Low-Alcohol Beer

Yes, Yes, Yes.

That is my feeling about this article chronicling the rise in low-alcohol microbrews. Except they are not really low-alcohol. Reasonable alcohol is what we are talking about here. 4 and 5%.

I have been frustrated by the rise of the extreme beer. 9% beers. Extreme IPAs. Triple bocks. Little of this is good. When I go in to a bar to have a beer, I am not looking to get loaded. Yet you can have one beer at these places and feel pretty buzzed. I guess there's a place for that. But having choices is nice. Too often, the only reasonably ABV beer is Budweiser and who wants to drink that?

Mostly I feel that this extreme beer thing reeks of masculine bullshit about drinking the toughest stuff. Are the hoppiest IPAs really good to drink? Is getting wasted on 2 or 3 beers a good night? Not for me. I prefer a night of steady drinking where I am not going to get a hangover. I like a really tasty beer and I like to try a couple during a night. To me, that's a really fun night of drinking. It's hard to have these days. I'm happy to see a response to these unfortunate trends developing.