This Friday, September 3rd, starting a 5PM, a representative from the St. Louis Brewery will be tapping a cask of the Schlafly Dry-Hopped APA (this version has been dry-hopped with Cascade and Simcoe). They’ll be serving it until the cask runs out or The Good Pie closes.

Sure, you can get cask beer at the Tap Room, but you can’t get Neapolitan Pizza to go along with it! Head on out there for some great pizza and beer.

After dabbling with craft beer at their Waterloo, Illinois location, I think that U-Gas is starting to see the benefit of bringing in more craft beer into the area.  For those of you that will frequent this new location and are looking for something that’s not on the shelf, be sure to ask for the management and tell them what you’re looking for.  They’re very receptive to their customers and are always looking for something new.

I’ve also been told that they’re looking to expand the selection you see below and also provide a cold selection of their craft beer in the future.  So, head on out and get your fix.

Full Disclosure: My brother Andrew Sweeney works for U-Gas. While he and I will not personally benefit from any additional sales from this store, I thought I’d still get this info out there.. Great beer is still great beer and I thought people in this area would like to know about this store.

The tapping of this cask will begin at 6PM and the event will last as long as the cask keeps pouring.  While cask beer may not always be a religious experience, it is pretty darn great.  This is the kind of thing that we keep asking for, so we need to be the ones who go out and support it.

I once again want to thank Paul Hayden from The Wine and Cheese Place for donating the four tickets to the tasting. There are a few tickets still available for those of you that didn’t win, be sure to head out to tonight’s tasting. It sounds like a lot of fun and I hope we see a lot more to come.

Only a few tickets for this event remain, but fortunately for you Paul was kind enough to give us 4 tickets to give away for this event. So, email contest@stlhops.com with the subject line of: Beer and Cheese. A couple of quick notes:

• If you’ve won something from STL Hops in the past 6 months, please be cool and let someone else enter.
• You much be 21 or older to enter.
• No multiple entries.
• If you don’t think you’ll be able to attend, please don’t enter. I’d like to make sure that people available to attend have a chance to win.

As this event is tomorrow, I’ll be picking two random winners tomorrow (09/02/2010) at 9AM. Send your email now if you want to attend!

Gary Vaynerchuk: What’s the biggest state you’re not in?
Bill Covaleski: What’s the biggest state we’re not in?  We’re hearing a lot from Missouri and we’re not in Missouri.
GV: You’re not in the St. Louis market?
BC: No, we’re not.

Later:

GV: So is that because you haven’t found the right distributor or distributors haven’t come to you or you just want to feel it or you’re not ready there with volume?  Where are you at?
BC: Great questions. Basically we utilize the internet to listen to demand and so we’ve been told these are ready audiences. We’ve just had to add some additional capacity for fermentation. And then finding the right wholesalers, these are life-long relationships you really need to do the right thing.

If this means we’re at the tipping point, maybe it’s time for a push from the STL Hops crowd? Call, Email, Twitter, and Facebook them, let them know that St. Louis wants Victory. Just be nice about it, we want them to know we’re passionate, but please be courteous. Here’s the contact info:

Phone: 610-514-7000
Email: Anne Shuniak, Communications
Twitter: @victorybeer
Facebook: Victory Fan Group

This is the time to put the power of STL Hops to work.  Hopefully we’ll find a distributor that wants to pick these guys up.

There are few better lagers being produced in America than the ones being produced by Capital Brewery and St. Louis, for whatever reason is being left in the dark.  To add insult to injury, our friends in Kansas City have been enjoying Capital for the past few months.

So what gives?  Why hasn’t a local distributor stepped forth to pick up this excellent and sought-after brand?  Has the local market finally begun to suffer from having too many brands?

It would be a shame if this great brewer of lager beers gets passed by because it’s not a über-imperial, barrel-aged,  sour, smoked, dry-hopped, <insert adjective> beer.