Anheuser-Busch Brewery Archives

A must-do activity if you ever visit St. Louis, MO is a tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery! Even if you don’t have a beer belly, I’m fairly sure you would enjoy it. There is a lot of history here, and it is always fun to learn how a local company managed to become a household name around the world. This is the original brewery. There are now 12 others in the US and 18 more scattered around the globe. It was interesting hearing about how they maintain quality and consistency throughout all the facilities.

Just imagine how many beers they had to manufacture, ship and sell to afford just a single 2012 Super Bowl ad. Companies paid an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot! Wow!

So here we go. First of all, the tour was quite affordable. It’s free! 😀

We met up in a large, comfortable waiting area and browsed the cool souvenir shop until the next tour started. We learned about the origins of the company in 1860. Then we were led around the complex, into several buildings, up and down many flights of steps, to check out the various parts of the brewing process.

I couldn’t capture the coolness of this part of the brewery, which is where they bottle the final product. The machines fill 1,300 bottles per minute and 1,900 cans per minute! A cap is placed on the bottle within 0.2 seconds of its filling.

But Gail and I both agree that the best part of the brewery tour was seeing the famous Budweiser clydesdales up close! How cool is that!!! 😀

Again, the picture does not do justice to these magnificent horses. They are gigantic! You can really sense how powerful they must be! And hasn’t everyone on the planet enjoyed the many winter scenes, or the horses playing football on Super Bowl commercials?

Here is Princess Gail inside the stable by one of the many wagons that have been pulled by these beautiful clydesdales.

Though I think she looks better behind one of these:

And at the end of this spectacular free tour, we were taken into a room where we could drink two tall complementary glasses of the brewery’s finest. We had a choice of several beers, including your basic Bud Light and a sexy Blueberry Lager! 😀

So, ladies, remember… Where there’s Life… there’s Bud!