Photo by Jason Gray Earthbound Beer's Cherokee brewery and beer garden

It’s been a little while since the crew at Earthbound Beer unveiled their grand new space inside the historic stock house of the old Cherokee Brewery, so I decided it was time to check in and see how everything was going. What’s it like to run a modern brewery in a building well over 100 years old, and what lessons have the founders of Earthbound learned in this space?

I sat down with Stuart Keating and Jeff Siddons to find out what it’s like to brew beer in one of the oldest brewer buildings in St. Louis. Third original founder Rebeca Schranz has departed for Second Shift to focus on her brewing, and later business partner Robin Johnson has moved to Portland, Oregon, but still helps design Earthbound’s labeling. Keating’s partner Kristina Goodwin, who runs much of the food operation now, was busy frying Spam in the kitchen for that evening’s service.

First, I was able to reveal to Keating and Siddons—and now, you—some new discoveries about the earliest years of the Cherokee Brewery’s history. We’ve long known that Ferdinand Herold and George Loebs purchased the Cherokee Brewery in 1866 from the Meyer brothers, shortly after the latter had built the original brewhouse and rudimentary buildings.

Courtesy of Earthbound Beer What you'll see when you tour the brewery...

The original contract between the Meyer brothers and Herold and Loebs still exists, and when I dug it up, I found all sorts of revelations. First, there were three Meyer brothers: Frederick, Jacob and Joseph. All three were married: Their wives’ names were Elizabeth, Mary and Barbara, respectively. That’s good to know, not so earth-shattering. What shocked me about the sales contract was the price: On December 17, 1866, Herold and Loebs purchased the brewery from the Meyer brothers for the then vast sum of $48,500. We’ve long assumed that the Meyers had gone bankrupt, but there is no record of a courthouse auction (which occurred in other bewery bankruptcies), and the high price indicates sellers bargaining from a position of financial strength, not weakness.

The original plat spanned lots 1-5 and 6-10 of Sub-block 1 of Block 61of the 2nd Subdivision of the St. Louis Commons. You won’t be tested on that. The point is that after being sold by the original owner, the City of St. Louis, these lots remained united all the way through to the present owner, the WJL Companies.

The contract also states the Meyers had only bought the land the year before, in 1865, from a man named John Ockle. It seems they simply intended to set up the brewery and its infrastructure and then sell it to Herold and Loebs, most likely at a profit. That raised no eyebrows with the current owners. Even to a modern-day brewer, Keating said, such an arrangement is not surprising.

I always enjoy talking to Keating and Siddon, because, as they’ll freely admit, they don’t take themselves too seriously—not in interviews, and not in their online presence. Over the weekend, when the Schnucks on Arsenal was promoting its “World’s Record for Largest Pineapple Display,” someone from Earthbound tossed a couple four-packs of their beer into the pile of fruit, took a picture, and promptly rechristened it the “NEW WORLD RECORD: World’s largest pineapple and Earthbound beer display. Proud to partner with you on such a momentous occasion, @SchnuckMarkets!” on the brewery’s Twitter page.

The two-year anniversary of Earthbound’s grand opening in the old Cherokee Brewery stock house is coming up in September, and the five-year anniversary for the tiny space down the block will be this November. For Keating, it’s been a learning experience adapting to the much larger production capacity of their new brewery.

“You’re going to be figuring out the basics of what you’re doing for a really long time,” he says. “We have a rough idea of how much business we’re going to do each week…”

Siddons remembers when their brewing equipment fit in a closet in the former location, “Now I have to go up and down the stairs all the time, carrying buckets of water and chemicals.”

When the new brewery building opened, both the Earthbound staff and the general public focused on the amazing renovation. “All we thought about was this building,” Keating recalls. “And for four or five months, it was just [long lines of] people out the door, which was awesome.”

Like any new business, even in the historic former Cherokee Brewery, the novelty wore off, and Earthbound’s partners realized they had to promote their business to sustain it. “We had a staff retreat after our first full year in operation,” says Keating. “We needed to focus on not just getting people into the taproom but also onto Cherokee Street,” Keating says.

Soon the trend of pop-up meals, where a chef comes in and serves one brunch or dinner (often while searching for a brick and mortar location) became a popular draw on Sundays.

The rest of the week, Earthbound serves up a rudimentary menu of food, often revolving around the much-maligned staple Spam. When I confessed I’d never eaten Spam, Keating retorted, “You’re missing out!” Summoned, Goodwin brought over a Musubi sandwich, which is a piece of fried Spam wrapped in rice and seaweed, with wasabi and Sriracha mayo sauces on the side. I have to admit, it was good. And Keating rattled off a host of facts about Spam while I ate.

The brewery’s food is priced to be affordable (the sandwich is $3) and is inspired by 1970’s Tiki lounge cuisine. The restaurant breaks even and is not meant to distract from the focus of Earthbound: beer.

Currently, 80 percent of the beer Earthbound brews is sold “over the bar” at the Cherokee Street location, and the other 20 percent is sold through Earthbound’s distributor, Show Me Beverages. Keating is excited to work with the distributor folks, who are about the same age as Earthbound’s partners and focus on smaller microbreweries.

Siddons, meanwhile, has had his eyes on the canning line, which has helped to bring Earthbound beer to a wider audience, even on the other side of the state, in Kansas City.

A new assistant brewer, Danielle Snowden, doubles up as gardener and tour guide.

Now that they’ve settled into their new, larger, historic space, will they keep adding on? Nope, says Keating. “Making beer, selling beer, not expanding anymore.”