For the past few years, the Great American Beer Festival has held a Brewery/Homebrewer Pro-Am competition where a brewery works with an award winning homebrewer to produce a beer to send to the GABF competition.

Last year the O’Fallon Brewery worked with Jim Yeager from the Garage Brewers Society to select a beer to send to the Pro-Am comp. In the end, Jim Yeager’s Alright Already American Amber won silver at the GABF Pro-Am competition.

This year O’Fallon Head Brewer Brian Owens caught wind of Jim Leabig’s attempts to perfect his IPA recipe and asked Jim if they wanted to collaborate on a beer to send out to GABF.  The result of that collaboration is the Sweet Nectar IPA and you’ll have your first chance to try it this Thursday at the International Tap House Chesterfield.

Jim describes the beer as such:

Sweet Nectar IPA is a hop bomb. The recipe was designed to let the hops shine as much as possible. We utilized a hop-bursting technique where all of the bitterness is derived from late kettle hop additions to bring forth a smoother bitterness and a ridiculous amount of hop flavor and aroma. We used more hops in this batch, 3.5 lbs per barrel to be exact, than have ever been stuffed into our kettle and fermenters. Don’t let the name fool you though. This is a very dry IPA with just enough crystal malt to accent the malt character and not overpower the hops. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Along with Sweet Nectar you’ll also have the chance to try another O’Fallon Brewery collaboration, the C3. The C3 is a hybrid called an American Mild, it’s got a huge hop flavor all while having a low 3.8% ABV.

This party runs from 6:30PM – ??? this Thursday, September 2nd. Sounds like a great opportunity to try some new local collaborations.

Kind of late notice on this one, but if you’re free this evening Adam Avery brewer/owner Adam Avery of Avery Brewing out of Boulder, CO will be in St. Louis tonight.  This was kind of an impromptu  visit, which is why this is such late notice.

I’ve been told by Brian Dix of Major Brands Distributing that Adam and the Major Brands crew will be visiting Bridge Tap House at about 7PM tonight and then they’ll be heading over to the International Tap House in Soulard later this evening.

Sorry for the lack of specific times, but this is all being played fast and loose.  If you have a free evening, this is a wonderful chance to meet one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in all of brewing.

The International Tap House has spirit, yes they do.  So, they have spirit, how about you?  Well, maybe you don’t have spirit, but on September 4th you could have some Missouri beers all for $3 a glass.

To celebrate the Missouri vs. Illinois football game on September 4th, iTAP in Soulard will be holding an event they’re calling MIZBRU.  All day long, iTAP will be featuring some beer made in Missouri at a special discounted rate of $3 per glass.

Here’s a list of beer that will be available at this special price:

Schlafly:
Belgian Spice
Smoked Porter
India Brown Ale
Doppelbock
AIPA Dry-Hopped with Simcoe and Columbus (Cask)

Charleville:
Belgian Spiced Pumpkin Ale (cask)

6 Row:
Double IPA (Cask)

O’Fallon:
TBD

Boulevard:
Amber (currently being tested in Nebraska not available on tap in any other market)
Boulevard Stout (on tap)

iTAP will also be offering up some free brats before the game and they’ll be offering up some BBQ after the game as well.  Also, for all of you Illinois fans, they haven’t forgotten you (though I’m sure they’ve tried), they’ll also have $1 off of Goose Island products.

True story:  I tried to get some Goose Island Vanilla Bourbon County Stout this past weekend at the Great Taste of the Midwest, but there was about a million people in line and I wasn’t going to waste 45 minutes trying to get a beer when there was so much other awesome beer available.  While it didn’t bother me that much, my long-time companion Irene was really looking forward and walked away a little disappointed.

So, I was pretty excited when I saw an email from Brad Lobdell, one of the co-owners of the International Tap House, this afternoon with the subject of “Goose Island Invasion on Sept. 13th!”  What does this invasion entail?  Here’s a peek at the draught list:

• 312
• Honkers
• IPA
• Harvest Ale (first time on draft in the St. Louis area)
• Sofie
• Matilda
• Pere Jacques (first time on draft in the St. Louis area)
• Bourbon County Stout!!!
• Bourbon County Stout VANILLA!!! (first time on draft in the St. Louis area)
• Bourbon County Stout COFFEE!!! (first time on draft in the St. Louis area)
• Pepe Nero!!! (only time it will ever be on draft in the St. Louis area)

This one night only event will begin at 7:30PM on Monday, September 13th and will take place at the Chesterfield location of iTAP. This is something not to be missed.

With the World Cup in full swing and the International Tap House in Soulard now open, Sauce Magazine has partnered with iTAP to throw a celebration.  Starting today at Noon, iTAP and Sauce will be hosting different cuisines from countries around the world.

The plan is to feature cuisine based upon one of the teams playing in that day’s match.  Here’s the line-up that they have for this week:

• Monday June 21st, Spain vs. Honduras 1:30 PM… Tapas from Modesto and discounted Estrella Damm and Estrella Galicia

• Tuesday June 22nd, Greece vs. Argentina 1:30 PM…Greek fare from Olympia and discounted Aris and Quilmes beer.

• Wednesday June 23rd, Germany vs. Ghana 1:30 PM…Three Monkeys will be goin all German and discounts on all German brews and since Australia is also taking to pitch at the same time Aussie Beers will be cheaper as well.

• Thursday June 24th, Japan vs. Denmark 1:30 PM…Likely Sushi will be served while Japanese beers in stock will be discounted as well as Carlsberg brews and Dutch brews.

• Friday June 25th, Spain vs. Chile 1:30PM…Roxane is scheduled to sell Spanish food while the usual Spanish brews will be on discount during the match.

It’s also worth noting that while the Soulard location will be opening at Noon all week, they’ll be opening at 9AM on Wednesday for the USA match versus Algeria.

If you headed out to the newest International Tap House location in Soulard on this wet morning, you might have discovered it wasn’t open yet.  As with all things dealing with the City of St. Louis, there was red tape to deal with and things didn’t go as planned.

But now it’s official, and they’re set to open up on Saturday, June 19th at 11AM.  My hope is to have the draught list sometime before the opening. Update, draught list is now below. Personally, I know I’ll be stopping in for a pint come Saturday afternoon.

Oh, be sure to also check out the swanky new website that iTAP is rocking.

Big heads up to Evan Benn for the still in progress draught list at Soulard:

• Guinness
• Youngs Chocolate Stout
• Boddingtons
• Left Hand Milk Stout
• Reissdorf Kolsch
• Delirium Tremens
• Lindemanns Framboise
• Goose Island Matilda
• Leffe
• Hoegaarden
• Avery Maharaja
• Chimay
• Great Divide Titan
• Schlafly Kolsch
• New Belgium Mothership Wit
• Scaldis
• Bell’s Two-Hearted
• Brother Thelonius
• Founders Red’s Rye
• Charleville Hoptimistic
• Corsendonk Pale
• Saison Dupont
• Old Rasputin
• Bell’s Oberon
• Chambly Noire
• Tripel Karmeliet
• Boulevard Tank 7
• Hofbrau Original
• Paulaner Hefe
• Tucher Hefe
• Odell St. Lupelin
• Lagunitas Undercover Shutdown
• Boulder Hazed and Infused
• Scrimshaw Pilsner
• La Chouffe
• Ska Modus Hoperandi
• Ace Pear
• O’Fallon Wheach
• Maredsous 10
• Bear Republic Racer 5
• Wittekerke
• Pabst Blue Ribbon

We’re getting closer. If everything goes to plan, (oh City of St. Louis, why must you make everything so difficult?) we should see the opening of the newest location of the International Tap House opening up in Soulard next Thursday, June 17th.

They’ll be opening up at 9AM to celebrate and to let people watch some of the World Cup matches happening that morning. With any luck, that’ll be your first chance to sit at the new 40 foot bar and drinking from one of the 44 different taps or 500 different bottles.

Soccer or not, I know I’ll be ready to check it out.