Midwest Belgian Beer Fest
The folks at Perennial Artisan Ales are throwing a Belgian party on 7/28 and you're invited! Sure, it's in St. Louis, and it's a bit of a drive but what you might not realize is St. Louis isn't as bad as it used to be… Blasphemy, I know, but bear with me. You see, not every city in the Midwest has a brewery landscape as stagnant as Kansas City's. The St. Louis area has about a dozen more breweries now than it had back in 2010 when Kansas City's most recent brewery opened. Hey, remember Doodle Brewing Company? Me neither.
I've been to St. Louis a half dozen times in the past year and each time I go back there's a new tasting room open. It's impressive to see the variety and quality of new beers you can get all over the city. What's even better is that I have yet to be the victim of violent gun crime... St. Louis really has turned a corner, you guys. My favorite spots in St. Louis now are Perennial and Civil Life. Perennial makes really interesting beers like their 13% sour Funky Quad, Peace Offering brewed with maple roasted squash and Black Walnut Dunkel. Civil Life, on the other hand, makes some of the best "boring beer" I've ever had. Just about everything Civil Life brews is under 5.5% ABV, which seems to make their delicious beer even more intriguing, and their tasting room was imported all the way from the 1890s. St. Louis is an easy weekend get away, and now that they have more local craft beer than you can drunkenly shake a stick at, there's no reason not to consider it for your next beer weekend. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the Belgian fest but I will be St. Louis the week before for Schafly's annual Mussel Mania weekend, which is another event I highly recommend driving out for.
So, here's the deal: Perennial is hosting 25 breweries at their brewery on the 28th and tickets are $35. Most of the new St. Louis brewers will be pouring beers but so will Half Acre and Haymarket from Chicago, along with both of the Goose Islands (yup, both of them). Here's the list of participating breweries:
Perennial Artisan Ales
Avery
Buffalo
Boulevard
Brugge
Cathedral Square
Charleville
Crown Valley
Exit 6
4 Hands
Free State
Goose Island
Goose Island-Clybourn
Great Divide
Green Flash
Half Acre
Haymarket
Kirkwood Station
Morgan Street
Nebraska
New Belgium
Revolution
Schlafly
Scratch
Six Row
2nd Shift
Square One
Stone
Tallgrass
Urban Chestnut
West Mountain
Tickets can be found online here:
The Facebook event page can be found here:
