O‘Fallon Brewery

When you talk about American craft beer, you usually mean the brews from the West and East Coasts. The craft beer movement was founded in these places and most of the classic examples of the scene come from there. But the sprawling middle of America also shines with the finest beer from craft breweries. One of them is O'Fallon from St. Louis.

From the beer trade to the brewery

When married couple Fran and Tony Caradonna started their own small beer label in 2000, there was no real beer scene in their hometown of St. Louis. The craft beer movement has been raging along the east and west coasts of the United States since the 1980s, but in Missouri back then you could only drink beer from large industrial breweries. Fran and Tony no longer wanted to accept this situation and set up a beer trade. They exported brews from microbreweries and allowed the people of St. Louis to taste handmade craft beer. After a while, however, it became too monotonous for them: The two no longer just wanted to sell beer written by other people, they wanted to try their hand at brewing it themselves. After a few successful brewing attempts, they took a chance and founded the O'Fallon Brewery.

When brewers help brewers

For the first two years of their brewery, Tony and Fran did everything themselves. They wrote the recipes, brewed the beer, bottled it themselves, packaged it and shipped it to their eager customers. For two years, O'Fallon Brewery was a two-person business. However, they received a lot of help: Not only did friends and family pitch in, the Caradonnas also received support from completely unexpected quarters. Namely from the competition. Brewers from the city and the surrounding area provided them with advice, support and equipment and accompanied them through the first two years. After that, the O'Fallon Brewery took off and became one of the most popular breweries in the St. Louis area. The demand grew so drastically that by 2008 Fran and Tony were no longer able to brew everything themselves. They had part of their range brewed by other breweries and moved to more spacious premises in 2015. The wide selection of the finest beers has been growing steadily ever since and no longer just supplies St. Louis with good brews. The brewers have attracted attention with their beers in international competitions and won one or two medals. Brewing pieces like the Smoke Porter combine their desire to experiment with the principles of American craft beer and speak of the courage and expertise of their makers.