground here. If anything the big breweries are going in the opposite direction. I recently spotted a 6% "light" beer (!).
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