St. Louis: The Beer II

One of my favorite activities associated with these megabreweries is following up my visit to them with a visit to a local brewery. In St. Louis, this means Schlafly. A few years back in repayment for something or other a friend of mine brought me a six pack of Schlafly and it was decent beer, I thought, and definitely better than Bud. So I got the address off the internetz and off we went. Girlfriend and I wound up at the Schlafly brewpub which, as we found out, is not the facility that you can take a tour of. Nevertheless we chitchatted about this and that and knocked back a few.I had their IPA and the dry-hopped APA. Both excellent beers although my preference is for the crisper and more aromatic American Pale. Girlfriend had the Pilsner which, if I can judge from just my one sip, was a phenomenal recreation of they way Pilsner Urquell is supposed to taste. The atmosphere was laid back-chic and the beer was great so I was even more excited to get over to the Bottleworks to take the tour, sample the free beer, and see how they bottle it! (What is it with the bottling part that so damned fascinating?) Unfortunately we had timed our arrival at the Schlafly pub for the start of the last tour, so the chance of making it to the bottleworks was -1.

So the next day, I got the address for the brewery and looked at the map available on their website. I did not googlemap it. Woe and alack!

The odyssey from the hotel to the Schlafly Bottleworks was painful, humorous, frustrating, intriguing, but mostly it was just long–real long. The map said it was real easy to get to; the nice lady on the phone at the Bottleworks whom I called after our first 30 minutes not finding the joint told me it was very easy; the lady at the 7-11 we had to ask for directions 20 or 30 minutes after that told us it was very easy to find, and so did the two very nice ladies at the Schnucks grocery store we stopped in for directions (and a bathroom break) 20 minutes after that.

Each one accompanied their “very easy” comment with a series of directions that, when taken in toto, would have to be considered the urban equivalent of rural America-backroads directions. She said:

“It’s very easy. Let me just draw you map.”

She proceeded to start drawing lines on the back of a receipt. Then there are more lines, then more lines, then more linesShe ended up sketching a Jackson Pollack before wadding it up, saying:

“This is too confusing. Let me just tell you what to do. It’s very easy. Just go out here: this is Arsenal. Take a left on Arsenal and take a left at the light. The road kind of curves around and then you will come to the stop sign. I think it’s the first one, but it might be the second. You’ll know which one because the road kind of crosses a little creek and runs into the firehouse. Well, you want take a right and then a left real quick…because you’re really not turning left, you’re trying to go straight but the road it kind…it turns…y’know? Ok..well, you know what?… Now that I say it out loud, it’s probably easier to take Kingshighway.

“OK. Take a left here on Arsenal and take a left on Kingshighway. You’re going to go over the expensive bridge and take a left on (some road) and take that down into Edgewood. Do you know where that is? (I told her I didn’t.) Well it’s just down there. And you’re going to go past a fly by night car dealership and you’re going to see a really crappy delivery pizza joint on the left. The Bottleworks is behind the pizza joint. If you see the Sav-A-Lot, you’ve gone too far, but that might be a good thing because if you just turn around right there, you’ll see the Bottleworks.”

This is the short version. Meanwhile, in my head, I’m thinking about how ridiculous all this is, and I’m wondering why she whispered, “fly by night.” Is it code for something? It was an especially curious tonal shift in light of the fact that as we went down into Edgewood it was basically nothing but crappy car dealerships.

However, it turns out that the Bottleworks is “behind” a Pantera Pizza. What kind of “bottleworks” is so tiny that it’s behind a crappy little pizza joint? Well, it turns out that by “behind” she meant “on the road a block behind the pizza joint.” Neat, huh? It’s very easy.

What I didn’t know, and what I learned later, is the road that the Schlafly Bottleworks is on is a magic road in St. Louis called Southwest which starts off at Kingshighway and goes, fittingly, southwest from there. It cuts through an area famous as an Italian immigrant stronghold called The Hill then vanishes under an assumed name, goes directly west for about a block and then, contrary to all expectations shoots up toward the northwest. It is on this northwestern (or southeastern) portion of this Jonathan Livingston Seagull of roads where resides the Bottleworks.

Nevertheless, we made it. And I had many beers: I had both the ESB and the Scotch Ale while waiting for the tour to start. (I also had the goat cheese dip with curry-soaked flatbread which was freaking amazing). After the tour I sampled the No. 15, the Oatmeal Stout and the Extra Irish Stout. I also a sample a sample of my girlfriend’s Hefeweizen. All-in-all great beers, superb models of their styles but my vote for best beer on the list is the ESB which was shockingly complex, bright, effervescent. It was a real pleasure. Girlfriend like the hefe, proclaiming it the best one she’s ever had. In my mind it didn’t quite reach the level of the King Rudy brewed locally at Greenwood’s Oaken Barrel.