It’s audacious, serving up stouts in August, especially since right now St. Louis is a special hell’s-kitchen kind of hot. If your now-desiccated beer palate is insistent on cider, Pilsner, saison, or anything else really, you’ll find almost all of it at Craft Beer Cellar in Clayton, where the Brothers Nickelson have amassed a dazzling variety of beer in clean, minimalist quarters for your guzzling delight.
There’s a lot to observe here, but this weekend you should start sniffing in the far back corner of the building, where the tasting bar is. The five taps, which usually rotate every week, are now pouring a collection of standout stouts, that thickest, darkest breed of beer usually reserved for the winter solstice and upper latitudes – think Oslo in February.
But co-owner Brandon Nickelson said calling stouts a winter-only libation is a misnomer. “Obviously you don’t want to drink one outside while mowing the lawn, but inside … It doesn’t matter when you’re drinking them, they’re still great beers,” he said.
Here’s another reason to sip a stout: it’s for a good cause, a week-long event Craft Beer Cellar is calling Stouts for Strays, during which proceeds from sales at the draft bar will be donated to Stray Rescue of St. Louis through Saturday, Aug. 30. We’re on the, ahem, tail end of this event, but there’s still time to drop in this weekend.
On tap right now are Evil Twin Brewing’s I Love You With My Stout, Stone’s Imperial Russian Stout, Sierra Nevada’s Narwhal, Great Divide Brewing’s Oatmeal Yeti and Southern Tier 2X Double Milk Stout. Served at a cool (not cold) temperature from the tap, each is a surprisingly bracing pick-me-up when sipped in the cool confines of the bar.
Nomadic Danish brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø of Evil Twin has whipped up a fiendishly strong but complex stout weighing in at 12 percent ABV. Stone’s contribution, as with all its beers, is assertive (bordering on aggressive), especially with the dark malt flavors. It’s attitude in a glass. And the surprising best-in-show was the 2X Double Milk Stout, a sessionable, creamy brew that leans toward chocolate milk one hand and coffee on the other.
I admit: These beers aren’t bad for summer, somewhere between a beverage and a light meal. All except the 2X Double Milk Stout are available by the bottle, but it’s much more fun to sidle up to the bar, order a half-pint of each ($4), talk beer with the Nickelsons and imagine all the tails that are wagging thanks to your support.
This article appears in August 2014.