It all started back in November of 2010 with a business card. Then, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Evan Benn confirmed that we would be seeing Deschutes Brewery in 2011. Well, I’m happy to report that Deschutes has found their distribution partners and we’ll begin seeing them in St. Louis toward the end of July.

STL Hops has learned that Deschutes has chosen Lohr Distributing (St. Louis City), Grey Eagle Distributing (St. Louis County) and Krey Distributing (St. Charles County) to sell their beer in the St. Louis area. We’ll see a roll-out of Deschutes beginning in Kansas City about mid-July with St. Louis following a couple of weeks after.

The Oregon brewery, which produced about 200,000 barrels in 2010, will begin with sending out draught and bottles of their year-round beers like Mirror Pond and Black Butte with us seeing their very sought-after 22oz beers like The Abyss and Black Butte XXIII as the year progresses.

With the addition of Stone, Firestone Walker, Deschutes, and the soon to arrive Green Flash, it looks like we no longer need to head out to the west coast, because it’s headed to us.