Source: Sarah Vogelsong, VIRGINIA MERCURY, 9/14/21

 On a quiet Thursday afternoon in St. Paul, a town of about 850 that sits on the banks of the Clinch River straddling Wise and Russell counties, Greg Bailey was filling a growler of Scotch ale.  Beer has a colorful history in these parts. Once it flowed like water: so rowdy was one stretch of saloons on St. Paul’s riverfront in the 1920s that it was nicknamed the “Western Front” after the European line of battle in World War I. While the barrooms closed long ago, the alcohol trade remained anathema to many residents of the surrounding “dry” counties. In 2015, 113 people signed a petition opposing a brewery or the sale of liquor by the drink in St. Paul and presented it to the town council. 

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