This Is My Blood: Mahou Session IPA

I have no clue how closely people read along to these beer blog posts. I can't imagine very thoroughly? But speaking as the person who composes them, I've noticed something in the past eight months that I think it's time to finally hash out. I'm talking specifically about the "BREWED BY" section in the "NOTES" postscript, and I'm talking specifically about beers that are brewed internationally. Most American breweries are just called "Such and Such Brewing Company," but breweries in other countries always have an acronym (okay, technically initialisms) suffixed to their names. What's that about?

Take today's session IPA, for example. Loved the labeling (lots of bright colors, definitely made my hand gravitate toward it on the shelf), was nonplussed by the hoppy balance of yet another IPA, thought it went decently with tacos. But my eyes move toward the brewery name. "Mahou S.A." What does the "S.A." stand for?

Unfortunately, this particular initialism has a boring, non-alcoholic explanation. "S.A." stands for "Société Anonyme," which is a French term, but is used throughout non-British Europe. It's basically a way of describing a business as a publicly traded company. It's like when a American Company affixes "Inc." to their title (or, in the U.K., Guinness Ltd. for example).

But I've seen other acronyms throughout this year, right? What do they stand for? Let's backtrack and find out. The most recent Belgium beer with a weird initial in the brewery title was Kasteel Tripel, from the brewery "Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck N.V." What's up with the "N.V."? Ugh... I'm looking it up now, and it stands for "Naamloze vennootschap," which... yup, another way of saying a publicly traded company, this time in Belgium.

I know I've seen more acronyms this year, but now I'm having trouble finding any. Man, this was a bust of a blog post. Sorry gang. More scintillating beer talk tomorrow.

NOTES

BEER: Mahou Session IPA

GENRE: American IPA

ABV: 4.5%

BREWED BY: Mahou S.A.

LOCATION: Madrid, Spain

PURCHASED AT: IGA (an initialism for International Grocers Association)

PAIRED WITH: beef tacos

GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5

BEER COUNT: 348.5