Two-week-old St. Louis craft brewery Perennial Artisan Ales (8125 Michigan Avenue) today will deliver its first kegs of beer to a wholesaler for distribution to local bars and restaurants.
Grey Eagle Distributors in Maryland Heights will sell Perennial's beers in St. Louis County, including the city, and Krey Distributing in St. Peters will represent the brewery's products in St. Charles County.
Grey Eagle and Krey are primarily Anheuser-Busch InBev wholesalers, but both have recently sought to expand their craft-beer portfolios. Perennial joins O'Fallon Brewery and Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. in Grey Eagle's lineup of St. Louis craft breweries; Krey also distributes O'Fallon's beers. Another A-B wholesaler here, Lohr Distributing Co., has scooped up a number of local craft accounts in the past year.
"We think our partnership with Perennial is a good complement to our longstanding relationship with Anheuser-Busch," Grey Eagle CEO David Stokes says. Perennial brewmaster Phil Wymore's "experience with barrel-aging and using fruit and other different ingredients is going to make beers that really stand out and speak to the craft-beer connoisseur."
Perennial will toast the release of its beers with three launch parties on Thursday: beginning at 5:30 p.m. at International Tap House in Chesterfield, from 7-9:30 p.m. at the Bridge downtown, and from 10 p.m.-close at iTap in Soulard. Brewery staff will be at each location to chat over pints of Perennial's Hommel Bier, South Side Blonde and Strawberry Rhubarb Tart.
After Thursday, Perennial's beers will likely be on tap at Bridge, both iTaps, The Good Pie, Pi in the Delmar Loop, Brasserie by Niche, Annie Gunn's, Five Bistro, The Royale and Oceano, with more locations to be added.
Evan S. Benn is the assistant editor of Go! magazine. He also writes about beer and food, and he is author of the 2011 Post-Dispatch book "Brew in the Lou: St. Louis' Beer Culture - Past, Present and Future," available here. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
