I know it’s taken me a while to get this up, but better late than never, right? Well, the second annual St. Louis Craft Beer Week is behind us and it sounds like we had another great success. Every event I attended had a great turnout and people were generally excited about everything going on.

The folks at the St. Louis Microfest tell me that they also had a huge turnout this year and were able to raise even more money for the Lift for Life Gym, so that’s also some fantastic news.

We will be putting this event on again next year, and again the event will coincide with the 2011 Microfest in Forest Park. So, look out for that. In the meantime here is a collage of photos compiled from the events I attended.

Thanks again to everyone who helped, participated and attended these events.

The Mattingly Brewing Company may now be producing full scale productions of beer, but that doesn’t stop them from showing off what’s yet to come.

Tonight, in celebration of St. Louis Craft Beer Week, Head Brewer Drew Huerter will be offering up the Night of the Hops! Featuring Citra IPA, Jefferson Brown Ale and Dark Days Black IPA.

Here’s what to expect over the new few weeks:

5/5 Pomegranite Wit
5/12 Apricot Wit
5/19, 5/26 & 6/2 Hop School Extra Pale Ale (Six different dry hops, two at a time)
6/9 Black Currant Dubbel
6/16 Oaked Date Dubbel
6/23 Per Aspera Pilsner

Be sure to head out tonight and taste some of Drew’s excellent beer.

Square One Brewery is releasing a very special beer to help celebrate St. Louis Craft Beer Week, they’re calling it their Sour Cherry Beer.  Head brewer Dr. John Witte sent me a description of the beer:

Brewed 3 years ago as a Tripel, then refermented with sour cherries and inoculated with a Belgian lambic blend of yeasts and bacteria.  The beer was left on the cherries and pits for 8 months and then racked off into kegs, half on oak, half all stainless.

Prior to carbonating, we blended the two back together and then blended again with a recent batch of tripel.  Very tart and has sharp cherry flavors along with a hint of nuttiness (from the pit) in the finish.

One of the neatest parts about this beer is that during happy hour, Monday through Friday this week, they’ll be pairing this beer with brie and a stilton cheese to show off the amazing power of pairing beer with cheese.

I’ve been told there isn’t very much of this beer available, so if you’re a big fan of sour beers, I wouldn’t wait to try this beer out.

To help celebrate St. Louis Craft Beer Week, Provisions Market wanted to put on a special event just for you. Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 26th at 6PM, Provisions will be hosting a tasting pairing craft beer with a selection of specially designed dishes.

The neat part about this meal is they will be squaring off a “classic” version of a style versus a “new” version. Here’s a look at the menu:

BREAKFAST:
Crab and Cheese Frittata
Saison Dupont vs. Goose Island Sofie

LUNCH:
Chicken Mole Enchilada
Newcastle Brown Ale vs. New Hollands Mole Ocho.

AFTERNOON SNACK:
Ham and Potato Croquettes, Meatballs, Cheese Straws
O’Haras Irish Red vs. Moylans Danny’s Irish Red

DINNER:
Smoked Beef Brisket with Onion-Tomato Au Jus
Aecht Rauchbier vs. Haandbryggeriet Norwegian Wood

DESSERT:
Caramel Cheesecake
Young’s Luxury Double Chocolate Stout vs. Boulevard Smokestack Dark Truth Stout

A few tickets for this dinner remain, but fortunately for you Paul from the The Wine and Cheese Place was kind enough to give us 2 tickets to give away for this event. So, email contest@stlhops.com with the subject line of: Provisions Market. A couple of quick notes:

• If you’ve won something from STL Hops in the past 6 months, please be cool and let someone else enter.
• If you won passes for the Wine and Cheese Place Beerfest, you can still enter, that doesn’t count.
• You must be 21 or older to enter.
• No multiple entries.

As this event is tomorrow, I’ll be picking two random winners tomorrow (04/26/2010) at 9AM. Send your email now if you want to attend!

I don’t want to keep harping on these events as I think you guys may get tired of hearing about them, but I thought you may want to know a few extra details about the St. Louis Craft Beer Week events taking place tonight.

St. Louis Craft Beer Tweetup
Don’t have a Twitter account? No problem. Come on out to have some beers and meet some awesome people who love craft beer as much as you do. I’ve also been told that there will be some free snacks courtesy of Go! Magazine.

If you haven’t been yet, this is a great excuse to visit Bridge. Don’t be shy, just come on out.

IPA Night at The Good Pie
Right now this is the line up of IPAs that will be on draught:

• Bear Republic Racer 5
• New Belgium Ranger IPA
• HeBrew Bittersweet Lennys R.I.P.A
• Founders Centennial IPA
• Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor
• Odell IPA
• Southern Tier Iniquity
• New Holland Mad Hatter
• Schlafly American IPA

It also sounds like one of these beers (not sure which yet) will be run through a Randall of Amarillo and Simcoe hops.  There will be a menu designed around IPAs and a gift certificate provided to the person who brings the biggest IPA.  I don’t know how they’re quantifying “biggest” so your guess is as good as mine.

Grand Teton Beer & Cheese Event
Got a list of beers that will be available from Grand Teton tonight at Wine and Cheese Place. Chuck Nowicki, Sales and Marketing Director of Grand Teton, will be on hand to talk about and taste their reserve series:

• Grand Teton Pursuit of Hoppiness
• Grand Teton Sheepeater Scotch Ale
• Grand Teton Bitch Creek Double ESB
• Grand Teton Howling Wolf Weizenbock
• Grand Teton Lost Continent IPA

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Also, I guess this is mostly for my parents, over the weekend I had a chance to talk about St. Louis Craft Beer Week and STL Hops on KMOX. Actually I had a chance to talk about both, not once, but twice this weekend. You’re welcome to give them a listen. Hope to see everyone tonight.

Just in case you’ve missed it, the 2010 St. Louis Craft Beer Week begins this Saturday. Over the rest of the week I’ll be detailing the events of the festival on STL Hops to bring more visibility to the event.

I, once again, cannot begin to stress enough how important it is for all of us to help make this event successful.

If you care about beer and beer awareness in St. Louis, it’s important to show the retailers, breweries and restaurants involved that there are people that care about beer.

So, I know a lot of events are during the middle of the week and people have jobs and lives that make it difficult to attend some of the events, you at least make an effort to try and attend at least one event during the middle of the week. I also realize that money is tight, but over half of the events are free, so it won’t hurt the pocketbook to attend some of the events.

If you love beer and I know you all do otherwise you wouldn’t be here, it’s time to show it. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the events taking place on the final Saturday, Sunday, and Monday:

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Saturday, May 1st

2010 St. Louis Microfest – Forest Park - 12PM-4PM
North American Craft Beers. Brewer Olympics, Homebrew Competition Awards, StLHops Meet & Greet. Music by The BlueTones.

2010 St. Louis Microfest – Forest Park – 6PM-9PM
American and International Beers. Music by Spontaneous Nugent.

Schlafly Export IPA Cask – Felix’s Bar and Grill – 6PM
Free Event (Food and drink available for purchase)
One of the best ways to enjoy a traditional English IPA is to drink it the traditional way, from a cask. Felix’s Bar and Grill will be offering up a cask of the Schlafly Export IPA so you too can savor it like the would have 100 years ago.

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Sunday, May 2nd

2010 St. Louis Microfest – Forest Park - 1PM-5PM
American and International Beers. Strongmen Exhibition. Music by the Funky Butt Brass Band.

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Monday, May 3rd

Herbst Brewing Symposium – Schlafly Bottleworks - 7:30PM
Free Event (Food and drink available for purchase)
Join A-B’s corporate historian Bill Volmer as he discusses a history of beer in America. Bill will provide plenty of fascinating information that will teach you that the world of beer existed before Dogfish Head and Stone. This symposium is in honor of our good friend Henry Herbst.

Just in case you’ve missed it, the 2010 St. Louis Craft Beer Week begins this Saturday. Over the rest of the week I’ll be detailing the events of the festival on STL Hops to bring more visibility to the event.

I, once again, cannot begin to stress enough how important it is for all of us to help make this event successful.

If you care about beer and beer awareness in St. Louis, it’s important to show the retailers, breweries and restaurants involved that there are people that care about beer.

So, I know a lot of events are during the middle of the week and people have jobs and lives that make it difficult to attend some of the events, you at least make an effort to try and attend at least one event during the middle of the week. I also realize that money is tight, but over half of the events are free, so it won’t hurt the pocketbook to attend some of the events.

If you love beer and I know you all do otherwise you wouldn’t be here, it’s time to show it. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the events taking place on Thursday and Friday:

Thursday, April 29th

Left Hand Cask Night – International Tap House (Chesterfield) – 7PM
Free Event (Food and drink available for purchase)
The International Tap House will be hosting some fellas from the Left Hand Brewery, and they’ll be bringing out a 1 “Pin” (a 5 gallon firkin) of their new year-round 400# Monkey IPA on tap that night, plus some other fun beer from Left Hand!

Blind IPA Tasting – The Wine and Cheese Place Clayton – 6-7:30PM
$5 per person.
So you have a favorite beer huh? Think you could pick it out of a line-up? Too many times our eyes and brains deceive us and the beer you think is your favorite might not be. A blind beer tasting gives you the opportunity to taste beers without having to worry about what the label says. This is a great chance to give some beers a second chance.

Schlafly Beer Dinner – Outlaw Blues Restaurant and Saloon – 6-9PM
$30 per person
Outlaw Blues Restaurant and Saloon will be putting a on a beer dinner featuring four courses paired with beers from Schlafly. The price for this event is $30 per person. Reservations can be made by calling 618-589-3628. Here’s a look at the menu.

$2 Pitcher Night – Morgan Street Brewery – 10PM-2AM
Free Event (Food and drink available for purchase)
s are tough, but Morgan Street Brewery is here to help. In honor of Craft Beer Week, they’ll be offering up $2 pitchers on all of their drafts starting at 10PM. Great beer at a great price.

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Friday, April 30th

Boulevard Beer Tasting – Wine and Cheese Place Clayton - 4PM-6:30PM
Free Event
Paul Hayden of The Wine and Cheese Place on Forsyth continues his series of weekly beer tastings by inviting Boulevard representative Laura Dale out to taste some fantastic Boulevard beers.

Bell’s Beer Tasting – Lukas Liquor – 4PM-6PM
Free Event (Food and drink available for purchase)
Join Bell’s representative Jim O’Connor as he samples some of the great beers that Bell’s Brewery has to offer.

2010 St. Louis Microfest – Forest Park - 7PM-10PM
International Beers including wide variety of Belgian Beers; select group of Belgian Beers in the VIP Biergarten. Music by the Falling Martins.