With the 4th of July Holiday fast approaching I’ve begun deliberating about what beer I want to take to our annual event.  While this year it looks like we’re going to have mild (and maybe rainy) weather, you always need to consider the fact you’re going to be outside in the sun.  So usually things like stouts, porters and a lot of imperial beers are out of the running for me.

For the most part I’m not a big fan of American-style wheat beers like Schlafly “Hefe” and Boulevard Wheat.  Sure they make a fine lawnmower beer for some folks, but I still want a bit more flavor.   I think Dave and I are the same wavelength about wheat beers.  If I’m going for something cloudy and yellow, I want something with another depth of flavor, be it the spice of a Wit or clove/banana of a Weiss.

Fruit beers are another option.  I think too many beer nerds are too quick to dismiss fruit beers. Sure when they’re bad, they’re usually really bad.  But when they’re good, they can hold their own with some of the best beers out there.   The one concern about some fruit beers is that they can fall into the upper tier of the alcohol range sometimes.  Just something to consider.

What about the old stand-by beers, like Pale Ales, APAs or IPAs? Those are always decent choices, but I’ve never been a huge fan of bitter beers in the hot sun.  Beer should be refreshing in that environment and shouldn’t weigh you down too much with flavor.  That being said, I’ve become much more of a hophead in the past year so I may have to give them another go this year.

Well, enough babbling, what have I decided on?   Well, I’m still trying to decide and maybe some of you can throw out some things I may have forgotten about.  But at this point:

• Bell’s Two Hearte
• O’Fallon Wheach?  (I love it with a hot dog)
• Unibroue Apple Éphémère
• Hitachino Nest White Ale

What are your choices for celebrating this holiday?

If you’re anything like me, you have too much glassware. Far, far too much. But what if you wanted to narrow it down to just 2 or 3 glasses, do you think you could? Dave emailed me in hopes of trying to find the perfect glassware for his new bar:

I’m currently building a home bar with an intention of having the minimum of glassware type.

I have recently narrowed down my wine glasses to buy to 2. That apparently can serve and enhance all wines. I would like to find a beer glass or 2 or fit the same purpose. At present, I find I need to have about 5 to 10 ‘different’ types of glasses for different beer. Heck, Riedel has about 200 glasses for their wine. WAY TOO MUCH. I think 10 different beer glasses is likewise too much. I presently use a pint glass but want to enjoy and enhance my beer drinking.

If I was forced down to just two glasses, a deserted-island selection, these would be my two choices:

The first would be the tulip glass from New Belgium Brewery. I find that it provides just about the most perfect beer drinking vessel for almost any style. Enough room to swirl the beer for aroma without spilling any. Enough volume to hold a full beer with a lot of head, which is perfect for your Belgian style beers. Also enough surface area to allow for easy warming if the beer is served too cold. It’s my go-to glass for beers I really want to take time to enjoy. My only issue is that I wish I could find it without a NB logo.

My second choice is just a standard Imperial Pint Glass. With having two homebrews on tap at any time, it’s nice to walk downstairs and pour off 20oz of beer whenever I like. It also makes drinking things like Pale Ales and Stouts just seem more authentic.

One other thing to possibly consider Dave, since you’re doing a bar with wine as well look at getting some large Champagne flutes. They’re just about the same shape as a pilsner glass and would allow you to do double duty. I’d be curious what everyone else thinks about possible glass choices.

I was in Champaign, IL on business last week and I decided to stop into The Blind Pig and have a pint or two (or three.) One of the first things that caught my eye on the list was that they had Avery’s Maharaja on draught. Which got me to thinking, where is our draught Avery?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have Avery now available in St. Louis, but why are we limited just to bottles? Is it a supply issue from the brewery? Is the local distributor not interested in bringing in kegs? Is there not enough local interest? I don’t know the answers to these questions but I’d love to find out. Is anyone from Major Brands or Avery able to step up and answer some questions for us?

I know I’ve kept pretty quiet about the whole AB/InBev deal, mostly because I’m pretty apathetic to it.  I know it sounds pretty terrible, but in my eyes it’s just a business decision. (In fact this article sums up my feelings pretty well.)  I realize that a lot of people in St. Louis would be affected by the buy-out, but it basically comes down to one huge company buying another huge company.  It just so happens that people have a special place in their heart for one of the companies, but unfortunately all of the fliers, blogging and hand wringing in the world isn’t going to do much to stop it.

On the lighter side of all of this, it looks like Schlafly is trying to do their part to keep local beer local, they’ve begun a fund-raiser to buy InBev.  Now it’s only going to take 50 billion small one dollar donations to make it happen, but nothing is impossible!

This was not only another fun night thanks to the crew at Starr’s Market but also a sold out one. I’m glad to see more people attending not only the beer dinners at Starr’s, but beer dinner as a whole. The actual food this month was not nearly as good as the April dinner, but it was still adequate. But I thought the pairings this month were outstanding. It took a beer like the Southern Tier Unearthly DIPA, a beer that I don’t quite care for, and turn it into something I loved with the dinner. Here are some photos:

Now that I’ve finally got the last bit of mud off of my caked shoes, I’m finally able to sit down and pen my thoughts about this year’s festival. Long story short, I had a lot of fun. Yes, it was crowded in the tents because people couldn’t mingle in the mud, but you could still easily get a beer after you shoved your way past the people just standing in front of the servers (something I was even guilty of at times.) I’ve read some other thoughts at BeerAdvocate and even in the comments in this forum and everyone has some very good suggestions. Now here’s a couple of my thoughts:

Grass vs As(phalt)

My biggest complaint, which seems to be the majority opinion, was the complete destruction and mess of the festival field. It made getting around terrible, it made everything and everyone messy and it crowded the tents as people had no place else to go. A few people have suggested that for the sake of festivals to come maybe it should be moved to a parking lot. The argument for the asphalt is that no mess, no fuss and people less likely to trip and fall. The argument against the lot is that it would change the feel of the festival and to a certain extent I agree. I personally enjoy the natural aspect of the festival, but I don’t enjoy being crowded and messy. A better option may be to move the festival to Mid-May rather than early May to avoid some of the late spring rain.

Three Tents Are Better Than Two

I thought the addition of the third beer tent was a welcome addition to the festival as it allowed more beers to be showcased in a large environment. I found that the beers were pretty well spread out and provided a bit more elbow room. I will say I was thrown for a bit when I went into the Ale tent and didn’t see some of the Belgian Style beers, but saw Schlafly’s Imperial Stout and Barleywine in the Ale tent. But I guess “Specialty Beer” is in the eye of the beholder.

From what I’ve been told the homebrewers were supposed to be featured in the third tent as well, but unfortunately got relegated to B-Team status due to the weather. Hopefully next year the weather will let up and people will find out just how amazing some of the homebrewers around this area are.

More Cask Beers!

The best beer of the entire festival was the cask Rye Pale Ale. So floral and wonderful, I had two or three glasses of it. I know it’s a complete pain to bring these firkins out to the festival, but I think it would be nice to showcase more Real Ale at the festival next year. It would be a nice addition to the “Specialty Beer” tent.

New Festival Beer

It’s time for a new beer.  I don’t have the taste memory to remember last year’s Dark Lager so it personally doesn’t make much sense to me to see the same beer year after year.  It’s time to have the breweries try something different and then see just how different the take on the beer is.

More Education

This festival, in my mind, is first and foremost about showing St. Louis’ brewing talent, but one of the first things I heard walking into the festival was “I’m going to get your sister loaded too!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some beer drinking prude that doesn’t believe beer should get you drunk. I was feeling just fine after the festival, but that wasn’t why I walked into the festival. I’d like to think there are more people interested in learning about beer and the differences in styles. Maybe included in the Friday Afternoon session (which sounded a bit light) should be a “tour guide” who walks people around talking about beer and sampling them.

Overall it’s a great event and I think it’s only going to get better as adjustments are made after years of tweaking.  I look forward to seeing how different it is in the years to come.

“You’re dressing up tonight,” were the first words out of Irene’s mouth when I got home. It was probably a good idea, as I soon found myself rubbing elbows with many of St. Louis’ elite. While there were plenty of white tablecloths and mayors to be had, importantly enough this still felt like a beer dinner. Granted it’s difficult for it not to feel like a beer dinner when you’re sitting next to a couple of brewers.

Left: Drew Huerter, Marc Gottfried, and Dave Johnson talk beer before the event.
Right: People mingling around the dinner tables.

Left: The menu from the “Ultimate Beer Dinner”

Left: Stephen and Sara Hale talking before we sit down to Sauce’s Allyson Mace and Catherine Neville.

Right: A close up of the wonderful (and expensive) table setting.

Left: Mayor Slay helps to kick off the Brewers Heritage Festival

Right: Co-host Dave Liberman describes what went into the Ultimate Beer Dinner

Marc Gottfried (Morgan Street) and Dr. John Witte (Square One, Augusta) discuss their beers while Stephen Hale demonstrates the finer points of dry hopping a beer.

Four of the five courses, for some reason I completely dropped the ball and forgot to take a photo of the 5th course.

Also not pictured:

• Me peeing next to Mayor Slay
• Tom Schlafly’s after-party
• The Alstrom Brothers

And after the break, video of Stephen Hale discussing the Biere de Garde en francias.

Read the rest…

Jon Billman emailed me to ask:

I’m doing some beer research for a book project. Do you know someone I should talk with regarding ale brewers in St. Louis in the 1830s? I’m interested in where they got their hops and yeast from, what kinds and what forms. Also, what styles of ales were predominant in STL at that time. Appreciate it.

I’m sure some of STL Hops readers can either provide Jon with this information or point him in the right direction.

Received an email recently from someone looking for a beer called Lion Stout:

I live in St. Louis, but I used to tend bar at a place in Wisconsin that housed a selection of over 450 beers. While there, I developed a love of a Sri Lankan beer called Lion Stout. I am desperately trying to locate some of this beer in St. Louis, but so far with no luck. I was hoping maybe you knew of a place that carries Lion stout, or at least knew of a place that might. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. 

Any help for this reader?

Don’t you absolutely adore alliteration? Anyway, Tuesday night was the release of O’Fallon Brewery’s newest beer, Pappy Van Winkle Smoked Porter. Riddle’s Penultimate celebrated the event by purchasing the only keg of the beer. Bill Burge, his lovely wife Ellie, and Mike Leahy joined me for a taste of the draught Pappy Porter on Tuesday evening. I don’t think there was a disappointed one of us, the beer smells of a deep bourbon with a lot of vanilla. In fact, I thought it had so much vanilla nose, that it reminded me a bit of cake batter.

While the price is a bit high ($12 for an 8oz pour?!) this is something to partake while you still have the chance.