When Linda and I have our summer folk barbecues, I always brew 10 gallons of beer. One 5gal barrel is a strongish malty brew, but still only about 4.5% and the other is a light refreshing brew at only just over 3%. I do advocate mixing them so that people can customise their pint, but I usually find that if there is any left (never much) it's likely to be the stronger one.

Incidently, the reason that many Americans think that British beer is strong is that we tend to export only the stronger bottled ones. In fact at one time the word EXPORT on a bottle of beer meant that it was of higher strength than normal. Draught bitter, which is usually served by either handpump or electric pump, or sometimes directly out of the barrel, but which should NOT be presurised does not always travel well across the UK let alone the Atlantic. Although it's not cannected with Folk Music, we often refer to our ales which are not stronger than about 4% as "Session Beers".

Last night at the tribute concert for Brixton Bert, we drank the landlord out of his two lightest beers (Young's Ordinary and Shep's Masterbrew) leaving him with only the slightly stronger Fuller's London Pride. There was definitely no deterioration in the quality of the performances - quite the opposite !