Trading Places: St. Louis Beer Examiner

October 8, 3:10 PMSF Craft Beer ExaminerBrian Yaeger

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Believe it or not, Budweiser is not the only beer made in St. Louis! In the Gateway to the West as part of my beer odyssey, I hooked up with my Beer Examiner counterpart from St. Louis, Bryce Eddings (Bryce explained to me that their state motto, "Show Me," is meant to show off how obstinate they are.) So, wanting to check out how they do in STL, I said, Show me.

We met for lunch at Square One Brewery (in the neighborhood of Lafayette Park. This attractive brewpub, brick inside and out, featured half a dozen beers and I opted for the Saison, which was nice if not a little too heavy for the style. And my thoughts of eating “healthy” were perished when I learned that if I ordered the daily special I’d get a wild boar burger with fried pancetta.

Next stop after a 30-40 minute drive found us in O’Fallon, MO, home of O’Fallon Brewery, founded by husband-and-wife Tony and Fran Caradonna in 2004. While they make exotic seasonals such as a Peach Wheat beer and a Chocolate Cherry wheat beer, they just earned a silver medal at this year’s Great American Beer Fest for their Pro-Am Alright Already Amber Ale concocted by local homebrewer Jim Yaeger. (I wish I didn’t have to add “no relation.”) But the beer that put them on my mental map is Smoke, a smoked porter. Unlike chocolate cherry beers, beers made with smoked malts—Rauchbiers—is a traditional style rooted in Bamburg, Germany. Smoke is only available in eight states in the Midwest. Even rarer, if you can track it down, is their bourbon-aged Smoke. It’s among my favorite beers of all time.

Our final stop called for dinner and a pint at The Stable, a brewpub tucked into the actual former stables of the Lemp Brewery, once larger than that other brewery that made St. Louis famous, which closed before—not during—Prohibition. As for their beer, all I’ll say is that they offer some great guest beers on tap, which I’d recommend.

Bidding each other adieu, Bryce headed to his sister’s who lived nearby to crash for the night before going to a beer fest the next day with several local craft breweries, which I had to miss on account of driving to Cincinnati.

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© 2009 by Brian Yaeger