http://www.stltoday.com/entertainmen...c11aed184.html
By Evan S. Benn
ebenn@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8348
Schlafly co-founder and CEO Dan Kopman revealed plans to build a Chicago brewpub and more in a live chat with Post-Dispatch readers this month. Here are some highlights from the chat:
Can you tell me if the St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival will be held again (this) summer? If so, where and when? The Board of the St. Louis Brewers Guild along with a representative from Anheuser-Busch met with the new Director for the Guild, Patrick Hughes. ... I can confirm that it is the intention of the Guild to continue the Brewers Heritage Festival. There are some great ideas to improve the experience for consumers. We are working on bringing the home-brewer beers back to the Festival. And lastly, the Festival is scheduled for Father's Day weekend, June 14 and 15. Details to follow.
Living in southeast Kansas/southwest Missouri, it is nearly impossible to get your special-release beers. When will we see expanded distribution in this area? We will continue to expand our production of these beers in 2013, splitting the series into two, Special Release — Extra Stout, Belgian Golden Ale, Pumpkin Ale and Christmas Ale — and Special Release IPAs: Tasmanian, American and English-style Export IPA. We will make sure that Major Brands, our wholesaler in Missouri, and Standard Beverage in Kansas work to increase distribution of these beers in your area.
Knowing that Schlafly is close to or at capacity, what plans are in place for expansion? We are almost at capacity for our two breweries in St. Louis at 50,000 barrels per year. We are now looking for the land that would be needed for a new production brewery in St. Louis.
In the long term, a much larger brewery could need as much as 40 or 50 acres. We very much want to avoid building a third brewery and find down the road that we do not have enough land.
With such a challenging search but a willingness to take on post-industrial urban land we are allowing five years from the start (of) the search to any production coming from a new brewery in St. Louis.
In order to continue to meet growing demand we have created partnerships with three breweries outside of St. Louis to brew and package more beer.
In 2012 we have brewed about 4,000 barrels of draft Pale Ale at the new Blackstone Brewery in Nashville. Their head brewer, Dave Miller, was our first head brewer, and therefore he is very familiar with Schlafly Pale Ale. We will continue to brew this quantity of Pale Ale in Nashville in 2013.
We have a similar agreement with the new Backpocket Brewery in Iowa City. We will be brewing draft Summer Lager and Oktoberfest there in 2013.
Lastly we have an agreement with Stevens Point Brewery to produce some of our beers in cans. The combination of these partnerships should allow Schlafly Beer to meet increased demand over the next five years.
Any thoughts on brewing a "sour" beer? We have started a sour beer program at the Tap Room in an area of the cellar that is separate from other fermentation areas. We have beers currently in barrels that have been inoculated with various strains of wild yeast and bacteria.
We hope to have some of these beers available at the Tap Room only in 2013.
We are years away from bottling any sour beers produced with wild yeast or bacteria.
Brewers spent a few centuries trying to keep these little critters out of their beers so if we move to bottle these we want to ensure that there is no chance of cross contamination with other beers.
Is there any truth to the rumor that you are canning AIPA? No.
In 2013 we will be expanding our portfolio of beers in cans. In addition to Summer Lager and Hefeweizen, we will be introducing a new series of "canned sessions" — beers in 12-ounce cans in six-packs that will all be 5 percent ABV or less.
This will begin with two beers that we have produced as draft beers for a number of years: a session IPA based on the best of two recipes that we have produced, one that was know in D.C. as House in Session Ale and the other an Amarillo IPA that was on tap at Schlafly Bottleworks.
And (coming to cans is) American Brown Ale that we have brewed for a number of years at the Tap Room and is on draft at select accounts.
Then in the fall of 2013 we will introduce a seasonal beer in cans as well. [Kopman later said the first seasonal would be Schwarzbier.]
What's up with Chicago? At the moment we do not sell beer in Chicago. Schlafly Beer is available in south and central Illinois.
We are exploring the possibility of opening a small brewhouse, pub and store in Chicago. We are not close to making this a reality, but it is a way in which we believe we could introduce Schlafly Beer to Chicago.
We will keep you posted.
Is the long-term goal for Schlafly to be an international brand, or do you guys want to keep being regional? Our goal in 1991 was to be a local brewer. In 2005 we decided that Schlafly Beer can be relevant in a region that extends 300 miles from St. Louis.
Today we also send Schlafly Beer to the D.C. metro area, and in 2013 we will send some beer to the New York/New Jersey metro area.
I still believe that local beers make towns and cities unique and that this is one of the most positive aspects of the growth of American craft beers.
Does Schlafly employ any female brewers? We do and have had female brewers on our production staff.
One of our first brewers was Sara Hale, wife of Tap Room head brewer Stephen Hale. Claire Huelsmann was on our brewing staff in the 1990s and participated in the brewing of last year's anniversary beer, Hop Toddy. Today, Emily Parker, a graduate of the fermentation science program at UC-Davis is on our quality staff at Schlafly Bottleworks.
What breweries are coming to the Repeal of Prohibition festival (April 6)? Breweries from Iowa, led by our partner in Iowa City, Backpocket. We are really looking forward to this, our 10th anniversary at Schlafly Bottleworks.
Name one of your favorite St. Louis-produced, non-Schlafly beers. As a former brewer at Young's Brewery in London, I am a fan of Civil Life Bitter that I understand is now going to be known as Civil Life English Pale Ale.
We had the same discussion in early 1991 — should we call the beer Schlafly Bitter or Schlafly Pale Ale? I guess we are not yet there on the term bitter. Maybe one day.
Are awards at the front of your mind when formulating? Sales? Trends? Where do you start with creating a new brew? When I worked at Young's, we entered lots of competitions for awards. It was great for the brewers when we won an award, but it did not seem to produce much more impact in the market.
Over the years (at Schlafly) we have not entered many festival competitions. We did enter the World Beer Cup a few years ago and won a gold medal for our Kolsch.
We entered the Great American Beer Festival this year for the first time in over a decade. We did not win any medals.
We will likely enter both the World Beer Cup and GABF in the future, but this is not a priority and we do not think about awards when we are working on new beer styles or working on improving existing styles.
Evan S. Benn (@EvanBenn) is the food critic and beer columnist for the Post-Dispatch.
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