There are many better beer blogs out there. Lew Bryson has one of them that I discovered today while cruising the nearest thing the NYTimes has to a beer blog. Bryson's is better than the times, and I especially like his session beer discussions.

He defended session beer against the claim that they're the least common demominator is a recent article--he's dead right in a really outstanding bit of blogging there.

I'm going to throw in my two cents on this subject with a rather different analogy than the one he uses, an analogy which is meant to shed light on why a joys is session beer are a mark of true beer aficionado, in a way that I think extreme beer just isn't. It goes like this: what some people like about baseball is to watch slugger crush a ball 495 feet long past the centerfield wall. Some people love to watch a pitcher throw seven without letting a man on base. And if you're watching the game, no one misses that no-doubter as flies from the field of play. But it takes an awareness to relish the perfect innings, because no single pitch will draw your attention the event of which they are a part--a near perfect game. To see that requires an attention to whole, an awareness of the how all the parts compose it, that is an activity of the spectator impossible in passivity.

Thus is session beer. Unlike much extreme beer, it requires the attention of the drinker, beutdoes not demand it. The joys in session beer require awareness on the part of the drinker which cannot be achieved in passivity. And, like appreciating a perfect seven innings of baseball, it also requires the cultivation of appreciation.

A recent pale ale that I made was a sort of hybrid of american and british pale ale, and I think it illustrated the beauty of session beer well. I finished the beer with kent goldings hops and fermented it with white labs pacific ale yeast, which is more of an english-type ale yeast than an american one. The grain bill was maris otter with a blend of two light-side crystal malts an just a bit of wheat malt, the O.G. was about 11.5 plato. I bittered it with chinook hops, which is most of where the hybridness comes in, though I mashed for high attenuation and kept it more carbonated than a british ale would ordinarily be.

That beer was outstanding. Like an opitcal illusion in which is which you can see either a vase or two silhouettes simply by directing your attention to one aspect or the other, you could change this beer simiply by directing your attention to it's bitterness, or it's malt, or it's hops. But unlike the illusion (where you can perceive just one, even though you know the other is there) you could never completely loose the rest of the beer in the aspect to which you'd directed your attention. (And the coupling of a sublte dose of piney chinook hops with an otherwise rather british beer is splendid.)

Having praised session beer and it's merits, let me, with Bryson, say that I have nothing against extreme beers. But let me, with Bryson, register my complaint against extreme beers that are boring, that demand and restrict my attention to their bigness--an artless gnashing of heavy metal guitar with the amp cranked to eleven. The experience is boring, and often even pleasant. I'm stealing the spinal tap metaphor from Bryson. The best big beers, like the best session beers, deliver their drinker an experience which is not demanded but permitted; they open a teritory of the brewer's art, but leave the drinker to experience, explore and discover. And of course, when done right, what one discovers is great.