Sampling the Goods--TRIP 3 (2012)

"This is the first time we have come into St. Louis from this direction,"
said Andy.  Do you think you can snap a picture from the car window?

Crossing Illinois presented a less drought-stricken landscape than we would have imagined, but the corn crop took a beating.  Trees in Indianapolis that had been planted in the last ten years were all dead.
Here in south central Illinois around Vandalia, the trees seem fine and soy beans are thriving.  Only the under-nourished and dried out corn shows evidence of severe lack of rain this summer.
"You'll need to guide me into St. Louis," said Andy, "so we don't end up in East St. Louis."
"And where am I taking you?" I asked.

Sergeant Robert Banks
tells his story in the
Museum of Westward
Expansion.

"Well, it's so close to lunchtime they probably don't have a tour at Anheuser-Busch, so let's go to the Gateway Arch and walk around the city for a while, now that we have suddenly gained an hour."
Our walk included an hour in the Museum of Westward Expansion, where I shot pictures of a Conestoga wagon; Sergeant Robert Banks, 10th Cavalry in the Arizona Territory in 1886; a sod house on the Great Plains; and an Indian fishing boat of buffalo hide. An inscription by Ralph Waldo Emerson read, "The eye is the first circle -- the horizon which it forms is the second."  I thought of my English class lessons on Transcendentalism.
Reading passages on the displays I learned that Merriwether Lewis took his dog Seaman, a Newfoundland, all the way to the Pacific Ocean with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Conestoga wagons like this one carried settlers west.

We walked around the Arch and then headed into town to the sculpture gardens, known as Saint Louis Citygardens. Our favorite sculptures  included Kindly Geppetto, a fairy tale animation by American sculptor Tom Otterness; Samarkand, a folding screen of aluminum by Jack Youngerman; Two Rabbits in bronze painted white by Tom Claassen; Big Suit, a huge pink suit on painted aluminum by Erwin Wurm, and a screen of This Is Bruce and Sarah Walking by Julian Opie. Back toward the river we saw Eros Bendato, a dismembered head of the god of love and desire, by Igor Mitoraj.

Big Suit by Erwin Wurm
in downtown St. Louis
catches the attention
of visitors.

On the way to the car we stopped at Basilica of Saint Louis, one of the most richly indulgenced churches in the world, to read about the dedication of St. Louis to King Louis IX of France.
The cool weather was glorious, with brilliant sunshine and not a cloud in the sky.
Andy headed for Anheuser-Busch Brewery a couple miles from the Arch. "I think it's this way," he said. "Just watch for the big buildings."
Sure enough. He was right, and we were just in time for the 12:50 p.m. tour. With at least 50 other people we followed tour guides Mr. John and Mr. Sloan through the brewery. I jotted down interesting facts, since the camera was in the car:  1. Fifty breweries existed in St. Louis in the early 1800's. Anheuser-Busch is the only one left.


Citygardens offered beautiful sights and smells for city workers
to relax and eat lunch with Gateway Arch in the distance.

2. Budweiser has been their flagship beer since 1876.
3. Lager refers to a special German way of brewing underground in caves where the beer is kept cool.
4. The facility today is 142 acres, named Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association in 1879.
First we visited the stables. Mike, of Clydesdale fame, munched hay and rubbed his neck against the pillar of his stall, which was immaculate in every respect.
5. The guides explained that Clydesdales weigh about 150 pounds at birth and can grow to as much as 2000 pounds when fully developed at four years old.  Only Clydesdales with brown coats, four white stockings and black manes and tails can become poster horses for the beer teams.

Downtown St. Louis offered a perfect opportunity
to be outside in the fresh, autumn air.

6. The hop vine chandelier in the horse barn weighs 650 pounds, is made of solid brass, and was purchased from the 1904 World's Fair.
As we followed the young tour guide, he joked, "You know, St. Louis has the happiest squirrels in the U.S.  All our used beechwood chips are turned into mulch for the public parks."  He was talking about the tons of beechwood curls that line the bottom of the stainless steel fermenting tanks about half a foot deep. Although they add no flavor or taste to the beer, they allow air to get in for the yeast to ferment more evenly. 
7. He let us do the math: one tank can hold 200,000 six-packs of liquid beer. The room he showed us had six or seven huge lager tanks. "This plant of Anheuser-Busch alone has 375 such tanks kept year-round at 50 degrees," he said. "The Midwest, our biggest region, consumes 500,000 cases of beer in 18 or 20 hours."
In the Tevo Packaging Plant we watched bottles and cans come off the line.
8. Twelve-ounce bottles can fill at a rate of 1300 a minute, and twelve-ounce cans fill at 2000 a minute. Imagine when things go wrong!
Beer and pretzels awaited us in the Tasting Room.  I chose Raspberry Wheat and Bud Lite Lime-a-Rita. Andy had Michelob Amber Bach and Raspberry Wheat. He threatened that was dinner.  We'll see!  Somehow I doubt it!