Updated: Schlafly beer makes the rounds in D.C., St. Louis; Why doesn’t the beer win national awards?
We got an e-mail recently from Dan Kopman, chief operating officer at St. Louis Brewery (better known by its “Schlafly” beer brand.) Dan gave us an update on his itinerary as the traveling ambassador of Schlafly beer.
Dan seemed pretty excited about the round of upcoming beer festivals. And who could blame him? He was headed to Washington, D.C. for the Brewers Association’s SAVOR festival, a big event centered on pairings of beer and food.
“I am pouring our 2008 Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout and Missouri Oak Aged Barleywine Style Ale,” Dan told Lager Heads. “We ship 56 cases of each year’s vintage to select markets outside of St. Louis. It is fun to showcase these great beers and to tell the folks on the East Coast that if they want to try the many other Schlafly Beers they have to come to St. Louis!”
But the party is apparently just beginning. This upcoming weekend is The Brewers Heritage Festival in St. Louis. So if you see some East Coast visitors coming in search of beer, show them some St. Louis hospitality and tell them Lager Heads says hi.
Update: We talked to Dan just now. He had read some of the comments on Lager Heads about Schlafly lacking national/international awards. The reason is quite simple, he said: The company doesn’t enter big competitions. It’s a matter of priorities.
“The best judge of whether our beers are good or not is the local consumer,” said Dan, who worked at a London brewery called Young’s back in the ’80s. The brewery won a bunch of awards — and still closed down.
Partly because of that memory, Schlafly does not enter the Great American Beer Festival or the World Beer Cup - two of the most prominent competitions in the U.S. The company doesn’t see much of a connection between winning national awards and selling more beer in its region (St. Louis and roughly 300 miles around.)
“It’s not that we’re scared” of entering competitions, said Dan. “It’s just that it costs thousands of dollars and we’re really busy. And what is the best use of our resources?”
(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5)
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Jeremiah McWilliams is a native Virginian who came to the Post-Dispatch in early 2007 to cover beer and other consumer products. He previously covered manufacturing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. 
Huh - It’s one thing to be sponsored by someone. It’s another thing to say who’s organizing. AB-Inbev has taken a backseat role in organizing the festival - it’s all Schlafly. And I recall hearing the festival organizers on the radio, one of them being Dan Kopman of Schlafly, saying this is a festival that doesn’t give out awards. Is it because he’s afraid his beers won’t win? Also, I just saw the updated beer list for the festival. Schlafly has once more matched A-B’s number of entries (at 17, excluding Ted O’Neil’s Dry Stout). This is just another example of Schlafly trying to be like A-B.
I thought Tom Schlafly wanted a company - and products - distinctly different from A-B. At least, that’s what his book says.
Mr. Free, how can you be sure that AB didn’t match Schlafly’s entries, so as not to be out done?
A few comments:
Schlafly Beer chose to participate in the Savor event because we sell our Oak Aged Beers in the DC Area and small brewers are now actively working in DC to get our message through to Congress about excise taxes. It looks like folks thought highly of these Reserve Beers - see this link - http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/kasperontap/2009/06/savor_in_dc_beer_drinkers_para.html
The idea behind the StL Brewers Heritage Festival is to celebrate beer made in StL and give folks a chance to try as many beer styles as possbile. It is not about how many beers each brewer can make. It is not about who makes “the best” version of a particular style. All the local brewers met in December to put together “the list” of who could make the 70+ different styles. As the local brewing community grows, and the smaller brewers grow and produce more styles I think we will see the number of beer styles from each of the respective brewers even out. We look forward to a great Festival this weekend.
Dan Kopman
So a beer is only good if it has some arbitrary stamp on it? I personally love schlafy, and I have tried from every corner of the globe during my time in. Germany being the best, but then beer that comes out of schlafly. Mr. Free you seem to have some inside despair for a St. Louis company actually making a name for themselves. I am glad they have that many entries, as I enjoy tasting different styles at different times, I love a good seasonal. I don’t care who puts on the festival, I am glad to have an afternoon trying different brews, no need for “Awards” as they honestly do nothing for me, if I find a good craft I like, then it’s a winner… why do I care what the guy next to me likes?
I still question the priorities at this point in the life of Schlafly. They’ve grown enough that I would expect they could absorb a few thousand dollars for an entry fee to compete against the best. I understand there is an altruistic sense in the craft industry to support each other, but it is a market dominated by market share. Win a few awards, expand distritubtion by a few thousand miles from STL and become a bigger and better brewer. Isn’t that what the guys at Bells, Dogfish Head and Three Floyds are doing? There’s a reason their beers are fawned over by beerdrinkers across the country. Love it or hate it, St. Louisans were comforted knowing we had the biggest brewer in the world in our backyard. If we want to claim to be a beer capital then why won’t someone step up and prove themselves on a national level…it looks like Schlafly isn’t interested.
There are two distinct models in the “small brewery” world. One is to focus on a local/regional market; the other is to reach a national audience. Our goal when we opened in 1991 was to get open and survive in a market dominated by AB; to brew some great non light lager styles and creat a “place”, The Schlafly Tap Room, where folks could come and enjoy the beers. These goals remain. We hear from many customers that it is great to have a local brewery that is unique to StL; that our beers are not available everywhere. We do hear from consumers and distributors in other parts of the Country asking for our beer. Right now we want to make sure that we look after the interests of the very supportive local customers before we think about reaching out further. Dan K.
Thanks for the explanation Dan. Your responsiveness has been impressive. Your ability to grow local support is unquestionable, there is certainly a strong following. Call me selfish, but I’d still like my local brewer to have an award or two. If its not for the potential to grow market share nationally, then to give some of your strong local supporters something to hang their hat on when talking friends across the country. Why not give people another reason to visit STL? Schlafly could become THE St. Louis beer tourist destination.
How can you say you want to brew “non-light” beers when your most recently added offerings - year-round kolsch and summer helles - inch ever closer to light beers?
Also - to d adams - I’m more concerned about motive. A-B doesn’t have to participate in this festival in order to succeed as a global brewer. So - did the guys at Schlafly really come up with this festival for ALL St. Louis brewers or to showcase Schlafly Beer?
We have been making Kolsch for over 10 years and Helles for many years as a once a year single batch style at the Schlafly Tap Room. This is in addition to the over 40 styles we make each year - none of which are American Light Lager that would be defined as a low calorie beer that is light in color and body. AB has been making this style very successfully for years and it would be hard for us to compete in that style.
Our motivation for working to help create and sustain the Brewers Heritage Festival was simple. We think St. Louis should be home to one of the great beer festivals in the world. Like Munich Oktoberfest we beleive in celebrating locally brewed beer. Unlike Munich where there is basically one style of beer sold we decided to try to offer many styles for folks to try in a “non-branded” Festival - beers are set up by style with the name of the Brewer, leaving out brand names. Hop in the City, in September is the Schlafly Beer Festival. The Brewers Heritage Festival is, well, not.
Good discussion, guys. To Mr. Free’s question, I believe A-B was involved pretty much from the beginning in getting the Heritage Festival off the ground. In fact, the initial idea came from discussions several years ago between the Schlafly guys and Bob Lachky (one of A-B’s top marketing execs).