Steve Body's Still Not Getting It

Steve Body writes a blog for the Seattle P-I called "The Pour Fool." He doesn't get -- or like -- session beers, and he's made that clear. He made it so clear that when he got a bunch of angry responses to his misunderstanding and dismissal of session beers as the choice of drunks, he felt compelled to not only delete the comments, but to spend his entire next blog post in a weenie-like defense of himself -- without mentioning "session beer" -- and his actions.

Just to show he's not scared of us -- and that he hasn't learned a damned thing -- his latest post (a paean of praise to Pike Place Brewing, which I didn't mind at all: I like Auld Acquaintance a lot, among others) goes there again, even though he didn't really have to. At the end of his description of Naughty Nellie Golden Artisan Ale, he sticks this sharp stick in session beer's eye:

Pike describes this as a “session beer” and, despite my stated aversion to the idea of sessioning (which I refer to as “drinking too much”), it’s just a glorious beer for anyone who wants more than one of the same.

I'd leave a comment on his blog, but he'd probably feel compelled to delete it. So here's my comment. First, "more than one of the same" is a key component to "sessioning." I just want to be able to have four "of the same" compared to your two of the same, because I like my beer to refresh my thirst, and I like to hang out with my friends for longer than you, apparently. That's so reprehensible? Second, firing up my trusty Session Beer Equivelator®, I see that if he has the 22 oz. bottle of Old Bawdy he talks about, I can have five shaker glasses (the roughly standard "pint" glasses (that aren't really pints) of beer bars) of 4% session beer and take in the same amount of alcohol. Hey, maybe I just like drinking beer more, I dunno.

Of course, we'd have to do this later in the day, because Steve's got all kinds of rules about drinking. "I NEVER drink anything with alcohol in it before 3-4 p.m," he says later in the post. Must be tough to get all the tasting in. Me, I generally don't do any serious tasting after 4 PM, but I'd hardly call it a rule. This guy's wound a little too tight. Maybe he does need those high-proof beers after all.

Look, I'll be honest. I don't know Steve Body, and I'm only beating up on him because he seems to personify a lot of the misunderstanding about session beers. We'd probably agree on some things, though I'm not sure about people in 2011 who loudly proclaim that they're a "beer snob" and describe pilsner as Bud injected with flavor. But to be this assertively wrong about something, and deliberately try to get in someone's face about it...well, I can't let that go. I don't disrespect his choice of having a couple big beers; that's a choice. What's so wrong about choosing session beers?