More breaking news in what's become a flurry of new-brewery announcements in St. Louis: Phil Wymore, head brewer for Half Acre Beer Co. in Chicago, is moving here next month to start a microbrewery.

Wymore's brewery will be called Perennial Artisan Ales, and it'll be a family affair: He'll brew, his wife will handle marketing and sales, and his father-in-law will help keep the books. Wymore is still scouting locations, but he tells me he hopes to begin buildout by the end of the year.

Alert craft-beer lovers were tipped off this week about Wymore's move from this post on Half Acre's blog, discussing what will be his final beer for the company -- a saison brewed with chamomile and lemon.

I fired off some questions to Wymore, 32, who grew up outside of Kansas City. Here's what he had to say:

• What's your brewing background -- how'd you get into it, and how did you land the gig at Half Acre? I have been brewing in Chicago for over four years, starting out as a brewer at Goose Island's production facility in 2006. After a year, they promoted me to manage their Cellaring operations. This was very exciting for me since I was managing their barrel-aging program, which is one of the largest in the country. A year ago, I left Goose Island to take the Head Brewer gig at Half Acre, which has allowed me to work at a startup and at a scale that more closely resembles what I want to do in St. Louis.

• Why make this move to St. Louis? My wife, Emily, is from St. Louis, so naturally I spend a lot of time here. We also view St. Louis as one of the best markets to start a brewery due to the explosion of craft beer culture in the city -- in the form of breweries, beer bars, festivals, etc. We want to be a part of this craft brewing revolution that can make St. Louis a prominent beer destination like Seattle, Portland, Denver, San Diego, etc.

• What can you tell me about your plans? Our brewery is going to be called Perennial Artisan Ales, and we will be a packaging microbrewery with a tasting room. Our offerings will be available in 750 mL bottles and draft. Perennial will be a family business. Emily will manage our sales and marketing efforts, and her father, Russ Bryant, will help us with the business side. Perennial's location is still to be determined, but we hope to start building out before the end of the year.

Perennial will be crafting small batches of beer with a lot of variety. Our goal is to produce 12-15 different beers in our first year. We will be focused on farmhouse ales, barrel-aged styles, and fruit beers -- basically, the styles that we and our beer geek friends get very excited about.

We're not interested in brewing wheat beer and pale ale as we feel these styles are well-covered by others in St. Louis. The way we see it, why be the 9th or 10th brewery in St. Louis making a fine pale ale when we could be the first making a Blood Orange Wit or a Blackberry Lambic, for example.

• How do you think your project will be able to carve out a niche among St. Louis' expanding craft-beer market? We feel that our offerings will differentiate us. Our beers will be very "brewer-driven." Ironically, this is a case where a craft brewer is opening a brewery, which seems to be a rarity these days. As much as I'm a beer geek, I'm also a brewing geek -- that is, I get excited about brewing techniques, pushing the envelope and trying to create something new. As much as we would like to appeal to the first-time craft-beer drinker, we're really brewing with the seasoned, adventurous craft-beer drinker in mind.

• What are some of your favorite beers? Any St. Louis craft beers you've come to enjoy? I really enjoy sour beers, especially ones produced by Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin and Cantillon, to name a few. On the other hand, I find nothing more refreshing than a crisp, German-style Pilsner on a St. Louis summer day. As for local offerings, I really enjoy Schlafly's 750 mL series and am excited to try their Raspberry Coffee Stout. I'm also a big fan of O'Fallon's 5 Day IPA on draft.

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For those of you keeping score at home, this is the third new-brewery announcement in St. Louis in the past two weeks. To recap:

• July 6: Mattingly Brewing Co. closes after a two-year run operating a Benton Park brewpub.

• Aug. 2: Jake Hafner, former owner of 33 Wine Shop & Tasting Bar, announces he'll open the Civil Life Brewing Co. early next year in the city's Tower Grove South-Grand Oak Hill neighborhood.

• Aug. 9: Florian Kuplent, who used to brew beer for Anheuser-Busch, and David Wolfe, who used to sell beer for A-B, release details of their Urban Chestnut Brewing Co., set to open by the end of the year in Midtown Alley.

• Aug. 12: Phil Wymore, a professional Chicago brewer, says he's moving to St. Louis to start Perennial Artisan Ales. He says the location is yet to be determined, but he's hoping to brew farmhouse-style ales to appeal to "seasoned, adventurous" craft-beer drinkers.

Hip Hops will be keeping an eye on all of these new ventures and will post updates as they make progress toward flooding the streets of St. Louis in craft beer.