× Expand Courtesy Tim Bottchen Side Project's foeders at the 100% barrel-aged brewery.

Three St. Louis-area breweries ranked among online pop culture magazine Paste's “50 Best American Breweries of the 2010s” of the past decade: Side Project Brewing came in at No. 7, with Urban Chestnut and Perennial Artisan Ales also among the top 50.

Tim Bottchen Courtesy Tim Bottchen

“If my years of attending beer festivals have taught me anything, it’s that beer geeks are more than willing to look silly by sprinting across a festival site, if it means they can beat the line to Side Project Brewing," Paste’s Jim Vorel writes. "Even at a festival filled with absolute titans of the industry, those people are still making a beeline for Side Project when the doors open, which marks them as elite among the elite.”

Side Project co-owner and head brewer Cory King, who runs the Maplewood alongside his wife, Karen, responded to the news: “We are incredibly honored that our unique business model and niche beers have made the waves that they have. My oak-aged focus to brewing was very rare when we opened, and for the vision that Karen and I shared to have been recognized as an influencer of the decade gives me some solace for all of the long, hard days of making these challenging beers.” King added that the accolade belonged to the entire Side Project team, whose combined efforts had allowed the brewery to establish a reputation and reach far beyond St. Louis.

The article also noted the collegial spirit of the industry. “It's wonderful to read through the entire list and see so many friends, so many breweries that have grown as we have throughout the decade and made their marks on this whole industry,” King said. (Just last week, King announced Side Project will bring more than 30 breweries to St. Louis for the Side Project Invitational Beer Festival on February 2.)

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Urban Chestnut came in at 27th on the list. Vorel saved special praise for the consistent high quality of the Reverence line of traditional German styles. "These guys do classic German lager and ale styles with a consistent quality that almost no other American brewery (Live Oak is a good comparison) can match and have rarely received the attention or praise they deserve for it,” he noted.

At No. 30, Perennial Artisan Ales was hailed for its imperial stouts, barrel-aged saisons, and Belgian ales. Vorel added that Perennial “just might be the most balanced and consistent” of this decade’s crop of St. Louis beermakers.

Paste singled out three outstanding beers by each brewery. Among St. Louis' top 50 contenders:

Side Project: Saison du Ble, Fuzzy, Bière du Pays

Saison du Ble, Fuzzy, Bière du Pays Urban Chestnut: Schnickelfritz, Stammtisch, Oachkatzlschwoaf

Schnickelfritz, Stammtisch, Oachkatzlschwoaf Perennial: Abraxas, Vermillion, Maman

Vorel also gave shout-outs to a few other St. Louis favorites that didn’t make the cut, including Schlafly, Civil Life, 4 Hands, Narrow Gauge and 2nd Shift.

In many ways, the list reflected how much St. Louis' craft brew scene has evolved over the past decade. No St. Louis breweries made the cut in the 2009 list. (Around that time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, there were only a dozen craft breweries in the area, with the number of breweries quadrupling since 2008, when Anheuser-Busch was sold to InBev.)