RFT is featuring a three part Craft Beer Guide to honor the many wonderful brewers in St. Louis and the recent Craft Beer Week. The first two installments of the series ran here (A Craft Beer Lover's Guide to 72 Hours in St. Louis) and here (Craft Beer Guidebook).
Many breweries offer seasonal and special-release beers to complement their year-round flagships. Check early for news about these upcoming releases on the websites and social-media accounts of each brewery.
Civil Life rolls out its traditional Oktoberfest Lager in September.
Earthbound Brewing produces small-batch beers on a 1.5-barrel system and rotates its beer roster weekly. By late summer, look for its idiosyncratic variations on gose, saison and wit including a black wit with light, fruity coffee. Also, brewer Stuart Keating will roll out a malty, apple-forward collaboration with Apple Knocker Cider based in Cobden, Illinois.
Heavy Riff Brewing Company greets September with Amber Pumpkin and also Goodnight Saison, a dark, whiskey barrel-aged version of its saison. Come October, the season is ripe for Heavy Riff's Evil Pumpkin Imperial Porter.
By August, Schlafly will offer both a Pumpkin Ale and Oktoberfest followed by its September release Tasmanian IPA. This hop bomb is brewed only with Galaxy, a Tasmanian hop from Australia with prominent citrus and pineapple flavors.
Modern tradition holds that Oktoberfest begins in mid- to late September. Square One Brewery and Distillery's Oktoberfest Lager and Maple Stout will both be released that month.
While supplies last, Urban Chestnut will release a sampler pack in September of Barenweiss (Strawberry Weissbier), Perdedor (Lemon-Lime Lager), Bap (Kolsch) and Ku'damm (Berliner Weisse). Other September limited releases include Revolution Series: Count Orlok (Black Pumpkin Weissbier) and Reverence Series: Oachkatzlschwoaf (Oktoberfest Lager).
