From Shanken News Daily:
Tenth & Blake, the MillerCoors craft beer unit, has begun testing Blue Moon Vintage Blonde Ale, a wheat beer produced with Chardonnay grape juice, in five markets. Tenth & Blake president Tom Cardella told Shanken News Daily that Vintage Blonde, which is packaged in 750-ml. bottles, is expected to be one in a “specialty series of higher-alcohol beers” marketed under the Blue Moon banner. Cardella added that Blue Moon Grand Cru, a limited-edition small-batch beer first launched in 2009 and retailing at around $10 to $11 a 750-ml. bottle, has received favorable consumer response. Tenth & Blake describes Vintage Blonde — which is being tested now through mid-September in Seattle, Colorado Springs, Chicago, Rochester and northern New Jersey — as “sessionable,” meaning that its profile is well-suited for several servings in a single occasion. The product is being sold in a limited number of grocery stores, liquor stores and about 20 on-premise accounts.
The label at beernews.org indicates the beers is 8.5% abv. Guess that is “sessionable” when you are a Chardonnay drinker, but not according to the rules at The Session Beer Project.
Do you drink it from a wine glass, a chalice or straight from the bottle?
Randy – Be careful about swigging straight from a 750 bottle. Might chip a tooth.
Lew? What about Ding? 😉
http://www.dingsbeerblog.com/?tag=session-beer
Knew it was coming at some point, a division setup to compete with the Craft Beer $$ and Blue Moon is a major brand and at the end of the day its the brand recognition that companies like Miller-Coors have.
I realize there are session purists out there, but an 8.5% beer in a 750 mL bottle seems sessionable to me. Split it among friends and you have a session. Of course, you’ll have to open something else or the session will be over before it ends… Or if you decide to drink it on your own, it will take an entire session to consume.
Maybe we need a new category: short session beer.
Long-form and short-form?
Seems like a lot of “defining” to me.
Maybe I should collect opinions in England – after all, the term sort of belongs to them. After I bore everybody to death with endless questions about hops, of course.
Sessionable
Shareable
“…after all, the term sort of belongs to them.”
Oh gosh Stan, don’t bring that opinion to BA! It’s been brought up that we (US) have bastardized the term defined in England and the xenophobia starts to spout like Vesuvius… well, maybe St. Helens. 😉
For what it’s worth, I “grew up” in my beer world understanding the original definition of a “session beer,” I like the concept, I’ll stick with it.
At 8.5%, maybe they meant a drinking session followed by a napping session.
To me, the term means something specific (traditional definition), but I still might toss it out once in a while because it’s quicker than saying “you could drink a bunch of these in a row if you wanted”
“Maybe I should collect opinions in England – after all, the term sort of belongs to them.”
Jesus, Stan, so does ‘IPA,’ and where would that get you?!
What I noticed is that the people who inhabit pubs seem to worry little about the terminology.
I wouldn’t worry about “session beer terminology” if there were more around.