Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar
1004 Locust St.
St. Louis, MO 63101
(314) 241-8141

St. Louis is, like a lot of older cities, struggling to keep up appearances. The town is worn and it shows it. We stayed at the Magnolia Hotel, once quite a fine place, showing wear and tear like the neighborhood. The Bridge was the closest place for a late arrival beer and sandwich and so it was our place of choice.

Located in a drab block it is a surprisingly upscale looking place on the inside. You open the door to the bar and can climb the stairs to another level of seating. They describe themselves as elegant and they are without pretense. There is a brick wall backing the bar and it is lined with elegant wooden shelves serviced by a rolling library ladder. The shelves are filled with wine and big beers. The bar was sparsely populated on our visit.

We chose it because they tout a rotating selection of 55+ draft beers available in 4, 12, 20, and 64 oz. pours. More pubs should offer the 4 oz. pour, it provides an opportunity to get a nice sample of more beers. The beers are primarily Midwest and front range beers, lots of Missouri and Colorado represented. A Questor from the East will find it difficult to choose from that wide variety of styles.

We sat on heavy metal stools under a rack of wine glasses that floated eerily a few feet above our heads, swaying gently, no doubt because of the hot air generated by our conversation with a young and very knowledgable lady beertender who was borderline too chatty. She was not busy and she was good at selling the beers. After a delightful IPA I went for the stout special flight. Four ounces each of Founders KBS, Avery Mephistopheles, and a third beer whose name escapes me no doubt because of Avery's ABV.

If you do not find anything you like among the many drafts there are 100+ beers by the bottle. The Bridge will knock 30% off the price of a bottle if you buy it to go, a very nice accommodation for hotel guests. Our bartender enthusiastically recommended two microbreweries in town, neither of which we visited. They specialized in young people's beers with fruits and flavors and sours and too-cute names.

We were hungry and that is when the night went south. The menu is limited but there is some choice. I went safe with a Cuban for $12, a very nice price for downtown. A few minutes later I was served a slider-sized sandwich with a few kettle chips that was delicious. I should have ordered 3 of them but $36 is too much to pay for a Cuban. But let's be fair this is not the Bridge Tap House and Restaurant. There are better bars in St. Louis but this is a great late-arrival-to-town place to grab a beer and half a sandwich.