I have a friend going to Missouri next weekend, town is Rolla, west of St Louis on I-44 sort of in the middle of nowhere.  Anyway, any good stores around there for craft beer? Also, any local beer that may not be widely distributed?  I told him to look for anything in the Boulevard Smoke Stack series.

Thanks.

Schlafly is in St. Louis. They've got some tasty stuff.

quick search on Beeradvocate shows this place: http://www.publichousebrewery.com/
if nothing else, their website is fairly nice.

4 hands

As an aside, I went to Abe's last night and saw a couple of offerings from 4 Hands.  Trying to stick with a budget so did not get the RIS there (it was $13 or so and I already had a bomber from Clown Shoes for that much in the cart).  I opted for the Smoked Pigasus for around $7 instead.  Sounds interesting.

Smoked Pigasus is a robust and delicious porter brewed with rye, smoked malt, and maple syrup. The maple syrup provides a perfect balance for the smoked malt. Smoked Pigasus pours a deep mahogany with aromas of chocolate, smoke, and caramel. A big thank you to Pappy's Smokehouse!

I do not have a full report, but he sent me a picture of a bottle of Fat Tire so he found some New Belgium beer.  I mentioned Kahn's in Indianapolis to him and yesterday he sent me a picture of the front of the store, so he stopped there on his way home.  Will find out more, but one thing that he mentioned was that when he asked for Three Floyds at Kahn's they said that they get it in on Fridays and it flies off of the shelves.

So here's the story on hard-to-find Indiana beers.  We have arcane alcohol laws:

1) No alcohol purchases on Sundays;

2) No cold beer in convenience stores (but you can buy cold wine)

3) Cap of 50,000 barrels of production if you have your own distribution and/or a tasting room

The reason behind all of these is that the state is dominated by only a couple large distributors, and for reasons I can't figure out they have a lot of pull in the statehouse.  Pretty much nobody supports the no Sunday sales, and a bill comes up for vote to abolish it on an annual basis, but the distributors don't want to have to pay to staff the liquor stores that extra day and compete with grocery store sales.  Everybody wants more Three Floyds and Sun King, but they don't want to give up their connection with the public through tasting rooms.

Just this morning I read a story on Sun King and that they're basically at legal capacity, and are trying to fight it out in the legislature again so they can keep expanding.  I know 3F now has external distribution, but has the tasting room issue (I've heard, never been).  MTA:  The Sun King article stated that they have had to cut distribution to more outlying areas of the state and NW corner because their current (legal maximum) production can barely supply local demand around Indy.

Basically, we get screwed in this state by large distributors doing everything they can to monopolize.