St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival 2008

This past weekend I went to the St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival (well, in St. Louis, obviously). There were 8 breweries (Alandale Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch, Schlafly, GriesedieckBros. Brewing, Augusta Brewing Co., O'Fallon Brewery, Square One Brewery, and Morgan Street Brewery), with over 60 beers to sample. Unfortunately, I was only able to try about half of the beers. I'm only disappointed that I was not able to sample beers from Alandale, Square One, or Griesedieck (in all fairness, Griesedieck only had 1 beer to sample). One interesting thing about the festival is that the brewers did not give the "brand name" of their beers, only the brewer and the style. That's why I made fun of my wife, since the first beer she "tried" was A-B's "American Light Lager" (Bud Light).

I did enjoy the Schlafly beers alot, in particular the Bavarian Style Dark Wheat (which my friend who went with us tells me is their "#15") and their Kolsch (for a winter day, I'd go for the Schwarzbier). I only tried two of Morgan Street's beers, and one was good (the Dusseldorf Altbier) and one was terrible (Vienna Lager). Although each brewer brewed a St. Louis Dark Lager (with the same ingredients) and I have to say that my favorite there was Anheuser-Busch's version. In the Witbier/Wheat Beer category, I enjoyed Schlafly's (#15) and Augusta's Blegian Witbier (A-B's version was a little too lemon-orangy for me, and O'Fallon's was a little bland). In the "alternative" (fruit beer) category, I still like Schlafly's Pumpkin Beer. Although the version they had at the festival seemed to have more spices than the one i had at "The Tap Room" (their restaurant) last October. As far as "hoppy beers" I'd have to go with O'Fallon's American IPA (I think it's their "3-Day IPA") which kicked in a minute or two after I drank it - followed closely by Augusta's American IPA which had a little bit of grassy taste. The surprise of the day for me was A-B's Sorghum Beer. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't bad - quite barleyey. Overall, if I had to choose a "Best of Show" I'd have to go with Augusta's German Pilsner... but only because it was a Pilsner kind of day. Each beer was pretty good on it's own and it was a pretty good day... and props to the staff at the festival for handing out huge soft pretzels and bottles of water as we left. I hope we'll be able to go again next year.