Session Ales & Lagers - Post them up!

[Weezy]

I wanted to start a thread on sharing the joy of small beers. Shoreman has a good thread going which started as super small Sub 1.030 beers but evolved into session beers. LOTS of good stuff in there. But I think the title scares people away.

I'm brewing more and more session beers. I get out to bars and breweries pretty often and I've noticed that commercial stuff is seeing a real abv creep. 8% pale ales, in between the imperial peanut butter Bourbon barrel stouts, etc... Which is fine and I enjoy the heck out of them, but it leads me to not want to brew like that at home very often. Where's the delicate, flavorful, small beer love!?!?

"I'll do it myself!"


Anyway, It'd be cool if my fellow homebrewtalk members would share their session beer experiences and recipes.

I'll lead of with a personal favorite that I typically brew twice a year. Which is based on Blueflint's Pappy's dark cream ale recipe (from the sub 1.030 thread!).

3 gallon recipe

OG 1.047, FG 1.012, ABV 4.6%

4# 2-row pale malt
1# flaked corn
1 oz. Chocolate malt
1 oz. C90

1/2 oz. German Tradition @60 minutes (23-25 IBUs)

Mash @ 150°F

US-05 @ 63°F

Post up yours! I'm always looking for new session beers to brew.

 

[brewbama]

I have a session wheat I brew this time of year. I have a batch conditioning now. Really easy recipe:

50% Pils
50% Wheat
Mash 152*F

90 min boil with ~ 15 IBU(s) of hallertau added at 60 min.

Use your favorite wheat beer yeast.

 

[Weezy]

Session Vienna Lager

This was an excuse to try mangrove jack Cal Lager yeast.

3 gallon batch

OG 1.045

2.75# Vienna
2# Munich
1/4# carafoam
2 oz melanoidin

1/2 oz Sylva@60
1/2 oz Sylva@15
1 oz Sylva sub-175°F hopstand

Mash 150

MJ Cal Lager @ 64°F for one week, ramp to 67°F during second week.

It was pretty sharp when young but after two weeks in the keg, I chugged the stuff. I froze the yeast cake and will definitely brew again. I really enjoyed it.

 

[Weezy]

I posted a recipe for my Colonial Porter in the recipe section:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=8108042#post8108042

 

[jbsg02]

I would think to mash higher than 150 if you're wanting a session beer, unless you want it to finish really dry

 

[Weezy]

Depends on the yeast. With S-23 and 30% corn it has plenty of body.