St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival

Earlier this summer, Ryan and I attended the St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival.  This festival was started to not only honor the history of brewing in St. Louis but to also showcase the talent of the area’s brewers.  The festival is held in Forest Park.  This year’s festival featured three different sessions and attracted 20,000 people.  

The history of brewing in St. Louis is nearly as old as the city itself.  The festival celebrates the rich brewing tradition of our city and our era by inviting and featuring over 60 different styles/varieties of beer...all produced by our very own local St. Louis brewers.  We were able to taste beer from 14 local breweries and a number of area homebrewers.

All attendees receive a commemorative tasting glass, unlimited samples of beer, free live music, educational information from local brewmasters and free parking.  Food is available for purchase from St. Louis Originals restaurants like Companion, Harvest, Sqwire's, Vin de Set and LoRusso's. 

Booths were set up out front that provided general information on the beer and the history of brewing in our area.

Giant tents were set up to shelter people from the elements and provide some much needed World Cup action on TV.  The overhead banners represented every brewer at the festival.

It was a steaming hot day, but the kegs of beer were kept ice cold.

My first beer was a little heavier than I expected, but it was delicious...kind of chocolaty.

Ryan loves the dark beers.  He was in heaven.

We crossed that one off our list.

One down, 59+ more to go! 

We made our way over to the home brew section.

Smokin' Blonde?

Hell yeah, give me two of those!

And what could be better than an ice cold beer on a hot day?

An ice cold beer and a Companion pretzel!

Is that not the prettiest pretzel you've ever seen?

Would you believe me if I told you it tastes even better than it looks?

Would it help if I stuffed my face with pretzel?

I thought so.

Companion's portable pretzel wagon was a huge hit.

But we had to make it over to the stand to say hi to Price...hi Price!

After a few hours, clouds covered the sky and a cool breeze blew in.

We headed outside to check out the info.

Finally, we made our way over to a table to finish our last beer and digest all that pretzel.

I think we tried about 20 beers each.

I was so full by the end of the day that I couldn't even eat dinner. 

Beer is filling.

I should be sufficiently deflated just in time for next year's Heritage Festival.