ANHEUSER-BUSCH BREWERY TOUR AND ST. LOUIS UNION STATION

 

This blog features our day trip into St. Louis on May 18 to see the huge brewery and the Union Station.

The brewery had several tours, one free and others at very limited times to see parts of the facility not ordinarily seen. 

The brewery occupies 120 acres near downtown St. Louis, close to  the Mississippi River. The buildings are of uniform architecture – all brick with similar trim.

Above and below are scenes in the room for folks to gather for tours. Is the nicely restored delivery truck a Chevrolet?

Below is part of the display of containers for all of the different beers made there . I had not realized that there were so many.

 

The first stop on our tour was the stables for a few of the Budweiser Clydesdales. While the brewery owns about 200, they maintain just three hitches of six horses each. It was mandatory that folks taking the tour be pictured here, and at the hospitality room we were offered prints for $20.

Form here we were taken to the” Beechwood Aging” room mentioned  on the cans. Beer is stored in large vats containing strips of Beechwood for secondary aging of 3 weeks.

Here are the Mash Tanks, the second step in the brewing process on the diagram below.

The next stop was a lecture room where the info on the sign was explained about the brewing process. Here we were given a small glass of Bud Light.

On the way out we were given a wooden token for a glass of beer at the hospitality room, below. About 16 of their beers were on tap. Jo and I shared a glass and a hamburger for lunch there.

 I have taken tours of a lot of breweries , and I would rate this one as a C. The Coors tour in Golden  CO shows much more of the brewing process and explains it well.

 

I am partial to tours showing the bottling process as I worked about a month one summer at a small brewery in Milwaukee on the bottling line.

 

UNION STATION

 

This is part of the block-long St. Louis Union Station built in 1894.  The station was closed  in 1978 and reopened in 1985 as a hotel,with restaurants, offices and shops  The back side is shown below.

In its heyday 100,000 persons per day passed through this area going to and from passenger trains, seeing off and picking up passengers.

 

 

This is the Great Hall, originally the waiting room, now a very large  lounge for the hotel.  It is managed by DoubleTree.  

 

 

Behind the building in the area formerly used for passengers to get on or off their trains is a mall with all kinds of specialty shops, mainly eateries.

Across the street is a large reflecting pool with anatomically correct statuary.