Beer Drinking Trip To St. Louis
Last summer in August, a group of us traveled to Saint Louis, Missouri, on a “beer adventure”. The purpose of this trip was to see some sights, eat good food, and drink good beer. I was fortunate to have three good friends with me: friends Scott and Eric from Tennessee, and my good buddy Ron from Vermont. We were only there for a few days, and we definitely packed a lot into those days. We stayed at an Airbnb (a small 4-bedroom house in a central location), Ubered everywhere that we wouldn’t walk to, and drank a LOT of beer during those few days. One of the smartest decisions that we made on the first day was NOT buying any beer for the house. I think that helped us recover sufficiently from one day’s adventures, ensuring a good night’s sleep, and be ready to begin the next day’s adventures. Our weather was good the entire time, and evenings were spent relaxing outside on a patio before crashing for the night.
Our AirBnB
Our first day began with our flights to get to Saint Louis. Scott and Eric were flying from Knoxville, TN, while Ron and I flew from Burlington, VT. The STL airport is a good size with several terminals for the various airlines. Rather than trying to find each other in this large facility, we decided that we would meet at one of the Schlafly Beer Brewpubs… called the “Bottleworks”, which is the original location of Schlafly in Saint Louis (founded in 1991). The brewpub was approximately halfway between the STL airport and where our Airbnb was located. Scott and Eric had a later flight, so we knew that there would be some downtime as we waited for their arrival… about two beers worth, as it turned out. Ron and I visited this same brewery on our last day, as Scott and Eric would be leaving a couple of hours before Ron and me.
One of the days we were in STL, we visited the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. The one in STL is the original brewery of AB, and it is huge, nearly 180 acres! Located on the Mississippi River waterfront and near the STL rail yards, it’s in an ideal location for receiving incoming supplies and shipping our packaged beer of various types. There is an entire building dedicated to visitors to this facility. In the brewpub, you can order from a selection of more than a dozen A-B beers. Beers, as well as pub-style food, are free, but limited in the quantity you can consume each day. This brewery bottles quite a few of the A-B corporate beers at this location. The largest percentage of the volume of beer produced here is for Bud Light in both bottles and cans. On any given day, this brewery packages 12-16 million units of beer in those 24 hours. The brewery operates nearly 24/7 and only shuts down for a few holidays each year. Unexpected breakdowns do occur. While we were touring a bottling line, one of four in use, a portion of the line was not operating, and technicians were working furiously to fix whatever the problem was. It was not working before we left to continue our tour. The video shown below (Turn on your sound!) was taken before the breakdown, and you can see how fast things are moving. They gave us earplugs to wear while we were in the bottling area, due to the high noise level. With four of these lines running nearly 24/7, it’s easy to see how they can attain the 12-16 million unit volume for this facility.
Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour
Anheuser-Busch Bottling Line Video
(Turn Up Sound!)
We visited quite a few breweries while we were in STL. I will be doing separate reviews of each brewery we visited under “Beer Places”, which you can find elsewhere on my site. I will simply post some of the pictures that I took during these STL brewery visits. Included are more pictures from our time at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.
We also had dinner at two very fancy and excellent Italian restaurants while we were there. The area of St. Louis where our AirBnB is was called “Little Italy” by “the Locals”. The city, however, was serious about that label, as there were signs along the streets around the Airbnb indicating that you were in their Little Italy. I did find the crosswalks painted in the colors of the Italian flag interesting, but a little odd.
This was the first trip for our “gang of four”, but I don’t think that it’ll be the last, as we had a great time. There are still many breweries in STL that we did not make it to because of time, so it might be worth a trip back, someday, but probably not right away. We have other beer places to visit, which we’ve talked about some already. No firm plans and no dates have been set yet, but we are all hoping that we don’t have to wait too long to get together again… and again! Cheers!!
STL Brewery Montage
Hoppy says… “Great Trip!”
