When I'm in St. Louis, I like to stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites across I-64 - also known as 40 Highway to the locals - from Forest Park. Right next to the hotel is a restaurant space that has undergone many incarnations over the past few years. It has housed a couple of sports bars, a barbecue place, and an Irish pub. But for a time of about 18 months, it was closed. Late last year on a trip to St. Louis, I saw there was some activity going on in the restaurant building when I was checking into the hotel. I asked the front desk clerk what was going into the space and he said, "I hear it's going to be a brewpub." That immediately piqued my interest and when they finally opened up earlier this year, I decided to give Brew Hub Taproom a try.
When InBev - the Belgian/Brazilian-based behemoth beverage operation that brewed beers such as Stella Artois, Labatt, Bass, Brahma, and Hoegaarden - bought Anheuser-Busch in 2009 to become Anheuser-Busch InBev, a number of executives at A-B ended up either moving on to new ventures or having their position eliiminated. One of those executives was Tim Schoen, a 28-year A-B veteran who was in charge of the company's sports and entertainment division. Like many of his former peers at Anheuser-Busch, Schoen started to look into doing a craft beer operation. He came up with the concept of Brew Hub what was envisioned as a nationwide network of breweries that could be contracted to brew and distribute beers for smaller craft breweries. Schoen enlisted a number of other former Anheuser-Busch execs and procured a major cash infusion from The Yucaipa Companies, a Los Angeles-based private-equity firm owned by billionaire Ron Burkle.
The first Brew Hub facility was built in Lakeland, FL and opened in 2014. Some of the craft breweries who initially contracted to use the facility were Iowa's Toppling Goliath, and Florida-based Orange Blossom and M.I.A. breweries. Today, Brew Hub brews private label beers for the BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse chain, Crooked Can from Florida, Parish Brewing Co. from Louisiana, Big Bend Brewing from Texas, and Green Man Brewing - one of the many brewpubs or taprooms my wife and I tried during our visit to Asheville, NC.
In 2014, Schoen announced that the second of what would be five Brew Hub regional facilities would be built in the Chesterfield Valley west of St. Louis. Schoen said the Chesterfield brewery would also serve as the flagship for the network of breweries they had planned across the nation.
In early 2015, Schoen coaxed Jim "Otto" Ottolini to come to work for Brew Hub overseeing brewing operations for the new St. Louis-area brewing facility. Ottolini, the longtime brewmaster for the St. Louis Brewing Company - brewers of the popular Schlafly beers - was put in charge of coming up with a line of Brew Hub's own beers.
When Brew Hub opened their facility in 2014, the growth rate of craft beer across the nation was around 10 to 11 percent annually. However, within a couple of years there was a trend of flattening or even negative sales numbers with many established craft breweries. Many small craft breweries who had expressed interest in partnering with Brew Hub to brew their beers suddenly stepped back their commitments. After brewing nearly 92,000 barrels of craft beer for microbreweries in 2016, Brew Hub saw a 10% drop in craft beers they brewed the following year.
Faced with a downtrend in the craft brew industry, Schoen had to walk back his plans of building a new facility in Chesterfield. The Lakeland, FL facility could be reconfigured with a capacity of being able to brew up to 200,000 barrels annually and that would remain the main brewery for Brew Hub. However, brew pubs with on-site microbrewery facilities continued to pop up, and Schoen saw that has a positive - albeit somewhat crowded - trend. Turning on a dime, Schoen announced that he would develop a new concept called Brew Hub Taproom serving beers brewed on-site, as well as serving beers from craft breweries that were brewed by Brew Hub in Florida. He envisioned the Brew Hub Taproom to be a sort of a testing ground for beers that Jim Ottolini would be developing for the Brew Hub brand of beers. Schoen hired longtime St. Louis-area chef Andy White to head the kitchen and oversee general operations. And in early March of this year, Brew Hub Taproom opened.
Now, I had been to St. Louis a couple times already this year and but had stayed in Chesterfield. On this trip, I had gotten a room at the Hampton Inn and Suites at Forest Park and walked next door to have a late lunch at the Brew Hub Taproom. (see map)
Walking into the place, while the floor plan was similar to the previous restaurants in the spot, the decor was definitely spruced up. While the industrial design elements were still in place, as well as the long curving bar with flat panel televisions on the wall behind the bar, there was a noticeable brewery theme to the place with wooden barrels and stainless steel small batch brew tanks added to the decor.
The brewing room was off to the side with large windows facing out toward Oakland Ave., 40 Highway (Interstate 64) and beyond to Forest Park across the way. I was taking pictures of the brewpub and I had taken a picture of the large brew tanks from a window that looked into the brewing area. One of the guys working near the tanks came out and offered to take me inside to get a snapshot of the tanks in the room. It wasn't a large area - the brewing room was a long narrow space between two sets of windows. And it was exceptionally clean in there.
It was close to 2:30 p.m. when I got in there and I decided to sit at the bar. I was greeted by Stephanie who offered up a food menu and pointed out the beer menu on a flat screen monitor behind the bar. Not only did they feature a number of Brew Hub beers that were brewed on the premises, they also had a handful of beers from craft brewers they contracted with the brew and distribute their beers. They had beers on tap from Melvin Brewing Company in Wyoming, High Heel Brewing from Florida, and Toppling Goliath from Decorah, IA. They had the Terlingua Pale Ale from the Big Bend Brewing Company on tap - a beer I had tried on a visit to San Antonia a couple three years ago - and I got one of those. Brew Hub Taproom's 20+ tap selection changes on a regular basis.
It was a pretty short menu at the Brew Hub Taproom with a selection of salads, appetizers, sandwiches, and artisan pizza. They had different varieties of mac & cheese dishes on the menu along with "food flights" where you can mix and match different types of tacos, skewers, and dips or spreads served with warm pita bread.
Quite honestly, nothing really looked all that appealing to me on the menu, save for the double bacon cheeseburger or the duck confit reuben sandwich. After mentally flipping a coin in my head, I ended up getting the burger. It featured two ground beef patties served on a brioche bun and topped with two slices of bacon, a beer cheese sauce, and something called Hub sauce that was creamy, but nondescript. Housemade potato chips came with the burger and they were kind of limp and greasy. Actually, they sort of tasted fishy.
The burger was all right - nothing special. The brioche bun was actually kind of spongy and held together very well with the limited juiciness of the burger along with the creamy Hub sauce and the gooey beer cheese sauce. There was a lot going with the burger in terms of taste so I couldn't really get much flavor from the burger meat. And it was a messy burger on top of that. It was definitely a multi-napkin burger.
While I didn't try any of the beer Brew Hub Taproom made in-house, it was good to try the Big Bend Terlingua pale ale again - something that I had in Texas during travels down there. The food menu was pretty basic with a handful of appetizers, sandwiches and a burger. And the burger was just all right, in my opinion. Still, I liked the atmosphere and decor at Brew Hub Taproom. The brewpub had a slick, contemporary look with a bit of an industrial design mixed in. Previous restaurants haven't worked out in this spot in the past. It remains to be seen if Brew Hub Taproom will have enough pull to keep people coming back.
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