When we arrived at St. Louis I figured my beer options would be slim.  After all, we were in the land of Anheuser-Busch.  I assumed all we’d find were the ubiquitous red bottles. I was dead wrong.

Just before we pulled into the city of Westward Expansion, I finished reading Maureen Ogle’s Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer.  The book was a thorough and extremely informative trip through the American beer industry from the late 19th century to the modern age.  Although the history speaks about many important breweries, there is only one that was there from the beginning—Anheuser-Busch.

Now let’s get this straight:  I am not a fan of Bud.  The vast majority of their products are, in my opinion, inferior and geared towards profit rather than quality.  Despite this, the company must be lauded for being so damn consistent and putting out a beer that, although it is bland, has never strayed in flavor profile or character.

For better or worse, AB has played an integral role in shaping the beer industry in this country.  Because of this, I felt it was necessary for me to take a tour of their facility while in St. Louis. 

To start with, AB is gigantic.  I obviously knew the place was huge, but until I actually saw the factory it was hard to understand its vast size. 

That being said, it is a factory and not a brewery.  AB produces more beer in a year than most small breweries will produce in their entire lifespan.  In 2008, AB produced 102 million cases.  To put that into perspective, the Kentucky Ale Brewery produced 2,500 cases last year. 

The AB tour was full of the obvious company propaganda and bad jokes.  Catering towards a crowd of lifelong Bud drinkers, the tour does little more than pummel you over the head with mind-numbing statistics and state-of-the-art machinery.  There is an interesting bit of history sprinkled throughout but from a beer lover’s point-of-view, the spiel leaves a lot to be desired.

After my first free sample of freezing cold Bud—served much colder than any beer I’ve ever had—I skipped the second sample and headed to my hotel.  I resigned myself to a few days of boring beer until I discovered a local beer called Schlafly’s. 

A trip to the Schlafly’s brewpub and a sampling of twelve fine brews later I slept easy.  Despite the giant shadow of the beer behemoth, Schlafly’s and several other small brewpubs provided the citizens of Missouri with delicious alternatives to the “King of Beers.” 

Even at the birthplace of Bud, a few devout individuals dedicated to providing good beer.  If that isn’t a good reason to hoist a frothy mug in the air and cheers to delicious, bubbly brews than I don’t know what is.