Aheuser-Busch, Inc.
The intimacy of Soulard is contrasted with the vast industrial bulk of the Anheiser-Busch brewery, which dominates the southern end of the neighborhood. Brewing on this site dates back to 1852, driven by the area's natural caves (which also attracted the nearby Lemp Brewery), as well as a preponderance of beer-loving German immigrants. This site has seen the first use of refrigerated rail cars (key to the early success of Budweiser beer), as well as an early use of diesel locomotives. Busch survived both Prohibition and the anti-German sentiment of the World War I era to emerge as the largest brewer in the United States.

The architecture of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery is an elaborate brick Germanic Romanesque, set by E. Jungenfeld & Co., and their successor firm Widmann, Walsh & Boisselier. Heavy rounded arches are common, as are cornice elaborations and castelated rooflines. With well over a hundred buildings on the site, the brewery has never stopped building, but the predominant style was set in the 1880s and elaborated on through the early 1900s.

Even the necessary flirtations with Midcentury Modernist simplicity retained the characteristic red brick, as seen on the brewery's most public face, the highway-facing west side.

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Brew House
Built: 1891-92
Architects: Widman & Walsh / C.D. Boisselier
This is the brewery's signature building, with its distinctive clock tower. It is the highlight of the AB Brewery tour today, with its towering multi-story interior atrium design, and remains a working building.

The Brew House interior features elaborate cast-iron railings and columns, with spectacular hanging chandoliers, wrought in the form of hops vines, hanging five stories from the top of the atrium.

Malt House
A giant wall of brick, built in 1898

Barley Cleaning House

Boiler House
You don't actually get to see the Boiler House; it's located behind the gigantic Bevo Packaging Plant, and buried under great piles of chillers and other mechanical apparatus. But its three distinctive brown smokestacks are one of the brewery's skyline landmarks.