Brewery Week – Day 3

Urban Chestnut Brewing Company began as a St. Louis craft brewery specializing in German-style beers, with a modern twist. The brewery has now expanded–Urban Chestnut is distributed throughout the country and has three tasting rooms and a research lab. One of these tasting rooms is in Bavaria, but the other two are located in St. Louis.

Urban Chestnut has a diverse line-up of beer, but they categorize their beers under “reverence” and “revolution” labels. The former are brewed to a specific style, usually a German-style beer, and are so named because the brewery pays homage to traditional German beer and its brewing heritage. The latter are the brewery’s attempts at creating beers that, while influenced by tradition, utilize unique ingredients and recipes. Whether at the tasting rooms or at the store, you’ll find Urban Chestnut’s regular line-up with both “reverence” and “revolution” labels, along with seasonal and specialty beers. One of our favorites is Schnickelfritz, a Bavarian-style Weissbier.

The brewery’s two tasting rooms in St. Louis are both good examples of these two styles. Urban Chestnut’s original location in Grand Center uses an old brick building, but with clean windows that display sleek, modern brewing implements. The interior of the building has a welcoming atmosphere, but a step outside is just as welcoming–next to the brewery lies a large Biergarten with a bit of greenery and twinkling lights, similar to those in Europe. Similarly, Urban Chestnut’s second location (along “The Grove”) in Forest Park Southeast utilizes another old brick building that the brewery has repurposed as a brewing facility and as a large bier hall, akin, again, to large bier halls found in Europe. The space is rather industrial, with plain concrete floors, steel beams, old brick, and clean brewing equipment on display. Long communal tables fill the hall so that guests can grab a beer at the large bar on one side of the room and hang out with their friends, all while mingling with the other guests. Both of these locations offer small food menus, specializing in snacks, especially German food.

Urban Chestnut has expanded across the United States and has even grown internationally, but its tasting rooms in St. Louis remain local hang-outs that offer a fun and relaxing atmosphere to both St. Louisans and visitors. Urban Chestnut offers a wide-variety of beer to suit any palette, and each beer we have been able to try has been enjoyable. Finally, Urban Chestnut sponsors a number of events each year, most of them beer festivals with lots of beer, food, and live music. Many of these are similar to their German counterparts, such as Urban Chestnut’s yearly Maifest and Oktoberfest celebrations.