This year’s Oktober Fest
Anna Nowotny
– InDepth Editor –
When it comes to loving beer, St. Louisans are head-over-heels. Their love for beer is evident in the numerous beer-centric festivals held throughout the year, the drinking establishments that punctuate every neighborhood, and the thriving micro-breweries that provide alternatives to mainstream choices.
A history of brewing stretching back 200 years may be what gives this town its zeal. However, the question isn’t necessarily why St. Louisans drink beer, it’s what kind. With so many choices, from the ubiquitous big names to the lesser known, how does the beer drinker pick his or her poison?
Local events provide ample opportunity for beer drinkers to broaden their horizons. Last weekend, Soulard’s Oktoberfest featured imported German beers like Hofbrau, Spaten and Beck’s. Taste of St. Louis, held the first weekend of October, encouraged locals to toast the taste of fall by trying the new Budweiser Wheat as well as the recently re-introduced Schlafly Octoberfest.
Not everyone goes to these events for the same reason. Sure, some go for the beer, but as local beer drinker and STLCC-Meramec alumni Ross Bell observes, beer drinkers at big events like Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras sometimes focus on quantity, not quality.
“It’s one of those things about St. Louis. There are so many drinking festivals,” remarked Bell. He avoids those festivals because, “they are like ‘Night of the Living Dead,’” said Bell. Instead, when Bell attends a beer festival he chooses the annual St. Louis Brewer’s Heritage Festival.
“That is one situation where it’s not a free-for-all,” said Bell. This event held in the summertime in Forest Park gives brewers from all over Missouri a chance
to showcase their suds. It also gives the connoisseur the chance to sample beer in the same way that a wine taster with a sophisticated palate would, in small servings.
“I’m not even a beer snob at all; [I’ll] drink Busch beer all weekend,” added Bell, while sipping a pint of Schlafly Octoberfest at Bottleworks in Maplewood. On the other hand, Bell “waited all year for the Octoberfest.” Bell represents the cross-section of an average beer drinker and a connoisseur.
“There are connoisseurs or snobs about anything; liquor, beer, coffee, hamburgers. It’s a matter of taste,” Bell pointed out. Whether it’s the hoppiness, the heaviness or some other deviation from the norm that turns them off, some simply prefer the same beer season after season. “What’s the closest thing to Bud Light,” asks Bell’s dad when he accompanies his son on an outing to Schlafly.
Brand loyalty dictates the choices made by some beer drinkers. “I’m not even from St. Louis, but if I’m somewhere else I have some sort of brand loyalty to Budweiser because I live here. But now I don’t feel that. And I’m not alone,” said Bell, in reference to the sale to InBev.
“[Schlafly] is going about it the right way. They treat their regulars really well. That would be a reason why I would buy Schlafly over AB, because I feel like they care about me buying the product. I feel like I’m friends with Schlafly,” said Bell.
Loyalty to Schlafly, or any other micro-brewery, for that matter, is cultivated in part by the fact that a person can drink beer in the same place it is made, and be served a pint by the same people who brew it by the barrel.
Regardless of what motivates a person’s choice of beer, one thing is certain: Whether it’s at a bar, pub, festival, backyard barbecue, float trip, kickball field or fancy restaurant, there is a beer for every occasion, season and purpose.
