Belleville 4024 Brewery

Porter, black IPA, 2 hop IPA, imperial IPA.  The two IPAs were okay, but the porter smooth and black IPA good. 

St. Louis Trip February 2016

Our trip to St. Louis:

We started off Thursday afternoon getting out of KC late.  

Our stay is at Super in Pontoon Beach.  We got up Friday morning early and were out for breakfast at 7:30.  

First stop:  Breakfast in Soulard at the Soulard Coffee Shop.  Great breakfast and coffee to be had by all.    

First brewery Stop:  Square One Brewery and Distillery, 11 am when it opened.   We had a flight of:

1. Irish Stout
2. Black IPA
3. Black IPA Cask
4. Single Malt Scotch Ale

I am guessing on these because we did not write them down.   

The biggest value we got out of our first stop was that the manager for Square One was a member of the St. Louis Brewers Guild.  He had in his possession a map of micro breweries, color even, in the area.  It was a great find for us as were were working off of a map with no names.   

Our second stop was 4 Hands Brewing.   At 4 Hands we had the following brews: 

1.  Horchata Chocolate Milk Stout, we brought back a bottle of this one.  Nice cinnamon note and spicy.  

1. Devil’s Invention, Coffee stout
2. Bona Fide Imperial Coffee Stout, great Russian imperial stout.   
3. Alter ego Black IPA

Our third stop was Heavy Riff Brewing.   Beers we tasted are: 

1. Vanilla Coffee Underbrown, Velvety Creamy Brown Ale
2. Dark Days Rye Stout, nitro, spicy rye malt
3. Left Coast Envy IPA, west coast style IPA, Centennial and Falconer’s Flight and Dry hopped with Mosaic malt.  

Our fourth stop was The Civil Life Brewing company.   Best one of the day after the Horchata at 4 Hands.  Beers being tasted are: 

1. American Brown, smooth, cask pull, very good beer
2. Jukebox Pat Porter, good porter, would definitely buy again. 
3. Black Lager, good finish, different flavor, nice
4. ESB, could drink a lot of this, not heavy.   Extra Special, Strong bitter Beer.  

Our fifth stop was Perennial Artisan ales.   This is where things got interesting.   We drove up to the brewery and found a very large line of people waiting for something to happen when the brewery opened at 4 pm.   So, we asked someone.  They were in line for a release of a new beer from Side Project Brewery, a brewery run by a brewer of Perennial and his wife, developing barrel aged, ‘sour” beers in small batches.  Side Project had recently been rated as one of the 8th or 9th best craft beer in the world.   Ron and I stood in line while the girls went into the brewery to taste the Perennial brews.  I did purchase two tasters from Perennial which I took outside to sample: 

1. Abraxas, Imperial Stout w/cacao Nibs, ancho chiles, vanilla beans, & cinnamon sticks.   good taste.
2. A second pale beer that I cannot remember.  
3. Ron and I purchased two bottles each of the Side Project release.   

Our sixth stop was: 

We then went to Urban Chestnut to taste their beers:

1. Fran and Ann each got an IPA,  not too fond of either one as they were a German type Bier, similar to what KC Bier has here in KC.

We left Urban Chestnut and have no reason to buy their beers.  They had a nice large open room to drink in and this was their second location to brew beer.   

Our Seventh stop was: 

Next stop was Modern Brewing, in a small storage unit area with a sausage truck in the parking lot.   Very nice small batch brewery.   We tried the following:

1. Arkham, a coffee stout
2. Arkham, a coffee stout aged in a bourbon barrel.  Very nice, similar to Founders KBS, not quite as smooth. 
3. Black IPA, good IPA but the stouts were better.   

Would buy any beer from Modern Brewery beer going forward.   They need to bottle or can their beers.   

Then we had dinner at an Afghan restaurant, Fran had the Butter Chicken and I had the Butter Shrimp, both on rice.  Both a little spicy but good food.   

After Dinner we made out eighth stop of the day at:

Earthbound Brewing for a taste of a couple small batch interesting type beers;

1. Rosemary Juniper Pale Ale, great rosemary smell and taste, Ann and Fran enjoyed it.  
2. Irish Red Ale, good but not great.   

Then back to the hotel for the night.   

Saturday morning we left at 8 am and went to breakfast at Uncle Linny’s for his famous french toast, eggs, bacon, and ham.   We had some time to kill and drove up the east side of the Mississippi River to Grafton, IL.  

We then started our brewery run.   

Our first stop of the day was at:

Standard Brewing for the following beers it had a nice tasting room/restaurant attached to an old Motel 6.  

1. 10w-40 Stout, good stout great flavor
2. Enigma, American IPA,  very refreshing , good all day beer.  
3. Hot Rod Black IPA, Little smoother than the stout. 
4. Dry Hopped Saison

Our second stop was:  O’Fallon Brewery and the beers we drank were.  Nice new tasting room  next to an office complex watched the KU basketball game first half.  

1. Smoked Porter,  
2. King Louie Stout
3. 5 Day IPA
4. Wheach

Our third stop was Six Mile Bridge brewery, small store front brewery with a food truck out front serving food.   The beers we tested were: 

1. Bavarian Hefeweizen, was okay.
2. Irish Red Ale with Honey, okay beer. 
3. Irish Stout, very good, Ann used it to help her neck, she had a full glass of the stout.   

Our Fourth stop was Schafly Brewing

Ron and Ann had a really bad tester and we had lunch.   

Our Fifth Stop was Side Project Brewery for sour beers.   We tested the following:  

1.  Grisette (Batch #3) very sour beer 

2.  Foedre Beer, not quite as sour beer.   

I liked both, the most sour beer, which the girls ordered, actually got better as it warmed up.   

The other one was like a lightly sour lemonade.   

Our Sixth stop for the day was Ferguson Brewing.   We had the following beers:  

1. Pecan Brown
2. Oatmeal Stout
3. Coffee Stout, way iced coffee taste
4. IPA, very hoppy.   

Our seventh stop for the day was Old Bakery Brewing Company where we had the following: 

1. Porter, very mellow, good nose
2. Gentle Giant,  2X IPA, very hoppy front, 
3. Coffee Milk Stout, definitely coffee, three stars
4. English Breakfast Beer, Brown, 2 stars, Has tea in it.   

On Sunday we started at Linny’s for breakfast again.   

We left and went to Balduccis, Blumenhoff, Bomarito and Adam Puchta wineries, two micro breweries, Augusta in Washington, MO and 2nd Shift in New Haven and a distillery, Pinckney Distilling in New Haven.  Great beer at 2nd Shift Brewing.  We had the following:

Our first stop at Balducci winery had us tasting dry whites and dry reds.   Everyone agreed that the one red had the dirty sock smell.   We purchased a bottle of white wine for Fran.  

At Blumenhoff they had just opened and we were the fist ones in the door.   Had a very knowledgeable young lady pouring out tasters.  Again we started out with the dry whites and moved to the dry reds.  Here they were having a special, 6 bottles for 10 dollars each.   Ron bought a case and Fran and I purchased 6 bottles, mix of white and red.   

Our next stop was Augusta Brewing in Washington, MO.   Very nice establishment.   Were the only ones in the bar testing their beers.  We tested 4 beers after having had a lot of wine.  I think  they were:  

Hide Park Stout

1857 IPA

 Moko Buzz Imperial Stout

Dingo Double IPA DIPA

Then we headed to  2nd Shift Brewing at the executive conference center:

We tasted a lot of beer.  The one lady bartender kept getting beer tasters and then had to go to the building next door for other beers.  

1.   Art of Neurosis IPA
2. Albino Pygmy Puma, Hoppy pale ale
3. Brew Cocky, Double IPA
4. Cat Spit Stout
5. El Gato Grande, IPA
6. Katy, American Brett Saison Beer
7. Rat Salad, DIPA
8. Mullineaux, saison style
9. Liquid Spiritual Delight, LSD, Imperial Stout, chew, chocolaty,   11.5%
10. Then we had the Gin and tonic with the local distilled gin, from Pinckney Distilling and their own small batch tonic.  I cannot believe it was gin.  Not really a juniper taste.   Bought two bottles of the gin, one of the tonic and one their Bourbon.    Ron got the same items at the distillery.   

The last stop in New Haven was Pinckney Bend Distilling.   We both purchased gin, their tonic syrup, and a bottle of their bourbon/whiskey.   

The next winery was Bommarito winery.   Nice older couple dispensing the tasters.  Ron bought a case of wine that was close to being out of stock and gone for good.   

Norton and a Nick’s and a dry vignion.   

Our next stop was Adam Puchta winery in Hermann, MO.   Again started with dry whites and moved to dry reds, small tastes.   Did not buy anything there.   We had to pay for the tasting so did not feel like we needed to buy anything.   

Then we finished the drive back to Kansas City.   Great trip.