I fondly remember the earliest days of my interest in craft beer. This was in late 2003 - early 2004 (long before our 6 percent ABV limit was vanquished) and pale ales, brown ales, and amber ales ruled the Alabama craft beer landscape.

There’s surprisingly a lot going on in the world of Alabama beer right now, most of it good but some of it bad. First, the bad news.

This is somewhat related to my recent column on session beers, but far more specific. I said my own ideal session beer would be around four percent ABV or lower and could be just about any style of beer, from dark mild to Berliner weisse to Belgian wit to... pilsner.

The internet has once again given us an important topic for discussion: whether or not “that brewery sucks.” My friend Sean Lilly Wilson recently wrote a thought-provoking post bearing that title on the blog of his brewery, Fullsteam.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, the J. Clyde had a Blind Imperial Stout tasting scheduled for Sunday, January 30th. That was this past Sunday, and I attended the event. You wish you had.

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for American brewers to embrace the session beer. I don’t claim this as an original thought, as plenty of craft beer pundits have made this plea in recent years. But it is something that matters to me, so I’m going to state my case here.

I’m going to change gears and cover a few different items of interest this week, some related. First up, I’d like to offer some comments on an excerpt of an interview recently highlighted at BeerNews.org.

Well, the calendar just ticked over to 2011, and the first few days of a new year are a great time to look ahead at what to expect in the coming months. One thing every beer lover should be eagerly anticipating is the start of the Alabama legistature’s 2011 regular session, when Free the Hops (FTH) will again introduce legislation to improve the beer laws of our state.

Last week I did an overview of dark beers, but that was a break from a series I’ve been working on, covering key regions for American craft beer. First in the series was the Southeast, second was California and next up is Colorado. Colorado is second only to California in the quantity, quality and fame of its breweries.

I’m in the middle of a series of columns highlighting different regions of American craft beer, but I like to take a break from series like that. This time of year I hear a lot people insisting on drinking dark beer.