COED Gets the #BudVIP Treatment at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in STL

Last weekend, the fine folks at Budweiser treated COED to an once-in-a-lifetime VIP experience in St. Louis, Missouri–home of the world famous St. Louis Cardinals and the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. It was a amazing weekend of fun and (responsible) excess.

In the course of 3 nights and 2 days, we went out on the town sampling St. Louis’s finest foods, hung out, played and drank Budweiser in the coolest neighborhoods, got the VIP treatment at the Spoon show at the Pageant Theatre, caught the Rams/Cowboys game in a luxury suite, had a private party at the Bud Brewhouse in Ballpark Village and watched the St. Louis Cardinals last home game of the regular season with the ‘Wizard of Oz’ Ozzie Smith in his private box.

Any one of these things alone would have made for an amazing weekend, but the best of the best was the private tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery with Brewmasters Dave Maxwell, Narissa Serafin and Dan Jensen. Like all St. Louians, they are proud and passionate about their city and the things that make St. Louis great, but their passion and love for making the King of Beers far exceeds how you probably feel about your own job.

We cut together a quick video and added some photos of what it was like to step inside the Anheuser-Busch Brewery for you, so do yourself a favor and check it out. If you have a cold Budweiser, you might want to pop that open too.

 
Pretty cool, right? If you like what you saw, then you’ll also want to check out some great photos we took during the tour. And if you want to pop open another Budweiser, we’re not going to stop you…

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Exterior of the Budweiser Clydesdale Carriage House.

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The original beer truck. Two beer wagons sit inside the atrium of the carriage house with the stables venting off on two sides.

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Brewmaster Dave Maxwell explains that like beer, water is extremely important horses. So much in fact, that the brewery has to get permissions from the carriage house to shut off the water supply.

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‘Gambler’ and his Clydesdale family are treated like kings at the carriage house and on the grounds.

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My first Clydesdale selfie.

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Exterior of the original Brewery built in 1852.

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Inside the multi-storied Brewhouse built in 1891. The mash tanks are where the Budweiser 30 day process all begins.  Barley malt and water are combined here. In the case of Budweiser, milled rice is mixed with the water in a cooler. The mixture from the mash tanks is then strained into a sugary liquid called Wort. Almost all Anheuser-Busch brands share the same tanks, however not at the same time.

The interior of this building is architecturally marvelous to see. The original ironwork is still in play today. Although there are electric lamps, the majority of the Brewhouse is lit by natural light… See what I did there?

The original cast iron chandeliers are styled after wildly-grown hops.

Brewmaster Dan Jensen shows up the Hops Room. Hops are the spice of the beer lending their special flavor, aroma and character.  AB grows the majority of their own hops in Idaho and imports the rest from Germany. (Editor’s note: At this point we have been on the tour for about an hour, which is the longest we have gone the entire trip without a Bud.)

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Nope, we didn’t stop to get stoned.  This is what hops looks like when it is ground.  Hops too has a very pungent smell.

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The wort from the straining tanks is then collected in the brew kettle and brought to a boil.  The natural hops is then added to the boil.

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I can’t tell you much about this 10′ tall oil painting, however, I can tell you it’s AWESOME and I want it.

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Next stop, the fermentation room.

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Here’s where the yeast is added and the boiled liquid actually becomes beer.

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The beer then travels to the Beechwood Aging Cellars. Beer rests here for aging, clarification and natural carbonation.  Each of these massive tanks holds  3600 barrels of beer. Each barrel holds approximately 300 bottles of beer which totals… a sh*t ton of beer.  You do the math.

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The beechwood chips are spread out on the bottom of the tank and give the yeast more surface area to rest on.

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Brewmaster Dave Maxwell explains that lining the bottom of the barrels with beechwood chips allows the yeast to remain in suspension longer, giving it more time to reabsorb and process green beer flavors.

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And finally, we get to taste BEER! And it’s damn good if I must say. At this point in the process, the Budweiser is much heavier and murkier than the finished beer.

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The last step, the filtration room. Here the beer is polished into it’s final form and moves on to bottling and packaging.

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We had the amazing privilege of drinking straight from the pigtail, meaning we were drinking Budweiser even before the born on date … pretty cool.   The pigtail is a coiled spigot that allows the extremely pressurized tanks to distribute the beer at a steady pace with little to no foam.

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And of course the end result was the best tasting Budweiser ever.

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Unfortunately for you, the last stop on the tour was the tasting room, which happens to be a very top secret and cameras were an absolute no no. This boardroom-style beer sits high above the mash tanks on the top floor of the Brewhouse. Here specialized tasters taste each step of the beer in four glasses–first, the water, then the wort, then the beer after the beechwood aging process and finally the finished beer. A control is used (which is actually a real, recently bottled, bottle of Budweiser – ours had a born on date one day prior) to taste against. Tasters are constantly tested to make sure their pallets are intact to ensure every bottle of Budweiser tastes exactly like a bottle of Budweiser.