SLIFF 2016 Interview: Bill Streeter – Director of ST. LOUIS BREWS

ST. LOUIS BREWS (a work in progress) screens Thursday, November 3rd at 8:00pm at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar Blvd) as the opening film of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. There will be an opening-night reception with complimentary product from local breweries.Ticket information can be found HERE. A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE.

ST. LOUIS BREWS director Bill Streeter is the creator of Lo-Fi St. Louis, a pioneering video blog that’s documented our town, with a particular emphasis on its vibrant music scene, since way back in 2005. Inspired by the same-named 2009 book by Henry Herbst, Don Roussin, and Kevin Kious, ST. LOUIS BREWS examines St. Louis’ defining influence on the beer industry and profiles the innovative craft brewers who are building on that storied tradition. The screening features a generous sampling of three extended sequences from the film, and the Q&A will include a number of the brewers featured. Through interviews, archival footage, memorabilia, and visits to brewing sites of yesterday and today, ST. LOUIS BREWS will quench beer aficionados’ thirst for knowledge, and the fest’s opening-night reception will satisfy their actual desire to drink with complimentary product from local breweries.

Bill Streeter took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his upcoming documentary. 

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 25th, 2016

Tom Stockman: Last time I interviewed you was five years ago regarding your film BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY. What have you been up to since then?

Bill Streeter: I started my own video production business and I’ve been working on this film. I’m still doing Lo-Fi Cherokee and all of that stuff. This film has been on the drawing board for about five years. It’s been sort of on and off again.

TS: What made you interested in telling the story of Saint Louis breweries?

BS: Well first I have a friend named Josh at Reedy Press and they printed the book St. Louis Brews a number of years ago. The second edition was published about a year and a half ago. He suggested that I do this documentary. It’s been a very successful book for them and no one has done a documentary about brewing in  St. Louis which is surprising. I was intrigued by the idea. I really wasn’t planning on going into another documentary right away but I knew there would be plenty of interest in the subject. Unlike the movie about bricks, which is something of an esoteric subject that I didn’t think a lot of people would be interested in. I turned out to be wrong about that as it was fairly successful. It took a while to get off the ground. I’ve been into brewing and beer for a long time.

TS: Do you brew your own beer?

BS: I have. I was into home-brewing 20 or 25 years ago, before anybody recognized the whole craft revolution. Craft beer has been with us for about 30 years, but it’s really just take it off in the past 10 years or so. So I had interest in the topic and it really wasn’t a hard decision for me to choose to make this film.

TS: Where are you now in the progress of the film?

BS: I’d say we’ve shot well over 90% of what we need in terms of production. There are a few events that we are waiting on. One of our ‘B’ stories is about Earthbound Brewing. We started following them just as they were getting close to finishing the construction of their brewery, about two months before they opened in 2014. We follow them through their first year and well into their second year. They’re moving into a big space soon and have been working there for close to nine months now. The space they’re moving into is a former brewing building, It’s the last remaining building from the old Cherokee Brewery which closed over 100 years ago. So, in this movie we’re trying to connect the history of St. Louis brewing to the modern-day craft brewing business. That story of Earthbound Brewing, these young creative entrepreneurs starting a small brewery on a shoestring and having this old brewery and turning it back into a brewery, we thought was a really interesting story. That’s one of the stories that we are waiting on. They were hoping to be open this summer, then they were saying October, but I think it will probably be next spring. So, whenever they finish up, we want to have that opening in our film. There are a couple of other craft brewers that we have not interviewed yet that we think are important to include in the story. This work in progress has been really good for me. I’ve been getting material ready for it. The historical piece of the film is really solid so most of what people will see at the work in progress screening next week will be the history, with just a little bit of the craft. This could easily be a five hour long, Ken Burns-style documentary.

TS: 150 years ago there were almost 50 breweries in St. Louis. Why was St. Louis such a beer capital?

BS: The primary reason was that we had a huge influx of Germans. There were some Germans before that, but there was a huge wave of Germans that came to St. Louis starting in about 1849. There’s an old saying “anytime you have 100 Germans together, you’re going to have a brewery”. Germans had a very different drinking culture then Americans did. Americans were very puritanical in terms of drinking. Americans drank alcohol but it was mostly wine or cider. They drank a lot of whiskey, but they did not drink a lot of beer. The beers they did drink were ales which didn’t travel well and turned very quickly after it was made.  The drinking culture here at the time was, I’d say, dysfunctional. Germans had a very healthy drinking culture. Beer drinking was just part of enjoying life. They loved to go to the park and drink with their family, they would have their kids there and their wives and they would drink and listen to music on a Sunday. Americans were kind of thrown off by this.  Over time Germans figured out how to get Americans to drink beer. Part of that was developing a style of beer that Americans would drink. What the Germans were drinking when they first came here was not something that was particularly appetizing to Americans. It wasn’t until they invented Budweiser and American-style lagers that Americans really took to drinking beer. So essentially it was the Germans, but there were a lot of environmental issues as well. There was good water here and good caves for watering and other things.

TS: Does your film tackle The prohibition period ?

BS: Yes, we talk about prohibition.  There were actually a number of prohibition movements that happened. The big one was of course the one everyone remembers because it was enshrined in the Constitution in the 1920s. But there were efforts to start prohibition long before that. We talk about that. We’re not comprehensive but we talk about all the major points in terms of brewing in St. Louis.

TS: What happened to the Lemp Brewery? I know they and Anheuser Busch were pretty much the only ones to survive prohibition. 

BS: Yes there’s a big section about Lemp Brewery that we will see you Thursday. Lemp was a very successful brewery here, even larger than Anheuser Busch. William J Lemp, The son of Adam Lemp who started the Lemp Brewery, was the second generation, but was the one who really grew the brewery into a massive business. He was a very ambitious person. They had a number of different beers and were shipping beer all over the world. A couple of things happened. One was that his son Frederick. who he was prepping to take over the business, died at age 28 before William Lemp retired. His wife was ill and his best friend, William Pabst of Milwaukee, committed suicide. His son and best friend died close together and he just went into a deep depression and he eventually committed suicide. When that happened, his son William Junior took over the business. Billy Lemp wasn’t very forward-thinking or a very creative guy.  He grew up kind of spoiled and wealthy and did not take a great interest in the business. He didn’t invest the way he should have. And then prohibition of came along and he was very cynical about that. He thought that that was it, that the business was over. Lemp, and all of the other breweries as well, try to come out with other products. Billy Lemp staked all of its future on this one brand of non-alcoholic beer, actually it was a malt beverage, not even a beer, called Cerva. It failed very quickly after six months. It never took off and Billy went into a funk and sold the brand Falstaff to the Griesedieck brothers. He just shut down the business. He didn’t even tell the employees he was closing. The workers showed up one day and the gates were locked. That was the end of Lemp. Billy eventually committed suicide. It’s a pretty sad story.

TS: Your film is based on a book by Henry Herbst, Don Roussin and Kevin Kious. Were these guys involved in your film? 

BS: Henry Herbst passed away almost 10 years ago, soon after the book was published. But both Kevin and Don contributed interviews for the film and both of them were very helpful, pointing out certain things and letting me know where some things were. Some of the other people we interview in the film are Maureen Ogle, who wrote a book called Ambitious Brew. She’s up in Iowa. Also Chris Naffziger, who has done some good research mostly about Falstaff and Lemp. And Mimi Harris who I interviewed for the brick film.

TS: The microbrewery scene here in St. Louis is pretty vibrant. It seems like they’re always opening up new ones. Do you think there is a risk of having too many microbreweries here in St. Louis?

BS: That’s not really a question for me to answer, but we’ve brought that up. I guess there could be a bubble but now it’s a growing market. There are more and more people interested. The market for beer in general has been shrinking for a number of years for a number of different reasons, but the craft brewing segment is a growing segment.  There’s a general cultural trend in people appreciating local stuff, handmade stuff. One interesting thing is that, you mentioned that over 100 years ago there were between 40 and 50 breweries operating in St. Louis and this year there will be 50 breweries operating in St. Louis, so we’re sort of back to the future with the number of breweries. But we may see a repeat of history happening. In the 19th century there was a whole shift in business and consolidation of breweries and that could happen again.  Anheuser Busch has certainly bought their share of craft beer brands. They own maybe six or eight of them now.

TS: How much of the rough-cut will we see Thursday, November 3 at the film festival?

BS: There will be about one hour of material, Mostly the history stuff. There will be about five scenes. There may be stuff that will end up cut out of the final film so there’s a good chance that people who come to the screening may see stuff that won’t be shown again.  It will be a good way for me to gauge how it’s going, with audience reaction, see if I’m going in the right direction. It will primarily be about the German immigrants in the origins of American beer. We’ll talk about the Lemp story and the Falstaff story and then we’ll talk a little bit about Earthbound.  Those are the main topics that people will see you next Thursday.

TS: And they will be serving beer before and after?

BS: I’m not sure about after but there is a beer reception that starts prior to the film, around 6:30. Seven local breweries will be serving beer.

TS: That sounds good. Good luck with the film and maybe we can review it here when it’s complete.

BS: That would be good. Thank you