St. Louis Breweries

Charleville Brewing Company Opens First St. Louis Location

Charleville Brewing Company Opens First St. Louis Location

Yeah, we are the Brick City. We are also becoming the Beer City of the Midwest. The history is certainly there, but the influx of microbreweries since Schlafly broke the mold in 1991 has been amazing to witness.

1991, the year STL malt broke!

Usually we look back at our past and pine for the good old days (World's Fair and Riverboats, I'm looking at you). Fact is, when it comes to beer, the past was indeed great...but the present and future is better. 

St. Louis' beer scene is on the rise and getting more and more diverse. I thought we could only sustain maybe five breweries in St. Louis (a city of ~310,000). Boy was I wrong. 

Brew City - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

Continuing on with my favorite 2016 developments in St. Louis, the local beer scene in the city just seems to get bigger and better.

2016 was no exception with the addition of one more brewery and announcements for a couple others in the city. 

2nd Shift Brewing

may be familiar to some, they have been making beer for some time in New Haven, MO about an hour drive from St. Louis.

They set up shop in the Hill Neighborhood at 1601 Sublette Avenue just south of Manchester.  I haven't visited yet, or tried their beer, but I can't wait.

Another brewery,

Rockwell Beer Company

, will set up shop in the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood at 1320 South Vandeventer Avenue and they hope to be open in Spring, 2017.

Another brewery,

Center Ice Brewery

will be a hockey-themed brewery.

The tasting room will be constructed from the Old Arena/Checkerdome

! they will be in the beautiful Dinks Parish Laundry Building just west of Pappy's and Southern on Olive in

the Midtown Neighborhood

. Perfect place for all those 

hosers

to converge for a Blues game. On my visit, work was underway on the facade of the building:

Then, work continued on 

Earthbound Beer

's renovation of the Cherokee Brewery, complete with caves on Cherokee Street. Read all about it

HERE

.

Good news abounds. 

I recently attended a brewery tour at Schlafly Tap Room and I gained an appreciation for their vitally important role in changing the laws around brewing in Missouri and St. Louis. Without them fighting the legal fights to open up brewing to smaller breweries, we would still be in ABI land alone. They really played such an important role to open things up here.

Oh, and scenes from Escape From New York were filmed in the building that is now the Taproom on Locust. There is an homage to Snake Plissken on their mural:

So with the addition of 2nd Shift and Rockwell, we will have the following breweries right here in St. Louis:

2nd Shift

4 Hands

Anheuser-Busch InBev

Alpha Brewery

Center Ice

Civil Life

Earthbound

Heavy Riff

Morgan Street 

Perennial

Rockwell

Schlafly

Square One

Urban Chestnut

Pappos is brewing their beer for their operations at the Midtown restaurant location as well.

Heck, I'm probably missing a few.

This is something we should really talk up.

In fact, that is exactly what local filmmaker Bill Streeter is doing with the recent completion of St. Louis Brews - The Story of Brewing in the Gateway City

. I can wait to see this movie:

There is no shortage of good beer and guzzling beer in St. Louis. 2016 was a good year and 2017 should be even better.

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