Notes From the First Annual St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival

This past weekend, May 10-12, 2007, marked the first of what is presumably an annual beer festival – the St. Louis Brewers’ Heritage Festival. The event was designed as a celebration of both the history of beer in St. Louis and its current state.

This history is a relatively short one. Evidence of the first St. Louis brewery only dates to 1809. But this was a fortuitous time to get into the business of beer. This century produced the discovery of yeast, lifting fermentation from a mysterious event to a scientifically measurable process. The 1800’s also saw the invention of mechanized refrigeration, pasteurization, and widely available glass drink ware. Not coincidentally brilliant, clear beers such as pale ale and Pilsner were created at the same time. Their beauty in the glass and their subtler flavors gave beer, especially in America, the ability to appeal to a much wider audience. Pilsner, in particular, would inspire the magnificently bland American lager, a style that dominates the marketplace today.

It was during this exciting century of brewing innovation that St. Louis brewers were building and expanding their breweries. Though Anheuser-Busch would eventually become the dominant St. Louis beer maker, in the beginning the roster of brewers in this city included Lemp, Griesedieck, Stifel, and Winkelmeyer. In time every one of them would be squeezed out of the market as AB grew to become the nation’s biggest beer maker.

But, emblematic of the recent national rediscovery of more flavorful ales and lagers that look beyond the near watery nature of American lager, small craft brewers have begun taking back some of the market share in and around St. Louis. Most significant of these is Tom Schlafly. In December 1991 he established Schlafly Beer which has grown into a beloved St. Louis institution. Other more recent additions to the list of local beer makers include Alandale Brewing Company, Augusta Brewing Co., Morgan Street Brewery, O’Fallon Brewery, and Square One Brewery.

Understanding that craft beer is here to stay Anheuser-Busch launched Here’s to Beer in 2006. The campaign’s aim is to build on the growing interest in the wider variety of beers in the marketplace. It is out of this campaign that the Heritage Festival was born.