Schlafly Announces “From The Ibex Cellar” Series

Schlafly Beer introduces today a new, premium series for 2017: From The Ibex Cellar. The new collection, over a year and a half in the making, will feature six bold hand-crafted beers from the Ibex Cellar, the exclusive room beneath the historic Tap Room in downtown St. Louis. Here, only the most select beers are brought to age and evolve and the “From The Ibex Cellar” beers showcase special care in every detail from packaging to process. The first installment will hit the market in the coming weeks with Schlafly’s Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout.

The “From the Ibex Cellar” beers offer a more accessible extension of Schlafly’s extremely limited Ibex series (only available in 750 ml bottles), now known as Ibex Rare. Ambassador Brewer Stephen Hale explains, “The project is inspired by our building and rooted in our history. The Tap Room was a printing company in its former life so that dedicated to craft inspired us. The beers showcase the talents of our brewing team as well as our new craft bottling line and oak foeders at the Tap Room.”

The “From the Ibex Cellar” beers feature big beers brewed in exclusive, smaller bottles that pay homage to the Ibex with the majestic symbol embossed in the glass. The packaging mimics the striking architecture of the Schlafly Tap Room’s building from the pitches and peaks to the arches that hold up the cellar below. A typeface from the 1900s, discovered by one of the Schlafly designers in the St. Louis Public Library archives, inspired the exclusive design for the label and packaging. See more about the project here.

The beers spend extended resting times in spirit barrels of different varieties in the Ibex Cellar. Then, the beers will make their way upstairs to Schlafly’s new Hoof & Quill Room that features a new craft bottling line as well as two new foeder tanks, made with Missouri white oak from Missouri company, Foeder Crafters.

The series launches with Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout. One of their biggest, boldest beers, it imparts a spicy, slightly sweet vanilla character and a pleasant warming finish. It’s brewed to evoke a full malt flavor, plenty of hop bitterness and roasted barley for notes of dark chocolate. As a finishing touch, the beer is aged in freshly emptied Kentucky bourbon barrels before being carbonated and bottled. The next beer to launch in Q1 of next year will be Schlafly’s Local Oak. A mixed-fermentation process creates a lot of personality for this beer with a light malt character and tart fruitiness. This beer is aged in the new foeders, made from locally grown Ozark timber. The series will continue with beers such as Imperial Coffee Stout, Gooseberry Gose, Barrel-Aged Pumpkin Ale and Single Malt Scottish Ale.

The “From the Ibex Cellar” beers will be available for purchase in four-packs of 11.2 ounce bottles with a suggested retail price of $17.99. The beers will be available only in bottle format across the brewery’s distribution region as well as in the Schlafly Tap Room or Bottleworks retail areas. For more on Schlafly Beer’s distribution, visit www.schlafly.com/beers/distribution.