I headed to St. Louis to visit 4 Hands Brewing and Side Project Cellar and Brewing in mid-March. The two-day trip revolved around book research and interviews with brewery owners Kevin Lemp and Cory King respectively. After a long dreary winter, I needed to hit the road, connect with people, savor some good beer and food, and recharge my batteries for the remaining work on Barons, Brewers, and Bootleggers: A Social History of Beer in Missouri.
Since I began research in early 2024, I’ve written about 35 or so chapters. Only five or so remain to be written in the first draft stage. Several of the early chapters in the book focus on people and breweries key to the initial development of the beer industry in St. Louis. Being an older city and magnet for immigrants and industry in the early to mid-1800s, Missouri’s brewing industry and beer makers coalesced in and around St. Louis.
More than 150 years later, microbrewing and craft brewing emerged in the late 20th and early 21st century. The early wave of Missouri’s late Eighties microbreweries led to the next wave of craft breweries opening from 2000 to present day.
One takeaway from my recent visit is that the innovation and growth of brewing today remains connected to the techniques and traditions of brewers from yesteryear. Immigrants brought knowledge and craft from Western Europe, primarily Germany, and established a thriving industry before Prohibition. Modern day breweries still produce beer using the fundamental methods of fermentation and aging.
Side Project Cellar and Side Project Brewery
Side Project, based in Maplewood, is one of my favorite neighborhoods in St. Louis for its density of cool local breweries, eateries, and shops. I had previously visited Side Project Cellar, a Belgian-inspired craft beer taproom, years ago. This visit was my first since Side Project Brewery opened as a stand-alone brewery and taproom.
Cory King and Karen King co-founded Side Project Cellar and Side Project Brewery. The brewery taps into centuries-old techniques and also advances the craft of brewing through experimentation without sacrificing quality. I explore this balance of tradition and innovation more fully in the book. Specifically, Cory uses oak barrels and foeders (large vessels used for aging wine and beer) much like Belgians did centuries ago.
Interviewing Cory provided helpful insight into what makes this brewery different from others across Missouri. In particular, he has a reverence for the oak that imparts character to saison, farmhouse ales, stouts, and beer-wine hybrids produced by Side Project. I toured the brewhouse and buildings that stored foeders and barrels. We discussed the history and lore of Side Project.
Breweries are manufacturers, taking raw ingredients and supplies, then crafting them into a delicious product. Side Project produces and packages their premium beer and beer-wine hybrids in the heart of this lively neighborhood. Its taproom is a gathering space for community as well.
In a sense, Side Project’s proximity to its neighbors and customers emulates how German immigrant-run breweries operated in St. Louis in the early to late 1800s. Entire neighborhoods and communities of brewery workers, their families, and patrons lived within blocks of the brewery.
Side Project operates on a much smaller scale than those old factory-sized breweries. The spirit of community is similar, where manufacturing, jobs, and socializing are closely connected and add value for all.
After spending time at the brewery and later at the Cellar, I sipped on a few beers, jotted notes, and contemplated how wood plays such an important role in Missouri’s beer industry. Side Project and other breweries typically use spirits and wine barrels made of American oak. Many such oak barrels are made from white oak harvested in the Ozarks region of Missouri.
Carefully managed by the state of Missouri, white oak is a renewable resource worth millions in trade. Loggers, lumberyard and mill workers, and coopers (barrel makers) work to harvest and transform wood into barrels that impart flavor and aroma to aging beer, wine, or spirits. Tasting an oak-aged saison, the role of wood in the wood-lined Cellar brought the connections full circle.
Wood embodies the passage of time through its rings and grain and scars. Wood used to build a bar counter, an oak barrel, a wall in a taproom, is evidence of life extracted from the wild and assigned another designated purpose.
Wood reminds us of once-living beings of the forest The character of Missouri white oak is still alive, still generous and present here, giving its essence from the barrel and foeder to an aged farmhouse ale or saison at Side Project Cellar. Each sip a subtle reminder of the connections between us, people and place, echoes from a distant woodland found among the evidence in this cozy nook.
Wood is a witness to laughter, woe, gossip, and banality. The silence of wood, absorbing and amplifying sound, is a counterpart to the convivial banter in the taproom. Wood endures and accompanies us during our journey, now and thereafter.
4 Hands Brewing
Similarly, I enjoyed stopping by 4 Hands for a beer and interviewing founder Kevin Lemp. 4 Hands Brewing is the largest brewery by volume in St. Louis. The brewery and craft beverage company has exciting plans for 2025 and beyond. We spoke at length about how strong leadership, adaptation, and innovation are key for growth and survival. Over the past 15 years, competition in the beer industry has grown tremendously, costs have risen, and consumer tastes continually evolve.
Kevin has led 4 Hands to diversity its offerings in part because of his interest in spirits, cocktails, and other beverages. He and others in the beer industry recognized those changing tastes, where consumers want to drink other flavor-filled refreshment besides beer. 4 Hands Brewing’s sister operations include 1220 Spirits and Withered Spirits. 4 Hands also produces non-alcoholic beer, functional beverages, and canned cocktails. In essence, Kevin operates craft beverage companies to satisfy a wide range of consumer tastes. That innovation and willingness to pivot are part of what makes 4 Hands symbolic of where craft brewing seems to be heading into the future.
Kevin’s vision, drive for growth, and emphasis on quality and smart execution continues to shape a promising future for his companies and employees. His willingness to make bold decisions, rely on data and a keen sense of market shifts, and full-throated marketing campaigns also sets the brewery apart from others in St. Louis and across Missouri.
St. Louis and the whole of Missouri is filled with breweries and beer industry workers doing their best to manage, fill needs, and thrive. For the purposes of BBB, it is impossible to write about all breweries past and present. I have repeated this mantra to myself over the past year – History is both local and relative. Existence doesn’t make someone or something historic, depending on the scale of time and place. What’s historic in a small town or suburb may not carry the same weight when considering 200-plus years of history across the entire state.
I have wrestled with that challenge while researching and writing the book. Ultimately, the book has space for only so many words, pages, and chapters. With so many potential stories to tell, the ones I do share have a specific historical significance or fulfill a more representative role. 4 Hands and a few other modern breweries in the book represent the fervent activity of craft brewing in the past decade or so. At the same time, 4 Hands is evolving in ways that suggest how beer businesses and the industry may be shifting. Meanwhile, Side Project’s approach to its beers and beer-wine hybrids exhibit both hallmarks of centuries-old brewing tradition and artistic creativity that pushes the craft in exciting directions.
Only a few months remain before the manuscript deadline arrives. The joy of research, travel, talking to like-minded brewers and industry workers, and writing compelling stories will eventually conclude. I relished my time in St. Louis and am eager for a return visit soon. The work continues…
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