Brewing Benevolence is a series of articles and interviews with breweries that are committed to more than just brewing beer in their communities. In this edition, I talked to Dan with Schlafly in St. Louis, Missouri. Read on to find out how Schlafly has helped the relief efforts in Haiti and contributed locally to its community in St. Louis)
How do you perceive Schlafly’s role in the community?
Our identity is tied very closely to the revival of two neighborhoods in StL, the Downtown area and Maplewood. Both had suffered from many years of decline and for both economic and emotional reasons we chose to purchase long abandoned buildings and bring them back to life as breweries with on-site restaurants, event space and in the case of Schlalfy Bottleworks a small museum/tour center and a garden that contributes a significant amount of vegetables for the restaurants. We are urbanites and our brand reflects that personality. We brought a new brewery to a city that was not looking for a new beer brand; a city where the dominant, local brewery, Anheuser Busch permeated all elements of living in StL. Therefore, we started as a brewery restaurant with the limited goals of brewing great beer styles and hosting some great parties to showcase the wide variety of beers style.
Following in the theme of odd events you wouldn’t expect to be put on by a brewery, Schlafly puts on an alternative art festival each year, Art Outside. What was the inspiration behind this event and how is it relevant to Schlafly?
Our on-site events are unique because there is a unique story behind the creation of each event. In the case of Art Outside, we started this event in partnership with local artists who felt shut out of the very significant and successful Stl Art Fair. The “main” event is open to applicants from all over the world and therefore most of the artists that gain access are not from StL. Schlafly Beer was sold at the “main” event for many years but when AB wanted to introduce Ultra many years ago they wrote a big check to gain “exclusivity”. As opposed to telling us the truth, the organizers gave us a number of “other reasons” for choosing only to sell AB beers. One night over a beer with some local artists we both vented our frustration and one year later Art Outside was born as a festival full of local artists only; there is an independent jury that selects about 75 artists for the Fair, all of whom have to live within 150 miles of StL. Local Art and Local Beer. There is a unique story to the creation of each of our on-site events, of which there are now about a dozen including Burns Night (Scotch Ale, Pipers, Poetry and Haggis every January 25th to celebrate the birthday of the Scottish Poet Robert Burns), Cabin Fever (winter beer fest), the Cod and Cask Ale Fest (Icelandic Cod and Great Cask Ales), The Stout and Oyster Fest (30,000 fresh oysters and 4 to 5 stouts), The Repeal of Prohibition Beer Fest (Celebrate the anniversary of Repeal with our beers and guests from a different State each year), Brew n Q and The World Pork Steak Championships (a local BBQ fest for backyard teams), Mussel and Belgian style Beer Fest, Lot Party (ubran music fest), Art Outside, Hop in the City Beer Festival and our annual Anniversary party on boxing day, December 26th.
You host events that seem more likely to be held at a museum or community center (Science on Tap, Theology, etc.) How did the idea to use the brewery space for these kinds of events come about and how has Schlafly benefitted from being the host of these events?
We have a “community room” at Schlafly Bottleworks and we welcome groups to use the room free of charge. It brings in new folks who we hope will try a Schlafly Beer. If you build it (and have some good beer) they will come. We did not plan this out. One event led to another and to another. We keep it simple.
Later this month you’re hosting a dinner to benefit Haiti. Obviously this has become a big philanthropical issue lately. What are the details behind the event and how will the funds be used to benefit earthquake victims?
The event for Haiti is somewhat unique…Tom Schlafly is on the Board of Directors of a hospital in Cap Hatian. For a few years now we have hosted a fundraiser at the Schlafly Tap Room to raise funds for Crudem. We decided to wait until now to put something together knowing that the needs will be long term.
Your online calendar is absolutely jam packed with events at The Bottleworks. Are these events just other ways to promote your brewery or have you actually been able to derive a secondary stream of income from the use of the space?
The principal focus of the restaurants and the events that we host are to help build the beer brand. We are fortunate that the day to day business at the restaurants and event spaces is profitable and therefore we can re-invest those dollars into further development of our beer brand and brewing capacity. Some of the events are profitable; others may have a small loss. We look at this holistically – the sum of it all seems to work. We have developed key competencies in brewing, restaurant operations, event marketing, beer sales and graphic design/communications to support these efforts. This seems to work financially. If we had to develop more traditional beer marketing competencies notably in heavy media advertising, I am not sure we could support the expense. While we have surpassed 30,000 barrels in beer sales and the associated revenues, it would likely require much greater revenues to support a successful national sales and marketing footprint. Schlafly is not a lifestyle brand as defined in marketing terms; it is primarily a local brand that derives its strength from the connections with local consumers and the practical advantages that are associated with beer, notably that freshness is critical to quality – it is much easier to maintain freshness when almost 90 % of our sales are within 100 miles of StL and beer is relatively heavy and expensive to transport so it is more profitable to sell closer to the Brewery.
Thanks again to Dan from Schlafly. Make sure you check out their website here.
