Just a reminder, in case you forgot, the first STL Hops Meet-Up is tonight at Mattingly Brewing Company (3000 S. Jefferson [map it]) at 6:30PM. Here’s the original post about the event:

I plan on buying the pizza, you guys are on the hook for your own beer. After we get done with eating, drinking and talking we’ll probably move upstairs to Mattingly’s private room to do some beer sampling. So this is your chance to bring some homebrew or maybe some beer you’ve been sitting on waiting for a special day, etc. Mattingly’s new head brewer, Drew Huerter, will also be bringing some beer for you to sample so you can see what’s in store for Mattingly.

Mattingly is being extremely generous opening their doors up and even allowing us to bring some of our own beer. So I’m asking for just three things: first, buy a lot of beer on Tuesday night (and please be responsible about it, I’ll have a DD and so should you). Second, if you could drop me an email or even leave a comment for this post if you’re attending to give me a good idea of how many people are planning to attend it helps Mattingly get idea of how much space and help will be needed. Third, don’t make this your only visit to Mattingly. They’re opening their place up for us, we need to show the love back.

I’m pretty excited about tonight’s event, I hope everyone else is too!

After some discussion in the forums about how we’ve done enough gabbing about beer on this website, maybe it’s time to actually sit down and have one as a group. I’m happy to say that we now have a date, time and venue for the first STL Hops event. On Tuesday, June 17 at 6:30PM STL Hops will be hosting a meet-up at Mattingly Brothers Brewery at 3000 S. Jefferson (map it).

I plan on buying the pizza, you guys are on the hook for your own beer. After we get done with eating, drinking and talking we’ll probably move upstairs to Mattingly’s private room to do some beer sampling. So this is your chance to bring some homebrew or maybe some beer you’ve been sitting on waiting for a special day, etc. Mattingly’s new head brewer, Drew Huerter, will also be bringing some beer for you to sample so you can see what’s in store for Mattingly.

Mattingly is being extremely generous opening their doors upand even allowing us to bring some of our own beer. So I’m asking for just three things: first, buy a lot of beer on Tuesday night (and please be responsible about it, I’ll have a DD and so should you). Second, if you could drop me an email or even leave a comment for this post if you’re attending to give me a good idea of how many people are planning to attend it helps Mattingly get idea of how much space and help will be needed. Third, don’t make this your only visit to Mattingly. They’re opening their place up for us, we need to show the love back. Irene and I had dinner last night and found the pizza to be very good and were very happy with our visit.

If you have any comments, questions, requests, ideas please make sure to post a comment. Can’t wait to see you all in two weeks.

“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…

What is it about beer events on Saturdays that means, “Hey! It’s time to freeze your butt off!” It’s May, I shouldn’t have to worry about frostbite. But on the plus side, there was always beer to make the event tolerable. Irene and I headed out to O’Fallon Brewery on Saturday morning to begin the day with the Garage Brewing Society. When we arrive at about 11:30, things were in full swing.

Many different kinds of brewing systems. The photo in the lower right is Drew Huerter sparging his American English Barleywine.

You can always count on two thing to warm you up, fire and beer. In this case this beer is Augie Altenbaumer’s Rye Pale Ale that was brewed for the upcoming Heritage Festival.

We then celebrated the worldwide toast at Noon. This was a touching toast that not only celebrated homebrewing but to honor Beer Hunter Michael Jackson as well.

Homebrewers weren’t the only ones brewing on Saturday. Brian Owens, the head brewer at O’Fallon, was brewing up a batch of the O’Fallon Pumpkin Ale. Brian accidentally forgot the rice hulls in this batch until he had sparged about six barrels. Whoops! We then made our way to Worm’s Way to visit the St. Louis Brew’s event.

Read the rest…

• Drew Huerter, who you may remember from my wintry Homebrew With Drew post a while back, has told me that he’s been brought onto the Schlafly Tap Room to help out Stephen Hale and Brennan Greene a few days a week. He’s also informed me that he’ll be taking over the helm for the Mattingly Brewing Company that I mentioned last week. So congrats to him!
• Dave Johnson and Charlie Berger of O’Fallon Brewery were interviewed last week by The Beer Report in anticipation for the 2008 Peoria Beerfest. Listen to the podcast here.
• Jerad Gardner has taken over the position of Bar Manager at the Rotten Apple in Grafton, IL. He’ll also be involved with The Stable as it moves closer to opening. Oh, did I also mention that Rotten Apple currently has some Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout available?
• Derrick Bean and Dave Johnson of O’Fallon also let me know that the Pappy Van Winkle O’Fallon Smoked Porter should be seeing the store shelves as soon as April 21st.
• Schlafly and the Repeal of Prohibition Festival get a small shout-out on CNN.

Do you ever wonder what professionals in the brewing industry do on their off days? Well some of them, like Drew Huerter, homebrew. Last week I was invited over to Drew’s house, along with Brennan from Schlafly and Charlie from O’Fallon Brewery and Jeff (another excellent local homebrewer), to help brew up two different batches of beer. The first beer was a rye pale ale. The second beer was a very special beer, it’s going to be a wedding beer.

When you’re a Schlafly brewer and you’re going to get married, you get the privilege of brewing up a beer specifically for your wedding. In this case it’s Brennan that’s getting married and he’s decided to brew a American Brown Ale with a hell of a lot of hops. He wanted to homebrew the recipe first before brewing a big batch at The Tap Room. Brennan asked his friend Drew to help, as he is probably one of the best homebrewers in St. Louis. So I headed out on Sunday, which is part of my excuse for forgetting about the St. Louis gift blog, to brew with some of the brewers that make our local beer.

I arrived at Drew’s house on Sunday around 11:30. Drew had given me the heads up that since this was going to be a double brew day he was starting around 8AM. But a pillow was calling my name at 8AM on a Sunday. When I arrived the boil for the rye beer was almost complete as was the mash for Brennan’s brown. The copper device you see to the left is an immersion wort chiller, it uses cool water to cool the wort down as quickly as possible.

No sooner than Drew turned on the hose to start pushing water through the chiller it sprung a leak, which causes Brennan and Drew to find a way to clamp it. Hose water and cooled wort can be a dangerous combo. You’ve just spent a good amount of time sanitizing your wort, so the last thing you want to do is contaminate it with hose water. Little did we know that hose water would be the least of our concerns. Find out what else happened after the jump. Read the rest…