April 2026

Top Fermentation by Tom Schlafly

The late Tina Turner and I had at least two things in common. We both graduated from high school in St. Louis (she in 1958 and I in 1966) and both of us married natives of Cologne, Germany.  As some alert readers (ARs) of this column already know, I married Ulrike Kärst in St. Louis on September 2, 1995.  Eighteen years later Tina and her longtime beau Erwin Bach tied the knot in Küsnacht, Switzerland on the 4th of July, 2013.

Nine months after our wedding in St. Louis Ulrike and I renewed our vows in Cologne Cathedral on June 8, 1996.  Following a boat ride up the Rhine we continued the celebration at Gasthaus Zum Treppchen in Rodenkirchen, where Tina and Erwin had hosted a party the prior weekend.

ARs from St. Louis of a certain age may recall that Ike & Tina Turner burst onto the local music scene in 1960 with their hit single “Fool In Love.”  This was the same year that Tina’s contemporary Connie Francis made it to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her plaintive anthem with a similar theme, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” which opened with the unforgettable line, “The tears I cried for you could fill an ocean.”

While Tina and Connie were crooning about foolish love, St. Louis University was the reigning NCAA soccer champion, having won the first tournament ever played in 1959. The Billikens went on to win their second of 11 championships in the fall of 1960. All of the players on these  early Billiken championships teams were approximately the same age as Tina and the vast majority, like her, had graduated from high school in St. Louis.

Sixty-six years later St. Louis City SC is paying homage to Tina with her name, image and likeness on its road jerseys and other assorted kit.  This is a fitting tribute to a singer who helped put St. Louis on the map in the music world just as St. Louis University helped put our town on the map in the soccer world.

With the 2026 MLS season now underway The Schlafly Tap Room is once again proud to be associated with The St. Louligans, the team’s official supporters’ organization.  This association has been formally recognized by St. Louis City Ordinance 71709, which bestows the honorary name Louligan Street on the block of 21st Street between Olive and Locust, right in front of The Tap Room.

The Billikens won their third national championship in 1962, the same year Ike & Tina Turner released their iconic album Dynamite,  which included their first Grammy-nominated song “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.”  In addition to “Fool in Love” the album featured another song about foolish love titled “Poor Fool,” in which Tina memorably describes the extent of her devotion (presumably to Ike at that time) in the stanza:

This man of mine, he’s my every thought.

I’d give him Prussia if it could be bought.

I’m not ashamed of nothing I do.

I’d guide a missile if he told me to.

I have to admit to having been somewhat puzzled by these lyrics when I first listened to them as a freshman in high school.  Granted, the reference to a guided missile was somewhat topical, given the so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” in October of 1962, a confrontation between The United States and The Soviet Union that some observers feared might lead to a nuclear war.  But the concept of buying Prussia completely bewildered me.  For one thing, Prussia had been formally dissolved 15 years earlier in 1947.

It has since dawned on me that Tina did in fact follow through on this promise, at least in part, albeit not for Ike. As some ARs who are versed in German history will recall, Cologne was part of Prussia from 1815 until 1947.  And while Tina did not buy the entire Prussian empire for Erwin Bach (who was born nine years after the dissolution of Prussia) she did buy him  a splendid villa not far from Gasthaus Zum Treppchen in Rodenkirchen, where we both had hosted parties on consecutive weekends in 1996.

Tom Schlafly