The many faces of Faust.

Photo credit: Linked article in RFT

Thanks to a Twitter exchange between Stan Hieronymus and Mitch Steele, I was made aware of this excellent article about Faust -- a St. Louis restaurateur and lager of olden times, and either of two Anheuser-Busch (now AB InBev) revivals of the beer -- not of the man, even if AB InBev is the Great Satan and the original Faust made a pact with the devil.

Here's the link, and permit me to say that the the rooftop beer garden of Faust's was badass.

Anheuser-Busch Resurrects Faust, the 130-Year-Old Beer Named for a St. Louis Legend, By Nancy Stiles (Riverfront Times)

... Apparently, even non-St. Louisans are instinctively drawn to the man on the postcard: Anthony (or Tony) Faust, Oyster King. Faust was a restaurateur, not a brewer, but he, the Anheuser-Busch family and the history of St. Louis itself became inextricably linked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1884, Adolphus Busch himself brewed a beer named Faust Pale Lager after his favorite drinking buddy. For many years, it existed only in the documentation in A-B's massive archives.

Mitch Steele was at AB in 1998, when Faust was brought back the first time. I've always enjoyed telling this story (below), most recently last year prior to the beer writing symposium at the University of Kentucky. Mitch was to have been a speaker along with Stan and me, but couldn't make it. Maybe he'll be nearby next year, when Stone opens Gravity Head 2016.

I'm no fan of what AB has become, and yet 130 years might as well be the age of the pyramids. I'd try the latest revived Faust. Wouldn't pay for it, because I don't want my money being recycled to fight House Bill 168 in Kentucky.

But if you gave me one for free ...

Mitch Steele at Rich O’s in 1998 – Part One

 ... One of the American Originals series was Faust, the purported recreation of a 19th-century golden lager, named for a St. Louis restaurateur, and brewed as a house brand for him by pre-1900 AB. I ordered four kegs of Faust from the puzzled wholesaler, yanked the Budweiser, scattered P-O-S materials around the pizzeria, and instructed our employees to pitch the new beer as an AB product just like regular Budweiser, and better than regular Budweiser; furthermore, we were prepared to sell Faust at the very same price point as regular Budweiser even though the cost per keg was higher.

As it turned out, turkeys still couldn’t fly.

Sales of bottled Bud promptly skyrocketed. It took more than a month to sell the first two kegs of Faust, and by the time the third was ready for tapping, the “sell-by” dates already had expired. More confused than ever, the wholesaler bought back the unused kegs.

Brand-loyal Budweiser drinkers wouldn’t touch Faust, even at the same price point, precisely because it wasn’t their totemic Budweiser. Conversely, although it was a good product, and far more interesting a lager than the norm, those aficionados hanging out at Rich O’s wouldn’t drink it, either, because it was suspiciously inexpensive — and emanated from the hated multinational monolith.

(Part Two)

Schlafly will open Gravity Head 2014 with a tap takeover.

Schlafly will open Gravity Head 2014 with a tap takeover, joining ...

2011 Three Floyds
2012 New Holland
2013 Sun King
2014 Schlafly

 ... by enjoying pole position.

Ever since former NABC brewer Jared Williamson took Horace Greeley’s advice and went west (young man) to St. Louis, I’ve been toying with the idea of Schlafly leading off Gravity Head at some point. Why not next year? After conferring with Jared, Stephen Hale and Scott Shreffler, it was decided to make 2014 the time.

One reason I like to select a Gravity Head opening partner this far in advance is that it gives them time to think about it, and to have some fun while doing so. I have this feeling that much fun will be had.

Following is an overview from NABC's journey to St. Louis almost five years ago. It was on this trip that Jared met Kelsey, and began his trajectory toward employment at Schlafly. It’s the last time I’ve been to St. Louis, an unfathomable omission that needs to be rectified prior to Gravity Head in 2014.

---

April 22, 2008

That weekend seminar at Schlafly.

Oddly, the thing I'll remember most about our recent (April 11-13) visit to St. Louis was whitecaps on corn and soybean fields.

In short, I'd completely forgotten how many lakes there are just across the Indiana border in Illinois … except that they aren't lakes at all. They're temporarily flooded fields. Driving straight into the weather, with the wind blowing hard to the east, waves of surfer dimension could be seen rippling beneath the grain silos.

Speaking of grain, the occasion for the trip was the Schlafly craft brewery's annual "Repeal of Prohibition" party, held outside in the parking lot of the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood, a St. Louis neighborhood. In biting 35-degree weather, 1,200 people showed up to sample the 30-odd beers and drink away the afternoon. Perhaps a dozen of the male revelers wore kilts. Countless kegs from the hosts and four visiting "guests of honor" Indiana breweries were floated. All in all, it was a wonderful time and a first-class performance by Schlafly.

Before and after the event itself, we were able to tour both of Schlafly's facilities and take notes. Of special significance to me was the chance to meet founder Tom Schlafly. We talked about beer only briefly before going into baseball; in fact, he was wearing a replica St. Louis Browns cap on Saturday, which I thought was suitably oblique (note that the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore in 1954 or thereabouts, and became the Orioles).

My biggest insight?

At the end of the day, Schlafly isn't all that different from my own NABC other than being far larger. Its size came about over a long period of time. Schlafly may appear to be a sleek corporate machine, but it most decidedly is not that simple, because just like at NABC, a handful of owners/lifers and a cadre of efficient team members combine to do more work than they should and keep the train rolling.

That's what happens when you decide to do it yourself, and the frustrations are many. Knowing that being in business for yourself has rendered you unemployable elsewhere … priceless.