Favorite low-calorie or low ABV beer styles?

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z-bob

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I like double-this and imperial-that as much as anybody, but I need to cut down a little. But I don't want something resembling watered-down "Coors Light". What are some good beer styles to brew to help maintain my girlish figure (actually I'm turning into a fat slob), or be able to drink 3 or 4 in an evening and still be able to walk?

Maybe an English Mild? or a Scottish 70p? Trappist Singel? Or just an nondescript all-malt low gravity American pale ale?

What beers do you keep on hand that are under 4%? Thanks.
 
I call it my Utah Pale Ale. It's like my normal pale, just 7 lbs. of 2-row instead of the usual 12. Comes in at just about 3.3%. It's a great summer sipper.
 
second dark enlgish mild. I made one of those, really good. Dont know what to compare it to since I cant find any commercial examples

That, or a grisette ( @iijakii throws up)
 
I'm on the Dark English Mild bandwagon. I first had one from a local brewery that specializes in traditional English style beers, and ever since that has been my session beer of choice.
 
BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde Ale is around 4%.

I'll second this, its a tasty beer for sure! To date it has been my fastest-to-disappear batch. I brewed my second batch of it last weekend!
 
Pale and hoppy for me please :)
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I've got a Belgian/Trappist 2.3% blonde on tap I'm in love with.

3# Pilsner
1# carapils
1# victory
10 oz toasted rolled oats
8 oz crystal 60
6 oz amber

WLP575 Belgian Yeast Blend - I'd prefer 530 but this is what the store had and it worked nice here but made an even better Dubbel.

Bitter with a non-assertive english/french/german hop to 14 ibus OR do as I did and hit it with 1 oz Calypso high alpha hop at 6 minutes. Calypso plays VERY well with belgian yeast character.

1.029 OG
1.012 FG
7 srm
14 IBU
2.3% abv

The mouthfeel is sublime, it's got belgian notes but not overly powerful. Crystal clear with a nice compact white head and I can drink pint after pint to no ill effect!
 
I keep messing around with Milds, need to take a tried-and-true and run that (all of the others have been drinkable, just not quite the right balance). Love having a working beer on tap.
 
I love session beers in all their forms.

I'm a huge fan of the English Mild (pretty sure I was on that bandwagon before there was a bandwagon). Dark Mild is better than Pale Mild in most circumstances, but both have their place. Pale Milds make great yeast prop beers (think 5 gallons of drinkable "starter" for other beers) as they're low gravity, low color, and low hop making repitching a dream.

A good Bitter is another option.

Scottish Ales.

Berliner Weisse, Gose, or Lichtenhainer.

Petite Saison.

Tafelbier/Patersbier/Singel, although Singels seem to be more "standard ale" strength than a true session beer, in other words sessionable by *Belgian* beer standards ;). Tafelbiers can go all the way down to (by typical US standards) qualifying as non-alcoholic (ie <0.5%).

Or of course you can turn just about any normal beer into a session beer (unless the beer in question is strength dependent)
 
I've got a Belgian/Trappist 2.3% blonde on tap I'm in love with.

3# Pilsner
1# carapils
1# victory
10 oz toasted rolled oats
8 oz crystal 60
6 oz amber

WLP575 Belgian Yeast Blend - I'd prefer 530 but this is what the store had and it worked nice here but made an even better Dubbel.

Bitter with a non-assertive english/french/german hop to 14 ibus OR do as I did and hit it with 1 oz Calypso high alpha hop at 6 minutes. Calypso plays VERY well with belgian yeast character.

1.029 OG
1.012 FG
7 srm
14 IBU
2.3% abv

The mouthfeel is sublime, it's got belgian notes but not overly powerful. Crystal clear with a nice compact white head and I can drink pint after pint to no ill effect!

This recipe seems interesting. I brew smaller batches and when I divide your recipe in half for a 2.5 gallon batch Brewer's Friend says the SRM is 9. If I use Crystal 10 instead of Crystal 60 it has an SRM of 7. Also what temperature are you mashing at to get a final gravity of 1.012 from a Belgian Yeast. What was your pitching rate? How long did you boil since you are adding the Calypso hops at 6 minutes. If DMS is not a concern wondering if you can do a 20 minute boil just to sanitize. Thinking 45 minute mash, 20 minute boil to make a quick brew day.
 
This recipe seems interesting. I brew smaller batches and when I divide your recipe in half for a 2.5 gallon batch Brewer's Friend says the SRM is 9. If I use Crystal 10 instead of Crystal 60 it has an SRM of 7. Also what temperature are you mashing at to get a final gravity of 1.012 from a Belgian Yeast. What was your pitching rate? How long did you boil since you are adding the Calypso hops at 6 minutes. If DMS is not a concern wondering if you can do a 20 minute boil just to sanitize. Thinking 45 minute mash, 20 minute boil to make a quick brew day.

As for the color I use brewtoad.com's online recipator and it gives me 7 srm, not sure what to say except it definitely looks like 6-7 srm rather than 9. Direct quote from my brew notes concerning mash temps, 'Mash for 14 minutes @ 151.5 Mash for 35 minutes @ 157.5 Mash for 11 minutes @ 166.0 Mast for 15 minutes @ 170.0'. Here is a link to the recipe and don't forget to check out the 'brew log' tab on the left for further notes: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/session-belgian-blonde-c8fd2e/brew-logs

Keep in mind this was my 2nd or so attempt at water adjustments which I screwed up. Between that and the funky grainbill of having so much non-base malt my efficiency was down. The key for keeping the finishing gravity up and the rather fat mouthfeel for such a tiny brew is the inclusion of all those specialty malts and the funky mash schedule with high temp. Honestly one attempt at 155-156 would probably do the same thing.

Pitch rate was 1 vial in a 2L 1.040 starter, pretty healthy pitch for such a small beer and it shows in the beer showing more phenolic and less fruity character. Additionally it was fermented almost entirely at 66 degrees or so early then raised temps late after fermentation was almost over.

Here is a secret, the last time I made this I used 2 row ... shh. Thus it was a 40 min boil.

A 45 min mash might be hard to pull off. Though I actually calculated my degrees Lintner to confirm mash-enzyme viability which it passed easily, it is a very low % of base to spec. malts at 45% base malt to 55% spec. malt ratio. Between this ratio and the slightly off water chemistry my efficiency was low and I would have needed 90 mins to fully hit my target OG.
 
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