Next Stop St Louis

It is exactly 24 days until the manuscript for the Beer Bible is due (current length, 211k words), which means blogging is going to get extremely bad for a period closely corresponding to that period.  Yes, yes, I know: how will you be able to tell?  Badda boom! 

If there is any blogging to be done, it might relate to a trip I'm taking on Thursday and Friday to tour the mothership in St Louis.  I should also get a chance to try some beers by local craft breweries (Perennial, Urban Chestnut, Schlafly's).  On the other hand, it's a blitzkrieg trip and I will be either busy or wrecked most of the time, so you never know.

Credit: Dave Ibison

I leave you with some final thoughts I had in an email exchange with Dave McLean at Magnolia Pub and Brewery this weekend.  Magnolia, for those of you who aren't familiar with your Haight Street breweries, is a place for session ales on cask.  Magnolia has multiple bitters (the biggest clocks in at less than 5%) and two milds.  I have not had a chance to visit Magnolia, but I've weirdly been lucky enough to try the milds, which is what we were discussing.  I wondered how he could sell these little lovelies when here in Oregon our sessions start at 5%.  He said:

I guess the short explanation has something to do with the if you build it they will come notion. These kinds of beers have been some of my earliest inspirations as a brewer and from day one at Magnolia, I set out to brew them, turn people onto them, and educate about them. I think we make it such a focal point of what we do and train our staff to spread the good word about them, too, that in the end, we've managed to somehow convert a lot of people and become known for these styles of beer more than any other.

That's hopeful--now I just need to con a brewery to follow Dave's lead or con Ted to open a Brewers Union in Portland.   But he also said this, and I'm wondering what you think:

I agree that it is a little like swimming upstream against a massive current of hops and high abv's but it's working for us and I think maybe we're poised to take advantage of the second look session beers are starting to get. 

Sessions rising?  Is this true?  Wishful thinking?   Consider it an invitation to opine.