Ballparks & Brews: St. Louis Cardinals Busch Stadium

The 2017 MLB season was reaching it's zenith when we visited one of the iconic franchises: the St. Louis Cardinals: Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Red Schoendienst, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Brock, Whitey Herzog, Ozzie Smith, and of course beer - mostly Anheuser-Busch Inc beer. In fact, the River City was the origin for blending beer and baseball for the working class when Chris Von der Ahe founded the St. Louis Browns and the American Association. With The Beer and Whiskey League, Von der Ahe introduced Sunday games, low ticket prices, and cheap beer.

Sunday games persist, but cheap tickets and beer are rarities at today's MLB ballparks. And at Busch Stadium, InBev and Bud are obviously the King of Beers. This virtual monopoly spills over to the neighboring Ballpark Village where Anheuser-Busch Inc, Goose Island Beer Co., and Stella are your primary choices.  However, there are exceptions. Schlafly Bottleworks has a strategically placed stand at the ballparks entrance from Ballpark Village where their Kolsch and Pale Ale were my two favorites.  Sadly, inventory fluctuated over the two games and often these kegs were kicked.  A more constant option was the convenience styled hot dog stand in center field where the beer cooler housed several area micro-brews.  German styled beers are prevalent like the Urban Chestnut Brewing Company Zwickel and Stammtisch and the The Civil Life Brewing Company German Wheat. The cans sold at the stadium are quite unique as the entire top peels back.


Craft beer is also available in establishments surrounding the stadium.  Our hotel carried several Schlafly Bottleworks and 4 Hands Brewing Co beers with the latter's Cast Iron Oatmeal Brown my breakfast beer of choice.  4 Hands is located just south of stadium and while walking their to visit using theCompass Craft Beverage Finder we were distracted by the live music emanating from the Broadway Oyster Bar.  And with the 4 Hands Incarnation IPA and Prussia Berliner Weiss on tap; as well as more Urban Chestnut, Schlafly, and Perennial Artisanal Ales; we failed to head further south. However, we did visit Alpha Brewing Company when returning to the hotel.  This small micro specializes in sours, mostly barrel aged sours in wine barrels.  Whereas the others enjoyed their Atheist Ale IPA I was fixated on a sour flight of Troll Wheatwine, Natural Selection, Apocrypha, and Grape Brett.  The last two were fantastic, the highlight of the weekend so if you enjoy sours, add Alpha to your itinerary. Cheers to St Louis, Von der Ahe, and Ballparks & Brews.

SAVORing Ten Years of Craft Beer

This year the Brewers Association celebrated ten years of presenting SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience. And has we all know the craft beer landscape has changed dramatically during those years. According to the Brewers Association at year end 2007 there were 1,449 operating breweries in the United States with 1,406 being craft breweries and accounting for $5.74 billion in sales. Ten years later at the end of 2016 the total number of breweries escalated to 5,301 in which 5,234 were craft and $23.5 billion in sales. And as we know, that number increased during 2017 with multiple craft breweries opening weekly. This growth was no doubted fueled by legislative changes at the national and state levels; using Virginia as an example, the number of craft breweries skyrocketed when the state finally allowed breweries to serve beer in pints without having to also serve food.

The 2017 event featured 172 craft beers from 86 craft breweries as opposed to the 2008 event which hosted 48 breweries pouring 96 craft beers.  The inaugural event was was most likely concentrated with Pale Ales, English Porters, and a few West Coast IPAs, but over the next ten years transitioned to heavier IPAs, barrel programs, and sours. Whereas the latest event was heavy on the IPAs and sours, session styles re-surged with low ABV Pilseners, Kölsch, and Gose. Now I will come off as a hypocrite because I spent half the night targeting the sours and barrel aged beers, with both Crux Fermentation Project (Sour Golden Ale & Better Off Red) and D9 Brewing Company (Defying Gravity Series, 1st Edition - Cape Canaveral & Wild Things Series, 1st Edition - Pearedox ) each proving my favorite beers of the evening.  And the Union Craft Brewing Older Pro with Blueberry (Fruited Wood-Aged Sour Beer) and the Schlafly Bottleworks Gooseberry Gose were excellent.

Yet I was excited that more breweries were pouring traditional ales and lagers that I feel as a beer culture we are losing focus. Seattle's Reuben's Brews poured a traditional Gose, no extra flavors, just lactobacillus, salt, and coriander. It was fantastic. Did you know that Stevens Point Brewery is the nation's 5th oldest brewery? They've been brewing continuously for 160 years, specifically their flagship Point Special Lager.  They also produce the Point S.P.A. (Session Pale Ale) which is my new bicycle beer if I can find it. Summit Brewing Company out of St. Paul, MN has been brewing since 1986 making them the 30th oldest brewery. They were pouring their flagship Summit Extra Pale Ale as well as the Summit Keller Pils. The later is nails the style, with North Dakota two-row Moravian 37 barley and Saaz hops from the Czech Republic. An awesome Bohemian Pilsener. Complementing that on the German Pilsener side was the Half Acre Beer Company Pony Pilsener. 

Sadly, during my four hours at the event, I seemed to only have tasted through one third of the beers as well as missed the entire upper level of oysters and cheese.  Yet, SAVOR was still a remarkable event I I look forward to popping open the collaboration beer: SAVOR X, a Baltic porter brewed with hops and cocoa husks, courtesy of Hardywood Park Craft Brewery and New Belgium Brewing Company. Cheers.

#SAVOR 2015 - Long Live the Sours

At next year's SAVOR event I need to attend both evenings as I determined one night is not enough time to visit with all the breweries - particularly if you attend a salon. This year it seems that I only had time for about half the beer selections for a variety of reasons.

First, I spent an hour in the Grape and Grain salon hearing Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Dan Kopman of Schlafly Brewery describe their respective brewery's ventures combining fermented grain with grape must. I was particularly attracted to Schlafly's two versions of Lazy Ballerina, both made from a barley and wheat mash plus Chambourcin grape must from Chandler Hill Vineyards. The difference between the two was that the grape must in the bottled version (which was the one poured to the SAVOR participants)  was inoculated with Saison yeast whereas the second was fermented with wild yeast and bacteria - which the brewery determined was 2 types of Brettanomyces and one type of Lactobacillus. They've retained these cultures for future fermentations. That's a wise decision, since that version of the Lazy Ballerina was fantastic - funky with a little cream. On the Dogfish Head side, Sam poured samples of their 61 (the 60 Minute plus 20% Syrah) and Chateau Jiahu - a fermented beverage made from orange blossom honey, muscat grape juice, barley malt and hawthorn fruit based on pottery residue found in Jiahu China. Both of these are tasty in their own right.

The second reason I missed many of the breweries is that I was determined to sample all the sour and fruit beers presented. There were close to twenty ranging from Kreiks to Gose to Wild Sours. And straight up,  Upland Brewing Company (Bloomington, IN) poured two of my favorites; the VinoSynth Red and the Dantalion. The first is a red and white collaboration with Oliver Winery a blend of 50% Sour Reserve and 50% Malefactor Flanders-style Red Ale aged on Catawba grapes. The jamminess of the Catawba was balanced with the acids of the red ale to create a fine funky beer.  The Dantalion is based on the Flanders Oud Bruin (Brown) beer style where the brewery's base lampic is aged in white oak barrels for at least eight months. There's plenty going on in this beer with multiple spices, chocolate, and rye characters mingle throughout. Well done.

There were several other sours worth noting. The NOLA Brewing Lowerline is part of the brewery's Funk series. This beer was inoculated with a lactos bacteria providing a tart and very creamy flavor. There's not a lot of complexity here, but the beer is very pleasant. Locally based Mad Fox Brewing Company was pouring their Oaked Diabolik which was rich and creamy with a wine like texture. Boulder's FATE Brewing Company offered a popular Barrel-Aged Uror Gose, which was aged 10 weeks in used Arta tequila barrels. The agava flavors blend seamlessly into the tart and salty brew. Nashville's Yazoo Brewing Company Embrace the Funk Series Deux Rouges is their Flanders ale, fermenting with wild yeasts and souring bacteria, aged in used Merlot barrels. This process imparts some spiciness into the sour and mellows the finish nicely. Milwaukee's Brenner Brewing Company Maiden Opus was quite solid (as was their Bacon Bomb Rauchbier).  And Austin's Hops and Grain Brewing Volumes of Funk: Sour PorterCulture is a mash bill close to their Baltic porter recipe and then aged in barrels full of brett and lactos. Pretty tasty.

Two final beers to note are the Strange Craft Beer Company Cherry Kriek and the Schlafly Brewery Apricot Berliner Weisse. The Schlafy beer was bright, acidic, with subtle apricots which I could quaff all day. The Kriek is a World Cup Gold Award Winner and showcases a slightly tart and sweet flavor profile. Probably can't drink more than a couple, but it's an interesting beer to sample. 

Getting back to missing out sampling all the beers is that that many breweries ran out of supplies way too quickly. Funky Buddha Brewery was done an hour into the event; Country Boy Brewing not long afterwards. And there were many other early exists. That was the major disappointment of the evening; I know many of the offerings were limited productions but the Brewers Association may need to require breweries to pour a beer with more inventory. Otherwise,  SAVOR was another extraordinary craft beer tasting. Cheers. 

The 2013 World Series of Wine, Craft Beer, & Craft Distillers

Besides being two great baseball cities, St. Louis and Boston are also great craft beer, wine, and craft spritis cities.  Budweiser and Sam Adams are easily recognizable; but there are several new rising stars in these competitors. Starting with wine, St. Louis is the base camp for journeys into Missouri Wine Country - particularly west into the Hermann and Augusta AVAs and south along the Mississippi River. The Norton grape rules here and Missourians recognize its virtues along with Vignoles, Chardonnel, Chambourcin, and other hybrid grapes.  There are fewer local wineries surrounding Boston, but you just got to find them - usually south through the Coastal Wine Trail. One surprising good find is Westport Rivers Vineyard & Winery. In Massachusetts the trail also includes Coastal Vineyards, Running Brook Vineyards, Travessia Winery, and Truro Vineyards of Cape Cod.

As for spirits, both cities are deeply involved in the craft distillers market. In Cardinal country, Square One Distillery, Still 630 and a little west, Pinckney Bend Distillery are producing various whiskeys, vodka, gin, and even rum for the local market. In Red Sox territory, Bully Boy Distillery and Nashoba Valley Distillery are distilling on Boston proper while Turkey Shore Distilleries and Ryan and Wood Distilleries are operating slightly north.  Rum is a bigger player in New England, more reflective of the colonial experience; but there is also plenty of locally produced whiskey, vodka, gin, and brandy.

Finally, St. Louis and Boston are quite obviously associated with beer.  Obviously there's Anheuser-Busch; but Cardinal fans drink plenty of local craft beer with over a dozen operating in the region. My personal favorite is Schlafly Bottleworks and their canned line of Session beers.  Boston and beer are practically synonymous and as the documentary How Beer Saved the World suggests, the Revolutionary War was argued over a few pints.  And the contemporary east coast craft beer revival originated in Red Sox land with the Boston Beer Company, Harpoon Brewery, & Ipswich Ale Brewery. There's plenty more craft brewers who have followed in their footsteps Trillium Brewing, John Harvards Brew House, Cambridge Brewing Company, Somerville Brewing Company, and others.

And as always information concerning these establishments are listed at WineCompass and theCompass mobile app.