Almost seven years ago we were holding a little bottle share at my house and my buddy Izek asked if it would be ok to invite his buddy out. He told me that this dude was building a new brewery in New Haven. I remember Steve Crider rolling up with a bunch of his beers and I can’t honestly remember if I had any that night.

But I do remember over the following months Steve tinkering with his flagship IPA over and over and over again. Each time he’d tweak it, he’d put it in front of us beer nerds until finally I remember telling him, “Knock it off, this beer is delicious.” That beer was aptly named “Art of Neurosis.”

That’s how my friendship with Steve Crider and 2nd Shift Brewing began. A little later I met this firebrand of a bartender at 33 Wine Bar. She was awesome and knowledgeable but also didn’t take any crap. She especially didn’t take any of Crider’s crap which is probably what drew him to her. That’s how I met Libby Crider née Brown.

Over the past six years, through thick and thin I’ve always had a soft spot for 2nd Shift, mostly because Crider makes some of the best beers in the area, but also because Steve and Libby are two of the most earnest and honest people I know.

Some of you may not know, but I accepted the position of operations manager at 2nd Shift in April. It’s been an exciting change and now that’s I’ve buried the lead long enough, one of the reasons 2nd Shift brought me on is because we’re (it’s so amazing to say “we” instead of “they”) is about to expand.

I’m happy to announce that 2nd Shift Brewing has signed a lease to move from our current home in New Haven to the historic Hill neighborhood in St. Louis. Our new home will be at 1601 Sublette Ave near the corner of Manchester and Sublette.

What does this mean? All kinds of awesome stuff. The first thing is that we’ll have our own tasting room in St. Louis. We can’t wait to be able to serve our beer to you over our own bar. We can’t wait to have a space that is indicative of all of our own crazy personalities. And for all of you asking for swag, we’ll have it available on day 1.

This also means we’ll have space to brew more beer. We’re hoping to double production this year and continue to grow the brewery to a size that’s comfortable for us. It also means that we’ll be investigating new packaging options very soon.

And probably most importantly, it means we get to be apart of an awesome and historic neighborhood. I asked local beer historian Don Roussin about the history of beer on the Hill and it turns out we’ll be the first brewery to be located on the Hill. Given St. Louis’ long history with beer, I found this to be amazing.

I’m sure your last question will be, “When do you open?” I’m always reticent to give out any dates because as soon as you do, you’ll miss them. But our build out should be really minimal and the eternal pessimist Steve Crider is pretty positive that we’ll be open later this summer.

I can’t tell you how exciting we all are about this. It’s an expansion that’s been a long time coming and we can’t wait for you all to be part of it.