Session Beer Homebrew Recipes

Hooray for Session Beer Day! What is Session Beer Day, you ask? Well, The Session Beer Project blog, tireless advocate for session beers, has put some work into creating this day. It commemorates Little Repeal Day, April 7th, the day on which 4.0% beer became legal before the full repeal of Prohibition. What is a session beer? A session beer is a low alcohol, flavorful beer that you can enjoy more than one of. Session Beer Day is defining it as a beer under 4.5% alcohol.

We've previously expressed our love for session beers in this blog, so it's no surprise that we support Session Beer Day. May we suggest that you brew a session beer while drinking a session beer on Saturday? Here are a couple of classic recipes, one from Brewing TV and the other from famed homebrewing author John Palmer:

Little Bear Session CDA

5 gallons, extract

Target OG: 1.040-ish

Steep:

- 0.5 lbs Weyermann CaraFa III

Boil:

- 6 lbs Northern Brewer Gold malt syrup @ 60″

- 1 oz Warrior @ 60″

- 0.5 oz Ahtanum (or Cascade) @ 10″

- 0.5 oz Ahtanum (or Cascade) @ 0″

Primary fermentation:

- Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

Secondary fermentation:

- 1 oz Centennial (dry hop)

All-grain option:

- Substitute 8 lbs of domestic base malt for the Gold malt syrup and adjust the 60″ hop addition to yield a recipe grand total of 40-45 IBUs.

John Palmer's Oaked Mild

This mild brown ale is designed to be toasty, with hints of sourdough bread and roast, but the high crystal malt will balance the tannins and provide a balanced finish.

All-Grain

70% Efficiency / Single-infusion mash at 152F

7 gallons collected, 6 gallons post boil

OG 1.034 / 16 IBU / 15 SRM

Grains

6 lbs of Maris Otter Pale malt

1 lbs Crystal 60

0.5 lbs Briess Special Roast

0.5 lbs Flaked Oatmeal (instant)

0.5 lbs Flaked Wheat

0.25 lbs Chocoate malt

Hops

0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings (5%) 45 minutes

0.5 oz of Progress (5%) 45 minutes

Yeast

Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley or White Labs WLP022 Essex Ale

Post-Fermentation

3 oz of American oak cubes, medium toast added to the keg.

Remove cubes after 2 months.

Option - Toast the oatmeal and flaked wheat in the oven at 350F for 30 minutes or pan-fry (dry) over high heat until toasted. The oak is also going to add to toast and roast flavors, so proceed with caution.