December 5th, 2009 marked the opening of St Louis’ newest microbrewery; the Six Row Brewing Company. It’s located in an old Falstaff Brewing Corporation building that was constructed in 1911 and remained in operation until the late 1950s. The Six Row name is a link to the six microbrewery investors rather than the grain.

As soon as you walk into the place you see the beautiful copper bar top that draws your attention from right to left and leads to the copper kettles on the back left of the room. They have a 7-barrel system with the kettles upstairs and five fermenters in the basement. There’s an unfinished upstairs that can be used to expand when the time comes. The whole place is non-smoking. The small location is home to about 10 tables, 15 or so bar seats, three flat screen TVs, and some great beer. For the opening they offered five excellent beers: a Kolsch, Extra Pale Ale, Whale (a ten malt wheat-ale), ESB, and Porter. They also have two guest taps for other beers. One goal is to offer a local home brewers recipe at one of the guest taps. They have growlers available for carry-out; $13.00 for the growler with beer, $9.00 for refills. Pints are $4.50 and a sampler of their five beers is $6.00. They also expect to be producing 1/6 and 1/2 barrel kegs in the future.

Evan Hiatt and Jason Henry are the two brewers we met at the opening. They, as well as the entire staff, were very helpful, friendly, and excited about the grand opening. Right now they don’t have any food service. Pretzels and other bar snacks are available with plans for pizzas in the future. They do allow food to be ordered in and there’s a local Jimmy John’s sandwich shop two doors down. Parking is available on the street.

reviewed on: 2009-12-07 17:47:47