× 1 of 20 Expand Photograph by Chris Naffziger The old Cherokee Brewing, future home of Earthbound Beer. × 2 of 20 Expand Photograph by Chris Naffziger Herold's Romanesque Revival mansion at 3155 S. Jefferson Avenue. × 3 of 20 Expand Courtesy of Big Map Blog/Paul Fehler Cherokee Brewery in 1875, as pictured in Compton and Dry’s View of St. Louis. × 4 of 20 Expand Courtesy of Missouri History Museum Cherokee Brewery pictured in Portfolio of Breweries and Kindred Plants, circa 1895. × 5 of 20 Expand Courtesy of Missouri History Museum Cherokee Brewery pictured in Portfolio of Breweries and Kindred Plants, circa 1895. × 6 of 20 Expand Photograph courtesy of Earthbound Beer Jeff Siddons of Earthbound Beer. × 7 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Stuart Keating, Rebecca Schranz, and Chris Naffziger in the brewery's cellars. × 8 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Ladder up to the grocery store on the first floor. × 9 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray The first basement, which is right below the first floor; in the background, Keating is visible, inflating a raft. × 10 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray The door between the two barrel vaulted lagering cellars. × 11 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Down in the sub-basement, in the lagering cellars. × 12 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Sub-basement lagering cellar. × 13 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Looking down from basement into sub-basement as Keating and Schranz prepare to climb the ladder back to the ground floor of the building. × 14 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Looking south in basement of stock house. × 15 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Looking northwest in basement of stock house towards original staircase. × 16 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray East wall of stock house basement, looking at entrance to brew house cellars. × 17 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Ladder in basement of stock house. × 18 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Looking through door of brew house cellars, showing rubble pushed into the space through holes in the groin vaults. × 19 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray The filled-in cellars of the brew house, showing piles of rubble from demolition. × 20 of 20 Expand Photograph by Jason Gray Stock house basement, showing entrance point from old office building. Prev Next

A rainy day in St. Louis wouldn’t seem like the perfect day for going kayaking. But that didn’t stop Stuart Keating and Rebecca Schranz from giving me and photographer Jason Gray a tour of their future brewery on Cherokee Street. And yes, at least right now, you need a kayak or a boat of some kind to get the full experience. Throwing open the trapdoor in the backroom of a Somali grocery store, an extension ladder beckons down into the pitch black void, reminding me that there really are secrets hiding right in plain view under the sidewalks of South City. The four of us slowly descended the shaky ladder approximately 20 feet down into the cellar of the old Cherokee Brewery. The humidity is almost overwhelming down in the brewery’s old basement, because another 20 feet below, the sub-basement’s old lagering cellars, partially flooded with water and only accessible by boat, hold further mysteries.

150 years ago, 45 feet below the surface of the City of St. Louis, a kayak would have not been needed. The recently opened Cherokee Brewery, a humble cluster of buildings along Cherokee Street in what was the new neighborhood laid out on the Petit Prairie, began its life brewing beer under the Meier brothers in 1866. But a year later, they apparently sold the operation to Ferdinand Herold and George Loebs, two German immigrants who would expand the brewery substantially, constructing new buildings and renovating old ones to eventually take up the entire block along Cherokee Street in between Iowa and Ohio. 1875’s Compton and Dry’s View of St. Louis shows a small cluster of buildings; already the location of the stock house and brew house were established, but the two structures do not match the later photographs, which show dramatic expansions of both buildings.

Business was so good, Herold constructed in 1884 a sprawling Romanesque Revival mansion at 3155 S. Jefferson Avenue, replete with a Cherokee Indian Head serving as the keystone of the front entryway arch (Southsiders today know the house as the one with all of the Ron Paul campaign posters). In the 1887 edition of The Industries of St. Louis, a detailed description of the brewery gives a fascinating glimpse of the operations at the time. The brewery boasted three lagering cellars 45 feet below the street, possessed a 160-horsepower engine that presumably powered the ice machines, and could produce 3,500 barrels of beer a month. Intriguingly, the book also mentions the Consolidated Bunging Co.’s apparatus, which provided the temperature of each lagering keg through a series of wires throughout the cellars. According to city records, the current stock house was constructed in 1890. The Jungenfeld architecture firm, which designed many of the breweries in St. Louis, published the Portfolio of Breweries and Kindred Plants in 1895; the book’s photographs depict a large and bustling Cherokee Brewery.

Unfortunately, the good times that allowed for construction of such a monumental edifice did not last. The titans of Lemp and Anheuser-Busch led to desperate measures on the part of smaller breweries to keep up in sales. The Cherokee Brewery became part of the St. Louis Brewers’ Association (SLBA) in 1889, and continued operations for at a few more years as part of the conglomerate of small breweries challenging the hegemony of the Lemps and Busches. The SLBA failed, and many of the old, inefficient breweries were sold off and demolished. The Cherokee Brewery’s brew house was torn down at this time; according to Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, the lot still sat empty in 1909. City records state that the current building was constructed in 1922, becoming one of the first homes of Dau Furniture. The stock house was labeled as vacant, but the former office building, which according to records once served as a saloon and apartment building, now took on life as a small movie theater (it was in turn tragically demolished in the early 1990s). Rumor had it that the lagering cellars were filled in with the rubble of the brew house; when the famous amateur speleologists Charlotte and Hubert Rother attempted to investigate the cellars, they found the trapdoor locked. Surprisingly, in spite of their renown for determination, the Rothers never returned, instead dismissing the cellars as destroyed.

But the cellars are far from destroyed, and in fact, they are in a state of incredible preservation. And now, they are becoming the focus of Earthbound Beer’s bold expansion on the eve of their one year anniversary on November 20. Descending down into the Stygian waters of the sub-basement, where beer has not been lagered in over a century, Keating and Schranz slowly lowered their recently purchased inflatable kayak as Gray and I looked on (Earthbound’s third partner, Jeff Siddons, was working back at their current location at 2710 Cherokee). Paddling around the dark barrel-vaulted chambers constructed out of rough stone, the sheer size of the Cherokee Brewery’s operations become clear. The beauty of the craftsmanship, tinted with the rust of iron rods in the ceiling, still speaks 150 years after their construction. Two of the chambers are easily accessible, but a small water-clogged passageway leads off from one side.

Where does it go? The Industries of St. Louis book mentions three lagering cellars at 45 feet below street level. Is there another third chamber still down that flooded, unexplored passageway? Or is the third lagering cellar instead the large groin-vaulted chamber, accessible through two doors in the basement above the lower cellars? (That chamber really is filled in with rubble, presumably from the brew house demolition.) Further excavation should reveal just how deep that chamber is, and hopefully the mystery of the third lagering cellar’s location will be answered. Looking at other lagering cellars, such as Uhrig’s Cave, it would not be unheard of to have another lagering chamber located down a narrow passage separate from other cellars.

In the case of the Cherokee Brewery, the cellars match up perfectly with the street grid, which has led some, including me, in the past to argue the cellars may have been completely manmade. However, it seems almost certain now that the cellars were originally natural caves or sinkholes; looking at Compton and Dry again, a large, flooded chasm looms across Iowa Avenue in 1875. As was often the case, brewers took preexisting subterranean features and expanded and vaulted over the natural contours. Usually, the builders left a small access door from the cellars to the natural caves left behind; as of yet, if such an access point exists, it has yet to be found at the Cherokee Brewery. Also, the basement reveals evidence that new foundations or support structures were added when the first stock house was replaced; still present in the basement are stone pilasters built into the brick walls that do not seem to carry any structural weight. I suspect they are remnants of the old stock house. On the back wall of the stock house basement a giant brick-relieving arch holds up the back wall of the current stock house that sits on top of the eastern lagering cellar’s vault, which extends underground at least 16 feet past the back wall.

For the time being, the basement cellar will become home to the fermentation tanks for Earthbound’s beer. Keating and Schranz explained that the original location of the staircase, in the corner of the basement, will again become the access point for the cellars, which for the time being is only accessible by ladder. Likewise, a large but not insurmountable amount of rubble from the demolitions a century ago, along with natural sediment, will be removed from the basement. In order to maintain proper fermentation conditions, the lower sub-basement will be closed off, but will remain accessible. The owners of Earthbound dream big; Keating has suggested installing a movie theater and dance floors in the sub-basement cellars in the future. In the meantime, the old grocery store on the first floor (which is moving across the street to a new location) will become both a tap room and brew house. The exterior of the building will be restored as much as possible as well, and a small patio/beer garden will fill the spot of the demolished office building. The entire renovation has been designed by local architect Nathan Dirnberger. Ideally, Dirnberger and Earthbound’s plans will begin to unfold first with interior demolition this year, with the brew house opening in March and the taproom opening in June 2016.

The task at hand, bringing brewing back to a century-old brewery, could seem daunting. But if the past year is an indication, Earthbound is up to the challenge. First off, business has been so strong, that their original one year volume goal, 4,500 gallons of beer, was reached two months early, and Earthbound is on track to produce 6,000 gallons by year’s end. With the expansion to the old Cherokee Brewery, Keating hopes to boost that tenfold next year; in addition, a new canning line will allow Earthbound’s beer to be enjoyed away from the brewery. And in case the reader is wondering, yes, the beer is just as exceptional as their proposed new brewery. I tried their new Rauchbier, a traditional German beer where the barley is smoked before brewing, and the passion of the Earthbound crew is immediately evident. Brewing here does not focus on the cynical mass production of a few generic, easily consumed beers, but instead emphasizes patience, quality and variety as their business model. As Keating remarked, “If we wanted to make a lot of money quickly, we wouldn’t make the beer we make, and we wouldn’t make it the way we make it.”

Special thanks to Earthbound Beer, Jason Gray, and Dennis Northcott and Jaime Bourassa at the Missouri History Museum Archives.

Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via e-mail at naffziger@gmail.com.