Open House and Tours

We were excited to open our doors for the first time to give the public a sneak peek of our brewery and tasting room to kick off St. Louis Craft Beer Week on Sunday, July 31st. The Seoul Taco food truck set up in our parking lot, and now we know--bulgogi tacos are friggin' delicious!

It was great to see so many people in our space and to have some beer flowing at our bar. We blew through a half barrel by pouring 5 oz samples for our 90 minute open house, so we took that as a good sign.

As we told those who were able to make it down yesterday, we hope to brew the first batch on our system this week--which should place our opening date around the first week of September. Thanks to everyone who checked us out, and we'll keep you posted on our developments over the next few weeks.

Create A Perennial Beer Contest Winners

We are excited to announce 2 winners of our "Create A Perennial Beer" contest! The winners are a Mexican Chocolate Stout, submitted by Scott Brazell, and a "Root" Beer submitted by Robert Pesold.

These beers were chosen by a collective vote of the Perennial team, and we admit that it was definitely not easy. There was an abundance of creative entries, and over 100 total to choose from.

We plan to release the Mexican Chocolate Stout in our "In Season" series sometime in the late fall. In Scott's words:

"a Mexican Chocolate stout...faint cinnamon, almond, and chili pepper (more fruity chili, not so much heat)"

Sounds damn good to us, and a great way to welcome the winter.

The Root Beer will likely be a released in the late winter in our "Farmhouse" series. According to Robert:

"A nice ale that involves adding some sassafras root or bark in the brewing process...wouldn't it be nice to have a beer that had hints of sassafras in it? A grown up root beer."

Yes Robert, grown ups need their soda pop too. Everyone loves root beer, but hasn't it always been missing that little something...?

As advertized, we will coordinate with Scott and Robert to come in and brew these beers with us. Congratulations Scott and Robert!

As a special thanks to everyone else who entered the contest, your first beer at the tasting room will be on us. Look for our brewery and tasting room to open in early September.

The Final Stretch

Things have been coming together fast and furious at Perennial, and now that we feel we're about 2 - 3 weeks away from firing up our first brew (and hopefully opening in late August), we figured it was time to show some pics and give some updates. As STL Hops reported a few weeks ago, our brewery is divided into 3 distinct spaces: the brewhouse, the cellar, and the tasting room. The brewhouse area (pictured above) is 3,000 square feet and houses our 10 hectoliter (8.5 barrel) brewhouse and all grain handling processes. Our first brews on this system will include: Hommel Bier (a dry-hopped Belgian Pale Ale), South Side Blonde (a Belgian Blonde Ale), Strawberry Rhubarb Tart (a Witbier with strawberries, rhubarb stalks, and Indian coriander), Saison de Lis (a Saison brewed with chamomile flowers), and Heart of Gold (a big 10% ABV Wheat Wine).



Our cellar (pictured above) is 7 feet lower than the brewhouse space, and is beneath ground level for natural insulation. This room is also climate controlled, so we can keep the temperature consistent for our wild barrel fermentations. We're starting with 3 - 20 barrel fermenters and 1 - 20 barrel packaging tank. The total space in our cellar is 6,500 square feet and will also include a walk in cooler for packaged beer storage, all packaging equipment (750 ml bottler and keg cleaner), and barrel-aging. We plan to bring in about 40 wine barrels and 10 - 15 spirits barrels as soon as possible for future brews.



Our tasting room is 3,400 square feet (not including the beer garden). The final look will be a mix of vintage and industrial materials. The bar will feature 8 draft lines fed by a draft cooler located between the cellar and tasting room. We plan to always have at least 5 of our beers on draft, which means that we'll fill out the other taps with experimental brews and guest drafts from other breweries. We will also be serving a small selection of wines by the glass and a few of our favorite spirits neat (no mixers). And for all the kids and designated drivers who thought we forgot about them, we'll be hand crafting our own gourmet sodas (available by the glass, only in our tasting room). Our food menu will consist mostly of charcuterie items from Salume Beddu (cured meats, pates), artisanal Midwestern cheeses, olives, bread, spreads, and desserts from Bittersweet Bakery. We will also have a bookshelf stocked with brewing (and non-brewing) related books and publications, a mix of board games, and real dart boards.

We'll be sure to provide updates as we charge towards our opening date (now projected for late August).

A Little Bit About The Ginkgo

We were very excited to have the opportunity to plant a ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) outside the brewery today. One of the reasons the ginkgo leaf was an irresistible choice to us as Perennial's logo is because the leaves have enough asymmetry to make each one clearly unique while still being impossible to confuse with any other tree leaf. Aside from their individual shapes, these trees are most striking as they turn yellow in the fall.

The ginkgo is also considered a living fossil. There are no other species within the same genus (or family, order, class, or phylum for that matter) from the fossil record for the past 5+ million years. Yet it has great antiquity--the ginkgo we know today has recognizable ancestors dating back 270 million years. It's truly the last of its kind and still going strong.

As a species, Ginkgo sp. is indisputably enduring (which, aside from its botanical meaning, also happens to be the definition of "perennial"). As individuals, ginkgoes have proven to be even more impressive. In China, there are living ginkgo trees that are claimed to be over 2,500 years old! These individuals can also be incredibly resilient--ginkgo trees were some of the only survivors in the area of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

We fully expect, and hope, this ginkgo tree will still be going strong for decades, maybe centuries, to come. We at Perennial will be honored to be along for part of the ride as this tree grows stronger, and becomes more rooted, with each day that passes by. And I, personally, will enjoy seeing its progress everyday as I pass it on my way into the brewery.

Festival Season Is Here

On Thursday, May 5th, Perennial invaded Highlands Brewery in Kirkwood as we tapped our Hommel Bier--a Belgian style hoppy beer. We thank everyone who turned out to taste our first offering, which we also poured at Microfest this past weekend, and will be featured at The Wine and Cheese Place Beerfest and The Brewer's Heritage Fest. More pics can be found here on STL Hops.

Evan Benn, the beer writer from the STL Post-Dispatch, also chose our Hommel Bier as one of his five favorites from Microfest!



We had a great time pouring our beer and interacting with festival-goers at Microfest. We also had an opportunity to host a beer, cheese, and salami pairing at the festival on Sunday using local beer and salami with cheeses from the Midwest. We paired our Hommel Bier with the Veneto from Salume Beddu, Urban Chestnut's Winged Nut with Marcoot Jersey Creamery's Tomme, Schlafly's Biere de Garde with Baetje Farms' Fleur de la Valle, and Highlands' Dopplebock with Roth Kase's Moody Blue.

Our First "Brewery-Sized" Batch

We brewed a 15-bbl batch of Belgian Pale Ale today with our friends at Highlands Brewery in Kirkwood, MO. Head Brewer, Dave Johnson, guided us through the nuances of their system and treated us to a great time.

This beer should be interesting, as it is brewed mostly with American malt and hops, but fermented with a nice, spicy Belgian Saison yeast strain. We will also dry hop this beer with West Coast hops to give it a unique floral character--we're not quite sure if the Belgians will approve of this one!

We will be entering this beer in upcoming festivals including Microfest, The Wine and Cheese Place BeerFest, and the Brewer's Heritage Festival.

CBC 2011: San Francisco

Our trip to San Francisco for CBC was a blast. We got to see a lot of friends from several breweries including Half Acre, Fremont, Goose Island, Lakefront, Revolution, SweetWater, etc. We spent our evenings at some great places, including Le Trappe, Amsterdam Cafe, Toronado, Magnolia, and 21st Amendment. After the conference, we took a trip to Sonoma with our friend Eddie and visited a variety of wineries: Artesa, Buena Vista, Kunde, and Kaz. We finished the day off with a trip to Russian River in Santa Rosa for sour beers, pizza, and a pretty awesome Grateful Dead cover band (The Thugz) that only played the "early"stuff.