A behind the scenes look at St. Louis’s second favorite brewery. 
Since the city’s founding, St. Louis has been a bustling beer town. The first area newspaper in 1810 advertised beer for $10 a barrel, and an influx of German immigrants to the city a few decades later started a boom of German lager across the country. One immigrant with a name you might’ve heard of, Eberhard Anheuser, took over a struggling brewery with his son-in-law in 1860, and by the time St. Louis hosted the 1904 World’s Fair, Anhueser-Busch was the largest Brewery in the world.
Today, AB Inbev is a bazillion-dollar gorilla with deep St. Louis roots, but in the last few decades the storied beer town has seen some newcomers popping up across the map.
And when you’re the underdog, you need all hands on deck.
In 2011, 4 Hands Brewing Company was founded by Kevin Lemp, a local beverage industry insider who now finds himself as the head of the largest craft brewery in the city.
Kevin Lemp, Founder and CEO
And, he couldn’t be nicer.
4 Hands invited our team to their brewery and taproom in St. Louis’s Old Frenchtown neighborhood, where we got a behind the scenes tour of the facility, the production line, and a sneak peak of their latest release, Tropical OctoHaze: a twist on their fan-favorite hazy IPA with passion fruit, papaya and peach flavors.
Here’s what we learned:
They’re brewing around-the-clock, all year long.
These days, the brewery is producing upwards of 46 beers and seltzers ranging from their flagship City Wide American Pale Ale to Incarnation, the #1 IPA in the state of Missouri. Their collection of stouts is especially fantastic, boasting some flavors we’d venture to guess you’ve never tasted in a beer before (Their Fat Elvis is literally a peanut butter, chocolate, and banana smoothie in a glass).
They’re expanding across the city.
The flagship city brewery welcomes visitors all week long, and recent expansion tasting rooms popping up west of the city in Kirkwood, Chesterfield, and the St. Louis Lambert Airport means you can enjoy 4 Hands offerings in a branded space no matter what part of town you’re in.
They’re doing more than just beer.
4 Hands is also home to 1220 Spirits, a botanically inspired craft distillery, and Withered Oak, a line of uniquely finished and artfully blended whiskeys. In the last few years, they’ve also added a line of cannabis drinks to their roster.
They’re giving back.
Every case of City Wide American Pale Ale sold gives $1 back to area nonprofits, adding up to a total of over $400,000 invested back into St. Louis and its community.
Our tour included a behind the scenes look at the brewery’s canning and brewing process, in an expanded warehouse space purchased by 4 Hands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The additional square footage means the state’s second largest craft brewing and shipping operation can remain in-house.
The back of house staff includes longtime Marketing Manager Liz Swyers, Brewmaster Will Johnson (who cut his teeth at Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company before joining the 4 Hands Team at its founding), and nearly 100 other team members across production, sales, and taproom staff.
From what we saw, they seem to embody the cliche of a company that feels more like family. Fitting, given that the name for the brewery came from Lemp’s own family: the four hands representing himself, his wife Maegan, and their two children. That seems to have set the tone for the company, from the top down. It’s a friendly, inviting place to walk around, even in the heart of winter.
We happened to walk in on their secret santa gift exchange, and found a bulletin board in the back of the brewery with a list of competitive eating records completed by the brewery staff, a rite of passage for every new hire. How many toasted ravioli could you eat in 20 minutes? We’d bet their team has you beat.
Liz Swyers, Marketing Manager, serving up a pint of Tropical Octohaze
The Newest Offering: Tropical OctoHaze
The first new release of 2026 for 4 Hands Brewing is Tropical Octohaze, a hazy IPA infused with fruit flavors. For the beer nerds out there, it’s brewed with Mosaic, Galaxy and Nectaron hops, and for the non-beer nerds it’s an IPA with a pretty hefty ABV (8.3%) and big time fruit flavors (think: if a mimosa was a beer).
We liked it. We think you would too. It’s out on shelves and in their taprooms these days, if you want to pick up a pint.
The Great Beyond Beer
Since the fall of 2025, 4 Hands has been expanding into the world of THC drinks with the formation of 4 Hands Cannabis Company.
Dedicated to crafting hemp-derived delta-9 THC and adaptogen infused drinks, the first three products in the line (Zest, Raz and Trop), are all made with real fruit juice, and serve as a foray into the world beyond alcohol, a theme that has been popping up in breweries and distilleries across the nation.
What’s Next for 4 Hands?
The brewery has gotten its foothold in the St. Louis beer scene by embracing a hyper-local business model. The City Wide can and the brewery tap room are accented with the St. Louis flag. The staff is full of home-grown talent. Since its founding, a large portion of sales have come directly from the brewery’s in-town taprooms. The founding of the new St. Louis City MLS team has allowed them to grow into the St. Louis sports market with additional in-stadium sales.
4 Hands Brewing has thrived thanks to continued innovation and doubling down on its home town. New seasonal and year-round brews in the lineup year after year, expansion into new markets (alcohol and otherwise) with local sales leading the charge, additional taprooms and infiltrating venues across the city, have created opportunities for growth, in a community that’s already shown a liking for the product in the glass.
That’s the kind of local dedication that leaves a good taste in your mouth.