I would have liked to get these photos up on Wednesday, but there was no way that was happening after the night we had. I didn’t end up getting home until 11:30PM and 6:00AM was awfully early yesterday morning. But I did remember to pull the photos off the camera this morning and so I thought I’d share them with everyone who couldn’t attend.

First of all, I want to thank Doug and Mike Mattingly for letting us invade their restaurant, they provided a great place for us to hang out, eat some pizza and drink some great beer. If you haven’t been out to Mattingly’s yet, get the Corsica pizza, it’s just awesome. Thanks also to Drew for providing a sampling of some of his awesome homebrew, it just gets us all the more excited when he’s finally able to get brewing some of his own beer.

And finally, thank you to everyone who showed up for this event. We’ll have one of these again soon, promise.

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!

• 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.

It looks like next year’s St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival may be getting a bit bigger as it looks like St. Louis will be introducing two new local breweries this year.

The Stable

I mentioned that this one would spring up during my rundown of the Rotten Apple a while back, but now Sauce Magazine has provided some additional information on the new brewery/distillery:

The old Lemp stables will soon be home to the hard stuff, when the Amalgamated Brewing Co., which also owns The Rotten Apple in Grafton, debuts The Stable, a microbrewery, distillery and pizzeria, at Cherokee Street and Lemp Avenue next month. Owners Jesse Jones and Paul Pointer will brew a lager and distill absinthe, grappa, vodka, rum, gin and moonshine (a corn-based liquor) under the brand name Hytest; the spirits will be served at The Stable, and the pair intend to distribute the hard stuff eventually. But Hytest won’t be the only brand at the Benton Park spot; Jones said that other spirits and brews, including local suds, will be available, including a large Belgian selection. There’ll be items for teetotalers, too: handcrafted Neapolitan-style pizza, sandwiches and salads.

Mattingly Brewing Company

Continuing on the St. Louis city brewing trend, it looks like we’ll have another brewery near the old Lemp Brewery:

Both of the Mattinglys have a strong interest in the microbrewery and started with home brewing about seven years ago. The two, who are engineers by trade, started talking about starting a microbrewery around 2003.

“A hobby became a business,” said Doug Mattingly.

They’ve hired a manager for the brewery, Matt McMullen, and are hiring a brewmaster.

When they open, their microbrewery will have the capacity of making batches of 124 gallons at a time. They plan to brew a variety of craft ales, including India pale ale and a stout. Pizza will be a specialty in the microbrewery, which will have a capacity of 50.

“St. Louis some time ago used to be the capital of craft brewing. We think it’s well on its way to being so (again),” Douglas Mattingly said.

Exciting time to be a beer lover in St. Louis.

^{_{Thanks to Jim for reminding me about these articles.}}