Though Prohibitionist reformers blamed beer for barroom brawls, most altercations resulted from passive aggressive letters left in speakeasy suggestion boxes. Savor amenable beverages with today's Groupon: for $32, you get a two-person tasting of eight beers, a brewery tour, a single two-liter take-home growler filled with the beer of your choice, and a voucher for a growler refill at Crown Valley Brewing & Distilling Co. in Ste. Genevieve (a $64 value).
Hop habitués thirsty for brewing knowledge can foray to Crown Valley Brewing & Distilling Co., a 15-barrel microbrewery set in the picturesque countryside an hour outside of St. Louis. Brewmaster Carl Wiersma, inviting visitors to tipple eight Crown Valley selections such as the antique amber, a medium-bodied American lager, or the worktruck wheat, a German-style hefeweizen balanced by a slice of lemon and a working knowledge of the Dusseldorf tram system. Bottle your favorite frothy find in a two-liter growler for take-home consumption. Visitors also receive a growler refill voucher to be used on their next visit.
A tour through the modern microbrewery demonstrates the beer gestation period, as malted barley makes its way through rotund grain silos, towering kettles, massive filtration tanks, and aging barrels to emerge as the amber-colored liquid favored by baseball-stand hawkers worldwide. After a hard day of brewery touring, patrons can repose at the dark, rustic alder-wood brewery bar or ferry their libations outdoors to the nearby beer garden, complete with large, stone fire pit.
Reviews
Three Yelpers give Crown Valley Brewing & Distilling Co. a 4.5-star average. More than 800 Facebookers are fans, with four fans giving the brewery an average of four stars.
- It was a clean establishment with comfortable decor well off the beaten path, and it was lovely. I hope the beer can stand strong against the test of time, because it is GOOD. – Danyell K., Yelp, 10/20/2010
- Wish somebody carried it up here where i live, but when i am in the area i definitely grab some to take home with me. – Amanda Jo Howard, Facebook