Chicagoist's Beer Of The Week: Ale Syndicate's Sunday Session

By Jason Baldacci in Food on Aug 8, 2014 9:30PM

If we had to pick one beer to get us through the rest of the summer, we're pretty sure this would be the one.

Sunday Session is Ale Syndicate's super-hopped, easy drinking ale. It pours a pale, cloudy orange in the glass, with a floral bouquet of hops that wafts on the nose. Those floral hops are prevalent on the palate, but not overwhelming, and they turn a little tropical on the backend. There's a solid, biscuity malt backbone to carry the brew, but the body is relatively light overall. It may be a little straightforward, but it's certainly not one dimensional. Ale Syndicate uses a trio of bright, acidic hops to keep things complex, but they don't turn it up to 11. At 4.8 percent alcohol content, Sunday Session is full flavored, but downright crushable. We like it enough to drink it any day of the week.

A lot of American craft breweries are currently making low-alcohol, hop-forward beers, and we're honestly very happy with the trend. For the longest time, higher alcohol content was one of the major characteristics associated with craft beer, despite the fact that there have always been plenty of options in the 5-6 percent range. Now we're seeing wider range of brews clocking in under 5 percent, and the American craft segment is showing the rest of the industry that it's possible to make full flavored beers that can still be considered "light."

While a lot of other breweries are making beers they refer to as "Session IPAs," Ale Syndicate has done an exceptional job at making Sunday Session very approachable to a wide range of beer drinkers. We expect to see more breweries follow suit with low alcohol offerings.

Sunday Session is available in six-packs and on draft, check beermenus.com to see where you can pick some up this weekend.