My friend Brad is in town for the weekend. He lives in O'Fallon, outside of St. Louis, Missouri; and on this return trip, he brought me a selection of craft beers from St. Louis. Although he's the one who introduced me to Budweiser Chelada, he's not much of a fan of Anheuser-Busch. He has always been more of a Jack Daniel's guy, but over the last year or so, he's begun sampling a wide variety of craft beers - which he tells me is expensive in his area because of the "AB laws" and sin taxes making everything so pricey. He said that the beers he gave me were around $3/bottle, which I'll agree is kind of expensive. Not that I wouldn't pay it, but it definately makes it more difficult to sample good beer if that's the price you're paying at the liquor store for a 12 oz bottle.
The beers are from three breweries - O'Fallon Brewery (O'Fallon, MO), Schlafly brand beer from The Saint Louis Brewery, Inc. (St. Louis, MO) and Boulevard Brewing Co. (Kansas City, MO). Okay, so one of the breweries isn't a St. Lou brew, but he made a point of bringing me all Missouri beers.
He said that he prefers Boulevard to Schlafly, but he didn't tell me where he ranks O'Fallon except to say that (for him) O'Fallon Gold, a golden ale, tastes a lot like Schlitz. On the other hand, he said that the Boulevard wheat is "pretty Damn good." Fortunately, he's leaving me to make my own decisions, and not only has he given me a big selection, he made sure it had plenty of IPA, porter and stout beers to cater to my personal preferences.
I can't wait to get started!
