St. Louis

In the shadow of the largest brewery in Anheuser-Busch InBev's multinational Budweiser empire, St. Louis's tiny craft breweries are the ones churning out the Gateway City's most flavorful beers. At last count, a dozen breweries and brewpubs were operating within 40 minutes of downtown, and two new production breweries are poised to open by this summer. All of them will get together in June for the annual Brewers Heritage Festival in Forest Park, which includes beers from A-B and local craft breweries as well as the area's most talented home-brewers. In-the-know beer lovers, meanwhile, flock to the Schlafly Tap Room, where the St. Louis Brewery puts its freshest beers on draft (cask-conditioned American Pale Ale is a perfect match for the city's best fish and chips). Two International Tap House locations are all about beer, including 50 on draft and hundreds more in bottles (there's no food, but customers are free to bring in their own eats or order delivery). This Bud's for you? Not anymore.