As most alert readers (ARs) know, one of my favorite quotations from Yogi Berra is “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”  This was certainly true for pioneers who took the Boone’s Lick Trail from where Schlafly Bankside is today to the Santa Fe and Oregon trails; and...

John D. Rockefeller famously said, “A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”  My friendship with Charles Kopman began with a business connection.  It continued after our original business connection ended and led to starting a new business ten years later.  This new business association, like our friendship, continued until Charles died on April 1,...

Two hundred and fifty-one years ago, in April of 1769, a French-Canadian fur trader named Louis Blanchette established a settlement called Les Petites Cotes (The Little Hills) on the Missouri River about 30 miles upstream from the confluence with the Mississippi.  The territory was ruled by Spain at the time and the settlement was later named San Carlos, the Spanish...

There were a lot of reasons to celebrate on January 25th. As most alert readers (ARs) probably know, it was the 261st birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, an annual celebration at The Schlafly Tap Room since 1992. It was the day of the NHL All-Star Game in St. Louis. It was also Chinese New Year, the first day...

An ignominious centennial is upon us.  January 17th will be the 100th anniversary of the effective date of Prohibition. The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution is the only amendment whose purpose was to limit freedom rather than expand it. 

When I incorporated The Saint Louis Brewery, Inc. in 1989, Dan Kopman and I didn’t give much thought to what name to give our beer. Our main focus was on getting the business up and running. As we got closer to actually brewing and selling beer (as opposed to things like site selection, licensing, equipment purchase etc.) we knew we...

Several alert readers (ARs), including Carrie Odum and David Stratmann, have brought it to my attention that The Testaments by Margaret Atwood imagines a venue called The Schlafly Café in Cambridge, in the dystopia known as Gilead. It’s a place where evil women, collectively known as Aunts, meet to hatch their sinister plots.

What had long been rumored was finally confirmed this past August. The years of hard work by MLS4TheLou had finally paid off.

One of the highlights of the summer of 2019 for me was watching The Blues win The Stanley Cup in Boston on June 12th. As all alert readers (ARs) undoubtedly know, the Blues’ accomplishment was unprecedented in the history of sports.  Never before had a team in any of the four major professional leagues in the United States gone from last...

Shortly before sunrise earlier this summer I drove from Sauget, Illinois back to my home in St. Louis. My route took me north on Illinois Route 3 and then west over The Mississippi on The Poplar Street Bridge.