If you said yes — perfect! If you said no…that’s fine, too.
Alpha Brewing in the Tower Grove (ish?) area is worth a visit no matter your beer preference. They are known for their sours — the Delphian is amazing, and the Guava Brett will pucker even the most sour-lover’s taste buds — but they’ve got several great IPA, Stout, and Blonde Ale options as well. And some super-fun names. You better believe I tried the Hop, Lock & Drop It, the Troll Wheatwine, and the Fyler Flyer (which gets harder — or easier? — to order the more you have!).
I also really like that they offer a range of pours, so you can create your own flight — and/or just enjoy a *very* small glass of your favorite if you happen to be a lightweight like me. They have your normal-sized pours as well, of course, but I like that I have options, especially if day-drinking.
Alpha also offers live music shows on Thursdays and Saturdays. Their food looked pretty good, though we did not partake — they even have a Vegan night for the non-meat-eaters out there.
Their website claims “It’s not for everyone” but seriously, I think it’s my favorite local brewery. It’s tucked back in a neighborhood near Grand Ave, just out of the way enough to be a hidden gem while close enough to merit an easy trip.
Do you know that feeling when you first meet someone who you just get? You love spending time together and getting to know more about them, and you just freaking adore them? Before you know it, your life is kind of taken over by this person. At first, that’s wonderful — the more of them, the better. But then it starts to wear on you, and you see their quirks for the flaws they are, and you want to roll your eyes every time they open their mouth and you start to feel like you if you have to hear one more time about how they will do anything to find their brother you will stab yourself in the freaking eye with a pen…
Sigh.
So that’s where I’m at in my edits…
I know my story is good. When I first finished, I daydreamed about my characters as if they belonged to some other book by some other author. I fell asleep writing my own fan-fiction, sending minor characters off on adventures that would never fit into the novel (but could find their way into a blog post eventually).
After three-plus read-throughs (and several scene rewrites), I am kind of sick of looking at this story. I have to keep reminding myself it is good. That it has the potential to find its way onto a bookstore shelf. Because right now, it feels like trash. Some of the pages of my manuscript look like a rainbow at best — a rotting, bloody corpse at worst — the black words crossed-through in red and scribbled-over in blue and annotated in green. I’ve reached a point where I’m not even sure my edits are constructive — what if I reduce all the magic to grammatical masterpieces and formulaic sentence structure?
So I’m taking a break. A week off from Solvi and her quest to reunite her brother with their family. A week where I will over-indulge in the Bachelor in Paradise finale, obsess over fantasy football, and lose myself in someone else’s fictional world. I have a whole list of books on Amazon waiting to be experienced — so hopefully I’ll be able to toss up another book review or two on here soon.
And when I get back to her, hopefully Solvi will be a sympathetic, relatable character once again.
Modern Brewery is another brewery in a warehouse space, but smaller than 2nd Shift. The bartenders were friendly enough, but they were more engaged with regular customers when we visited last fall (which is understandable), so we just grabbed a table near the entrance to enjoy the late autumn breeze (okay, it was too chilly but neither of us wanted to admit it to the other).
We tried the Citropolis IPA and Citropolite (slightly less-hopped). They were fine, but not our favorites.
Since visiting, I’ve ventured into the world of hops and pale ales. That in itself makes me want to revisit Modern. Add to it the fact that the weather is warming up, and I know their space is open and breezy, and this could be a great spot to enjoy this summer!
Yesterday I took the VIP tour at Schlafly’s Tap Room — my husband got us tickets through the Beer and Wine Club at his grad school and it includes free tastings so YES PLEASE — and it was awesome.
Firstly, I’ve been to the Tap Room one other time (Stout and Oyster Festival), but I didn’t realize just how big the place is. There is a LOT of seating through several rooms. We got to go behind the windows into the room where the giant vats are (wearing safety goggles, of course), and then down into the basement where the real magic happens.
AJ was a pretty great tour guide. He was informative and clearly very passionate about craft beer. He mentioned a beer class he also gives, which I’d love to check out. Just based on his enthusiasm, I’m going to go ahead and recommend both the tour and the class.
The tasting was really fun. My husband is *obsessed* with Schlafly’s Kentucky Mule, which was one of the options during the tasting, so all his buddies got to sample and see why he isn’t crazy for talking it up so much. I also tried the Scotch Ale, which is ale aged in scotch barrels. It was really smoky, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing (I vaguely remember telling people it tasted like the chicken taco I’d had earlier — still not a bad thing). I also had the Gruit, which was a delicious and refreshing sour (probably my favorite of the tasting), and one other from a bottle with a kind of shiny label whose name I can’t remember. Also, on the tour I had a (plastic) glass of the Pale Ale, which as I’ve said before, makes me so happy that I magically enjoy Pale Ales now.
P.S. My husband bought two bottles of the Kentucky Mule (they come in like wine-bottle size and are also I think 12% ABV?). I’m pretty sure he tried to say one of them was for one of his buddies, but we ended up bringing both home with us so I think he just pulled a fast one on me. I wasn’t in the most observant state of mind by that point.
Something I love to do is to head out with no plans and see where the day takes me. This is sort of me rebelling against myself, because normally I prefer to know exactly what is going to happen (and tend to freak out a little if those plans suddenly change last minute). It doesn’t make sense that I would welcome the opportunity to completely go with the flow — unless you also take into account that I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of person. I’m a bit oxymoronic and I’m starting to love that about myself.
Saturday was one of those spontaneous days. My husband made plans with friends to check out Schlafly’s Stout and Oyster Festival — something he never mentioned to me until the night before. My tentative plans were to straighten the apartment and spend most of the day snuggled on the couch with a cup of tea, reading a book and listening to the rain…but St. Louis has presented me with quite enough of those opportunities lately, and with no sun in sight, I welcomed the chance to do something new.
The best part is my husband can’t eat raw oysters and I haven’t been a fan of stout beers. We really had no business at a stout-and-oyster-fest, but it was free and our friends were there. First adventure was confirming a suspicion I’ve been cultivating: since moving to Missouri, my taste for beer has expanded quite a bit. Recently, I’ve transitioned from tolerating slightly more hops to actually enjoying a (more mild) pale ale. Saturday, I threw caution to the wind and ordered a Red Velvet Stout to see if my palate has expanded the other direction. It. Was. Delicious. And even though we did not partake of the raw oysters, I did have some pretty awesome fried oysters.
We’d passed Pappy’s BBQ on the way in, and if there’s one thing I’ve heard more times than I can count since moving here, it’s that Pappy’s is some of the best barbecue around. After our stouts and oyster appetizers, our group decided to walk the 20 minutes to Pappy’s for lunch. Along the way, we spotted the Fountain on Locust. Now, before we moved, I made a list of places that sounded interesting or were highly rated, and the Fountain on Locust made the top of that list. One friend agreed that she’d seen posts about them on Instagram and wanted to try it. When another friend pulled up their 4.7 stars (out of over 700 reviews) on Yelp, my husband was convinced. We stopped for AH-MAZING ice cream martinis (the dreamsicle was sooo good, and the others loved their drinks too) and a couple of the best grilled cheeses in the state (they really were freaking awesome).
After our dessert-drinks and second-appetizers, we continued on to Pappy’s. If you are familiar at all with Pappy’s reputation, you are probably muttering to yourself that we are fools for thinking we’ll get in at lunchtime on a Saturday. You would be correct. The line was wrapped around the building, and by this point the little food we’d had was not quite holding us over the way we’d hoped. We agreed to continue the walking adventure and see what other spots might present themselves to us. Enter Center Ice Brewery. Located a few doors down from Pappy’s, the owner’s father happened to be grabbing something from his truck as we passed, and — in typical Midwest fashion — struck up a conversation. He let us know we could order Pappy’s from the bar at the brewery, and it would be ready for pickup in 20 minutes. He told us about their most popular beers, and gave us some history about the space — like the actual penalty box doors leading to the back bar. Their Golden Ale was really good, and the hockey theme throughout was a lot of fun, complete with one of those hockey-foosball tables that the boys had way too much fun with.
Because we were in the area, someone suggested heading to Narwhal’s to continue our spontaneous bar crawl. It was a longer slog through the damp, darkening afternoon, but the feel inside Narwhal’s is all summer! Their beverages are all frozen (they did have a Winter Hot Bar, from which I tried the Winter Sake — basically a sweet, boozy tea — but they’re phasing it out for spring — if it ever arrives), and the Strawberry Basil is very refreshing. I also tried the Blueberry Moscow Mule which was pretty good. Two friends like the Banana Dave, another the Mango one. It seemed like you can’t really go wrong with the tropical, fresh flavors. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up to really enjoy all they offer!
Our day of spontaneity ended (at least for my husband and me, who are 100% ok with calling it a night when we feel like it) at Dressel’s. I had a fantastic grilled cheese and tomato soup, and my husband had his favorite burger (post about that coming…someday). It was the perfect capstone to an adventurous day!
We also passed this gorgeous church on SLU’s north campus
A couple of wildcards came to visit over St. Patty’s Day weekend, so of course I took them to the City Museum. There are few things as fun as climbing on stuff (and few things worse than realizing just how old you are when you try to wriggle through caverns).
We immediately lost one of them. He took off through a gap in the caverns that the two remaining were not enthused about. After a Roger Murtaugh-esque we’re getting too old for this shit moment, we finally wrenched our bodies through twisting gaps made for children to find the first wildcard had vanished. A trek through near-pitch-dark, winding pathways full of tiny pockets children would randomly pop out of led us (somehow) to the second floor cafeteria. After a couple more disorienting tries, we remembered we’re adults with cell phones and so we coordinated a regrouping and plunged into the caves a happy trio once again.
The caves lead round and through and up to the top of the 10-story slide. About halfway up, it’s all tightly spiraled stairs that one of us (okay, me) charged up with wild abandon, only to nearly pass out from hyperventilation at the top. The guy watching the slide entrances was slightly misleading when he said “Slide 2 is open!” and did not add that it is slightly shorter (ending about a story above Slide 1). Also, I got stuck a couple times and had to kick my feet to get moving again. And by the time I exited the slide, my quad muscles had seized up after all that stair-climbing and I was confronted for the second time with just how old I am.
We were also all sweating from the exertion and the heat pumping into the building on top of all the tiny bodies clogging everywhere (don’t these kids have school!?) so we headed out to Monstrocity and the blessed chill of early March in the Midwest. Once again, the youthful-hearted wildcard took off into the cages, climbing higher than I swore I ever would, while I waved like a proud-yet-slightly-worried mama from the catwalk over the giant ball-pit.
His adventurous spirit was contagious, though, and before long we all found ourselves monkeying up wire ladders and strutting across catwalks that lead out from the plane wings. We found a terrifying slide that was very short but very steep. When I finally let go of the bar and slid, I shot down it so fast I skidded across the sidewalk. An older couple went down, and he almost took her out at the bottom. We went down twice.
I loved the City Museum the first time I visited, but I also had a sort of “been there, done that” feeling when presented with the opportunity to go again. I’m really glad I did check it out a second time. I climbed higher than I ever believed possible of myself, and I got to play like children with some of my favorite people.
2nd Shift has a similar “stay for a while vibe” as most of the breweries here. Located in a warehouse, it has the long, family style tables as well as a few smaller tables, and lots of board games to choose from if you so desire.
Plus, unlike any other brewery, this place has CATS. The one that hung out with us reminded me of my fat cat growing up, although this lady was even bigger. Of course, she went straight for my husband, since he’s allergic and therefore is not a fan. Somehow, he attracts them like the bird-lady in Home Alone 2 attracts pigeons.
As far as beers go, he liked their Czech Pilsner, and I enjoyed both the Hibiscus Wit and the Blondie. My husband also tried the Act of Neurosis IPA, but he didn’t like it as much as the Pilsner.
