Finally had a chance to stop by the newest brewery in St. Louis, Six Row Brewing Company, so I thought that I’d share some of my thoughts and also some photos.  First, I really liked the feel of the place.  It’s very warm and very inviting.  It seems like agreat place to stop in a grab a pint or two before heading home or heading to an event downtown.

For only being open for two months, I thought the beers were very solid.  I enjoyed the Extra Pale Ale quite a bit, the Honey Weizen has some great banana notes,  and I thought that Porter was very good.  I’m happy to see a local St. Louis brewery offering up a porter.   Wasn’t a big fan of the Whale, but that could just be my own palate.

It also looks like these guys may be looking into doing a little bit of distribution in the future, so it will be nice to see some of their beers available around town.  This is a brewery first and foremost.  Look at the menu below and you’ll see there isn’t much in the way of food.  But I think this gives them the opportunity to concentrate solely on making beer.

I’m curious to see where these guys go and I’m looking forward to the future.

So, I’m pleased to announce that the winner for the two tickets to tonight’s Bigelo’s Valentine’s Beer Dinner is Brian Krebel! Congrats to Brian and thank you everyone for entering. Once again, if you didn’t win, don’t be too upset, I’m going to have a few more things to give away in the next few weeks.

I once again want to thank Mark from Bigelo’s Bistro for providing the tickets to this event.

Jason Stokes brought up this topic in the Forums and I thought it would be a great topic to kick off a new year here at STL Hops. Here are a couple of resolutions from members of the STL Hops Forums:

Rencelas (Jason Stokes):

1. No more cellar stuff until I drink what I’ve got in there. I’ve spent far, far too much during 2009 on cellar beer. I started the year with no cellar, now I’ve got over 100 bottles.
2. I’m only buying local products in 2009, from local vendors. Unfortunately, that also means beer, so I’m going to purchase Schlafly, O’Fallon, Mattingly, Square One, Buffalo, etc., only.

Sam Huff:

1. Complete a kegerator
2. Brew up a “house ale” that it enjoyable by all
3. Make my first all grain beer.

bigelo1016 (Mark Pruitt)

1) Going to live up to the promise I made my wife ” Once I buy all this brewing equipment, I won’t have to buy as much beer”
2) Actually focus on one my homebrews and learn how to make the same beer good again and again. Consistency
3) Get as crazy with the Bigelos beer list as I can (With our new consultant Jared)

scottyp (Scott Pesek)

1. drink beer

psyphinx (Jerid Saffel)

Finally finish my Brutus 10 brewing system (I only need some disconnects, 2 lids for the keggles, and 3 shorter gas pipes).
Focus on helping Mattingly succeed.
Brew bigger peek a brew batches.

Personally, I plan on brewing more of the beer I drink and getting some more merchandise up in the STL Hops shop. What are some of your resolutions?

This was a phenomenal year for STL Hops.  Not only did we all get to enjoy the first St. Louis Craft Beer Week, we also celebrated our Second Anniversary and had a few fantastic events like the tasting party at CP Pinball.

Stay tuned for big events coming up in 2010.  Happy New Year everyone.

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As you may have guessed, the Friday Round-Up is going to be taking a week off.  But I’m curious, what is everyone drinking this X-Mas weekend?

News today from Stone Brewing Company that they may be interested in opening a brewery in Europe.  I’m warning everyone right now that this is a completely reactionary post.

What the hell Stone?  I know, you want to come to Missouri, but the time just isn’t right.  You know that we want you, but you can’t support us.  But you keep dangling that carrot in front of us, “We’ll be there one day, we promise!”

But then we all hear about this new idea. It feels like a real kick in the gut for those of us that want Stone in St. Louis.  You can’t even keep up with demand in the US, but you’re looking at opening a brewery outside of the US?  That just doesn’t make sense to me.

I think I’m about tired of chasing that carrot. There are plenty of great breweries that actually made the effort to come to St. Louis and I’ll keep happily drinking them.  Have fun in Finland.

It’s amazing how much of a stigma can beer still has.  In fact, I’d say that canned beer has more of an image problem than craft beer does.  For most people, cans signal that a beer is “low brow.”

But those of us that love canned beers are apostles for preaching the word of the can.  Because, as long as you can get all of the oxygen out of the can, it’s about the most perfect vessel for beer.

It’s lightweight and it’s impervious to oxygen and light.  It will also get your beer cold faster than a bottle.

So, which one of our local breweries will be first in canning a local craft beer?  Let’s be honest, as long as you extoll the virtues and try and dispell some of the myths about canned beer, you could have a real niche beer in our ever growing craft beer scene.

I don’t know if there is a local race to get a craft beer into cans, but I know I’ll be one of the first people to line up to pick up some beer from the winner.