For the month of July, it’s a quartet of new experiences, all of them undertaken in the hometown for low dough. Check back every Wednesday for a new edition.
After visiting the downtown restaurant and club Plush last week, the idea wasn’t to head back indoors for a beer this week. Instead, there was a general concept of hitting the great outdoors: a state park, a monument, a roadtrip. Instead, circumstances (and the weather) broke in a different direction and I wound up at a microbrewery just a few blocks from home on Monday afternoon for a private party at the Civil Life Brewing Company (3714 Holt).
It’s a place that debuted on September 8 of last year, though the venue was already drawing headlines before opening, as illustrated by a May 2011 piece by George Mahe in St. Louis Magazine’s print edition, highlighting the then-in-progress build-out of the brewery. That interview was with principal Jake Hafner, who had previously run the popular 33 Wine Shop in Lafayette Square. He’s still on the case at Civil Life, though he’s also quick to highlight the names of two partners in the business, Mike Bianco and Dylan Mosley, as well as his bartenders, Chris Valier and Patrick Hurley.
The latter was behind the bar on Monday, ordinarily a day off from the public, but open on Monday afternoon for a private party for the staff of a local restaurant. Hafner zipped between the barspace (air-conditioned) and the brewery (definitely no AC), while Mosley attended to brewing operations in the back of the property, which was formerly a warehouse for the Suburban Journals and an auto body shop before that. As Hafner correctly states, the outdoor biergarten gives away the idea that something different is taking place inside their big Holt Avenue building, but it’s not completely clear what that is, until you step inside. There hundreds of glasses sit atop a huge, wooden backbar; you pretty much know you’re in a pub from that second on.
“The inside doesn’t match the outside,” he says. “People are taken aback when they come in and see all this wood. This was just the right building. You can see how close we are to the neighborhood. Microbreweries need a lot of space, and a lot of the buildings we looked at were in industrial areas, away from any type of neighborhood. Here, we have people riding their bikes, or walking to us.”
Hafner’s right in noting the proximity not only to an edge of the Tower Grove Heights or Oak Hill neighborhoods, but also to the busy bar strip along Morganford and the bustling intersection of Gravois and Chippewa. But tucked away on a side street, it’s not a place that you’d necessarily pass by and discover. Instead, Hafner figures that the place has grown through a healthy word-of-mouth, driven in part by the local pubs that are serving Civil Life. A little bump, too, came from the recent Brewers Heritage Festival. And what press has been featured on Civil Life so far has been universally positive.
The arrival of Civil Life came during an interesting pop in the local brewing scene, in which four microbreweries (Civil Life plus Urban Chestnut, 4 Hands, and Perennial) all opened with the span of roughly a year, and all within the City limits. That kind of thing might be perceived from the outside as a possible threat to business, but Hafner says he’s excited by the local trends of microbrewing.
“There’s so much excitement about local beer culture,” Hafner says. “People are seeing this local flair.”
Civil Life’s adding to that discussion with an interesting space. As noted, the exterior features the classic biergarten approach with long, communal benches. The main bar room has seating along the nice, long bar as well as tables. The mezzanine, looking down on the bar, features a mix of styles, with Irish-inspired corner pocket seating, another round of German-themed long tables, and a big open view. What’s neat is the brewing operation can also be viewed from a different vantage point. While the tanks and other equipment sit behind a large cage on the first floor, patrons can sip a beer or throw darts within a few feet of the brewery itself. Hafner admits the recent warm streak negated that space as an option for most, but when the weather cools, it’ll be another popular place to sit within Civil Life’s unique complex.
While it’s still hot out, the best bet might be the Radler, which Hurley suggested as a pure summer’s drink. “Very refreshing.” He mixes a quarter-glass of Pellegrino grapefruit beverage into three-quarters of German Wheat Beer. It’s pretty much outstanding and hits the spot on a summer’s day, even one that’s hovering in only the high 80s. In fact, the problem on Monday was the beer was free, the company was solid, and the buffet sat only a few feet away. After a tour of the facility from Hafner, there were two things left to do: a) escape for the moment so that productive work could still get done before the Radlers really took over; and b) plan another trip to Civil Life.
Because, sometimes, your neighborhood’s cooler than you know.
