Photo dump four: Tourism

We aren't good tourists.  When offered the chance to see cultural places, events, or eat regional foods from new cities we visit, we typically try to find a park to run in, and then go back to where we are staying and cook dinner.  So the fact that we did anything 'touristy' in St. Louis, much less the MOST touristy things in St. Louis is nothing short of incredible.   That being said, the Arch is pretty cool.  

As are the views from top.  It's pretty massive at the base as you can see in the earlier pictures. 

But quite cosy at the very top.  The elevatorsecond are tiny round rooms on a cable.  They can just barely fit five people at a time in each.  Of course we rode to the top with a woman who was incredibly claustrophobic and who completely ignored the mock up at the visitor center (see Molly's pictures).  So she freaked out the whole way up.  

Ah...Anhueser-Busch.  Such an amazing, striking well kept brewery campus. Such terrible terrible beer.

Those are 3600 bbl aging tanks.  They have more than 60 of them at this brewery. 

Nothing like a little Gilded Age wrought iron and brass decoration for your original brew house. 

They had five mash tins, later runs and kettles running parallel in what is essentially just the show brewery.  Each was at least 100 bbls.  The woman giving the tour, either because she didn't know any better or because she was being paid to play dumb kept insisting that this was 'the only brewhouse' at the brewery and that they brew 'all the beer' in that room.  

Look!  Proper technique for entering a confined space!  They even have hard hats.

A few things struck me about the tour.  One, AB has managed expectations very well for their brewery.  You get horses, some beechwood chips, some fancy rooms tha look important and a free beer.  Sure they talk about the process, but not a whole lot.  Your average visitor doesn't care how it's made as long as they get a free beer at the end of the tour.  Second, the parts of the tour that talk about the beer are remarkably similar to your average craft brewery.  I wonder if they took a cue from craft, or if craft took a cue from them, or if there is just not a whole lot of ways to talk about making beer.