Issue link: http://southshoremagazine.uberflip.com/i/165447
Beer Selections By Certified Cicerone R, Jean-Marc Aubuchon pack holder for brewer's notes. Generally speaking summer ales are brewed with a portion of wheat malt, which adds a fuller body, and creamy soft flavors. Brewing this style of ale commands a fruity yeast strain, imparting a lemon-like flavor to beer and further enhanced by adding spices such as black pepper, curacao and coriander to liven up the offerings. Ideally, the alcohol content on these ales is lower as most can expect to indulge in more than one as the temperatures rise. Alcohol should be in the 4.0% to 6.0% range. "Session" beers can run even lower ABV than that, below four percent. The "session beer" was made popular by British breweries creating the 'bitter,' 'mild,' and 'special bitter' styles that were designed to consume more than one in a session of drinking, keeping the conversations flowing without over indulgence. Men drink beer, women drink wine. This stereotype is exactly that, a stereotype. Yeah, my mom prefers chardonnay to an imperial stout and my father prefers a cool, craft lager or amber ale but this isn't always the case. "For most of recent history, beer drinkers have been predominantly male. However, things have changed in recent years, and women now make up 25% of those choosing to imbibe beer as opposed to wine or other alcoholic beverages." (www.beerarmy. com) In my experience working beer festivals, women's tastes will vary from the hoppiest IPA to the sweetest fruit forward summer style. Owner Tom Powers of the Union Brewhouse in Weymouth agrees, "The ladies like their blueberry beers with a scoop of blueberries. The lighter, fruitier beers of summer do seem to bring out more female drinkers too." Women craft beer drinkers are a fast-growing portion of the population. "According to a 2012 Gallup poll, beer has been the favorite beverage among drinkers since 1985. It typically held second place as the adult beverage of choice for females, but recently, beer has edged out wine among women ages 18 to 34." (www.jsonline.com) I remember my first beer festival in spring ~2013 63