Update: See the stretch of Gravois Avenue by Plant No. 2 in this post from May of 2020, including an historic picture of the brew house (sixth photo down). Otto Stifel’s old Union Brewery became Falstaff Plant No. 2, where the brewery continued to expand. Unfortunately, the central core of the plant, on the triangular…
Tag: Griesedieck
Falstaff Plant No. 1, Revisited
Update: Six Row Brewing closed and has been replaced with Twisted Root Brewing. The old Forest Park Brewery, just west of Grand on Forest Park Avenue, became the center of the Falstaff rebirth. These original images from Alvin Griesedieck‘s book show that much of what was originally part of what was rechristened Falstaff Plant No….
Alvin Griesedieck Book on Falstaff Story
The Central Library has an extensive collection of rare books, many of which are extremely fragile due to age. But Special Collections also has books from the Twentieth Century that are in perfectly good condition, such as Alvin Griesedieck’s The Falstaff Story from 1951. Falstaff was still chugging along then, competing strongly with Anheuser-Busch, and expanding…
Rock Alva, the Griesedieck Estate
I have become fascinated with the Griesedieck family, the “lost” brewing family of St. Louis. Everyone’s heard of the Busches and Lemps, but for much of the Twentieth Century, the three branches of the Griesedieck family fought competitively for dominance in the St. Louis and national beer market, Falstaff being the most famous (an heir…
Anton Griesedieck Grave, Bellefontaine Cemetery
There are several clusters of Griesedieck graves around Bellefontaine Cemetery, but the group around the grave of Anton Griesedieck is the most memorable. Made of gray granite, it features several interesting features, including the accompaniment of the?thanatos, which is the inverted torch symbolizing an extinguished life. The portrait bust, holding up very well in the…
The Old Stag Brewery’s Legacy, Belleville
Update: The building above, and possibly other portions of the brewery not already demolished in 1996, have now been destroyed sometime in between February 2014 and June 2019, when I returned to the site for a second time. The Adam Gintz House, the residence of the founder of the brewery, has also been callously demolished….
Bellefontaine Cemetery in the Snow
I went with some friends to Bellefontaine Cemetery, where I’ve been many times before, but cloaked in a shroud of snow, it took on a new level of beauty.
Falstaff Brewery Plant Ten, Former Consumers/Griesedieck Brewery
Falstaff Brewery Plant Ten is a strange place, in that it has had numerous owners and brewers over the years. It’s actually sort of hard to tell how many it’s had. Also, I think many of the buildings around the brewhouse, once part of the brewery operation, are under different ownership than the main building….
Falstaff Brewery Plant Five, Former Columbia Brewery
Update: See the grave of the brewer of the Columbia Brewery here. Surely the former Columbia Brewery, later renamed Falstaff Brewery Plant Five, must have always dominated the St. Louis Place neighborhood. With the incredible amount of demolition in the area, it now rises out of what almost looks like a meadow, taller than the…
Falstaff Brewery Plant Two, Former Otto Stifel/Union Brewery
There’s not a whole lot left of Plant Two, other than a couple of periphery buildings. The central triangular block of brewery buildings were torn down decades ago for a parking lot, sadly typifying much of Gravois Avenue through the city. Like the Schorr-Kolkschneider Brewery, it occupies a triangular block. There are a couple of…