Main Bar

The main bar at the ole Civil Life Brewing Company was designed as a space in which people could be brought together. There are many influences in our space. The narrow chalk board that runs the bars’ length was inspired by a tapas bar in Sevilla, Spain that tabs were kept directly upon. For many of our earlier years, entire customer tabs were kept on this chalk board. Once a patron, passed from occasional or sometimes to regular known by all the staff, we would then keep track of their tab with their name only as they enjoyed their evening. Back in those days, we only accepted cash. Since 2019 we have taken credit cards. The Arts and Crafts style woodwork takes inspiration from bars of the past where woodworkers spent weeks building pubs so they could spend months in them. As you’ll find here, a lot of what has happened at the Civil Life comes through a talented group of Civil Life supporters. All the woodwork was done by our friend and regular Jim Wholrabe. Jim’s joke has always been, “Come for the woodwork, stay for the beer!” The pictures behind the bar, beckon St. Louis’ vibrant days and include a rare 1860’s 10 foot wide print of the riverfront, A welcome to St. Louis sign on the no longer vehicular MacArthur Bridge, The beautiful building that once stood at Chippewa and Kingshighway only to be replaced by a Jack in the Box and the once beautiful building that stood at the corner of Grand and Arsenal which is now a Qdoba.

Just about everything in this room and upstairs and outside has a story behind it.

But what else would you expect out of a true pub.

Games Area

This is a favored spot for many patrons as it has overflow seating for the pub, with 2 dart boards and Ring the Bull—a game that originated in a pub in Nottingham England called “Ye olde trip to Jerusalem.” It can be found now at a few places around town but back in 2011 when our doors opened, we were the only one around. It’s addictive and thrilling if you have never rung the bull before. It’s a Civil life rite of passage.

The Biergarten

We have become to be known as one of the best Biergartens in town with over 250 available seats. Surrounded by Giraffic Park (that deserves its own post but as we noted in the Main pub… everything here has a story behind it) and filled with some of the area’s best and well-maintained gardens. That says a lot as even the Botanical Gardens has a facility in Tower Grove South. My mother is a horticulturist, and my friend Margaret cares for and maintains the flowers. It takes a ton of work to manage the beauty that is the Civil Life Biergarten. Guess what beer drinking region is known for its elaborate floral displays in its pubs? You guessed it—England! And we are no doubt inspired by traditional English Pubs and of course traditional English Beer. The Biergarten is family friendly, and we no doubt love dogs and kids. However, in both cases we hope while you are here you keep your animals and your children close by.

The 2nd Floor

A cozy nest of sorts is what the 2nd floor has become. It seats about 40 but rarely except on busy nights is completely full. You’ll find it to be a bit quieter than the first floor most days but sometimes families find this area better leaving the first floor for an elder and more traditional pub patron. The same arts and crafts style woodwork is throughout this room and at the far end are 3 Irish inspired snugs. Though a snug would traditionally be a small room we morphed these little booths a bit but when you are lucky enough to get one when you are here with friends, you’ll realize it may not have a door but it is a nice slightly more private space and can sit anywhere from 4 to 6 thirsty patrons. The woodwork throughout our space is Ash with a small amount of cedar in the inside/outdoor area. We also have a deck in the 2nd floor area that overlooks the brewery and provides extra seating on busy days. Come on down and enjoy any of our spaces over some pints. You will be glad you did.

FAQs

  • Tuesday–Thursday 3 pm to 10 pm
  • Friday and Saturday: 11:30 am to 11 pm
  • Sunday: 12 pm to 9 pm
  • Monday: Closed

  • Tuesday to Thursday: 4 pm to 9 pm
  • Saturday:12 pm to 9 pm
  • Sunday: 12 pm to 8pm
  • Monday: Closed

A resounding yes to this!

Jeremy leads our kitchen here and does a dynamite job of pushing out some of the most delicious pub inspired food you can find.  Kaleigh is our other rock and has been with us for 3 years.  She is our Soup Extraordinaire and a big part of the reason why Soup Sundays from November to April are a big deal.  But we do great food every day at fair prices and specials rotate every week!  Check out our menus and bring some friends down for some pints.

Funny you should ask. Soup Sunday is, in a nutshell, a Civil Life phenomenon. We can trace its history back to 2012 when a young chap, that goes by the name Brendan Kirby (now owner of Seed Sprout and Spoon for all your banquet party needs) began making 3 soups every Sunday. It blossomed underneath his watch, even though he didn’t own one at the time, and eventually Tony Collida (now of Grand Pied on Morganford – a seriously top notch breakfast eatery) joined. They powered through a couple years pumping out some of the best soups humans had ever had. I say that only because Dylan Mosley our head brewer, claims to have had soup made by aliens once in 2002. But that’s another post. Eventually Brendan and Tony moved on and Dave and Liz continued the tradition of Soup Sunday and it continued to grow and grow until the pandemic hit and the ole Civil Life shuttered its kitchen for a few years. When we re-opened it took a bit to return to our Soup making glory but Tony, came through for a few months in 2022 and then Kaleigh arrived and with the new kitchen and increased outside capacity and the incredible soups she makes our Soup Sundays became a juggernaut. Soup Sundays are filled with regulars and so many people that only show up on Sunday that we often have to remind them we are open Tue to Sat. We offer 3 to 4 soups and for the last 10 years they have been married with Union Loafers, which is some of the best bread anywhere in the world. Dylan agrees with this, apparently alien bread isn’t that great. Our house made herbed butter is served as well. Our recipe was once served to the Queen of England! Well, that’s what the lady said until we had to escort her out, with her butter of course. Sundays are their own magical thing at the ole Civil Life and run from November 1st to middle of April every year. But don’t tell anyone.

NOTE: We also have at least one soup on the menu throughout the week, all year round!

Sorry, we don’t allow outside food or drink in. If you have a scheduled event or a small celebration and want to bring in a cake or dessert, that is certainly fine. Please bring in any plateware or utensils if you need them. We have a full kids’ menu, but snacks for kids are certainly okay by us!

Kids are certainly welcome! My favorite outdoor pub is along the Tours River in France a magical place “Guinguette de Tours” and there is nothing better than a space where families of all ages and everyone can enjoy each other’s company. You’ll never know who you will meet or what someone you meet may become in a true pub. But it is immensely important that parents of children do watch their children and engage them while they are here. If they are having trouble playing at a moderate noise level maybe it’s not a good space or maybe they just need their parents to help them. Let’s be a place that helps kids continue to learn how to be social and be around others.

Dogs are welcome outside on our patio. Only service dogs are allowed inside. Our outside space is rather expansive, but it generally isn’t great if your dog hasn’t been socialized. If you are working on some things with fido, perhaps if your dog gets worked up or overly excited /barking please consider returning later or arriving on a slower weeknight might be the thing to do. We will admit there is nothing better than seeing a well-trained dog sit at an owner’s feet while they eat some of our tasty food and enjoy a couple of pints!

We are closed Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.

We are open Christmas Eve 12 pm to 4 pm. Food 12 pm to 3 pm.

We are open every New Year’s Eve from 12 pm to 7 pm for our British New Year’s Eve party when we ring in the New Year on UK time at 6 pm! It’s a blast and we are all home by 7:30 pm.

We’d love it for you to come see us at our home located in Tower Grove South where we always have the widest selection of cans available that you can find. You can also find genuine Civil Life beer at some of the best pubs, restaurants, and retailers in town. Due to what is an increasingly difficult market for small brewers, we are only able to send some of our beers into the market. Many stores have space for a few but our biggest seller the American Brown Ale is widely available. Our Angel and the Sword, Criterion Cream Ale, Merchant Ship IPA, Czech Pilsner and Goalden Ale are available almost all year round if a retailer or pub or restaurant wants to pick them up. Our big seasonal is our Oktoberfest and gets released in early August every year. Dylan and Mike have been our brewers for 14 years. We stand behind every single beer we put in the market.

We do not regularly give tours, but head up to the 2nd floor and get a birds eye view of our operations.

We reserve space on our patio for groups up to 50 without any additional fee but the caveat is that if the weather doesn’t cooperate, we sadly must cancel the party unless they have noted ahead of time that they would like the upstairs room as a back-up.

We do offer the opportunity for a group up to 40 to reserve the upstairs room but it comes with a $1500 required spend split at most by 2 patrons. The space has its limitations though as we don’t have pub service up there and drinks will need to be acquired at the first-floor bar. The 2nd floor is not handicapped accessible, and we ask that you come see it prior to reserving it.

The other option inside is good for casual parties of 20 or less and it involves us setting aside our non-conventional dart area for the group. There is no charge for this area, and we can wrap it around the front of the entrance to the pub if need be. This is certainly a space that needs to be seen as it isn’t conventional but somehow it seems to work for the right group.

We have a great kitchen and can handle food for any of these parties. We do not allow outside caterers as we are doing best to maintain our kitchen jobs and create more work opportunities for them. But you can bring in a cake if you are celebrating something. If Jake the owner is here, he might require a one slice tax. Just kidding… not really.

The other option inside is good for casual parties of 20 or less and it involves us setting aside our non-conventional dart area for the group. There is no charge for this area, and we can wrap it around the front of the entrance to the pub if need be.  This is certainly a space that needs to be seen as it isn’t conventional but somehow it seems to work for the right group.

We have a great kitchen and can handle food for any of these parties.  We do not allow outside caterers as we are doing best to maintain our kitchen jobs and create more work opportunities for them.  But you can bring in a cake if you are celebrating something. If Jake the owner is here, he might require a one slice tax.  Just kidding… not really.

No doubt we have earned a reputation as one of the best patios in town with over 250 seats and over 2000 sq feet of covered space!  Our giant German Umbrellas provide ample shade during the hot summer months and can be fitted with a few heaters each for the fall and spring. In the winter, we have 11 outdoor gas-fire pits that seat 4 to 5 each.

Hopefully coming soon.

Yes, we do. The bar will provide you with the password.

If you are hoping to stop by with a group over 15 outside or a group over 12 inside, please shoot me an email at info@thecivillife.com Any group 15 and under outside can come by anytime! Inside is a different story due to space limitations. Sundays during Soup Season from Nov. 1st to April 15th are practically impossible for groups even over 10 but the rest of the year we do our best. See Private Event Space if your group is over 15 as that is likely the best option. If you are a regular or have a moving event/hop or have something that you want to entertain here let me know and I’ll see what we can do. It’s always first come first serve seating, but we ask that tables aren’t held for more than 15 minutes. We love groups, but we also want to be respectful of all our patrons and sometimes big groups bring a bigger noise footprint and that can be great and not so great especially if you rely on hearing aids.

We prefer smoking and vaping to be done between the kitchen and the main building or on the sidewalk out front. Cigars are not allowed since the aromatics from cigars carry much further and with our establishment selling a lot of food, we feel it is most fair to those eating to not allow cigar smoke.

A resounding YES! We have 32 oz growlers and 64 oz growlers for sale and gladly fill 32 oz, 64 oz and 2 L growlers. It doesn’t have to be our growlers as we like to say, “We are not in the glass business.” Feel free to bring any marked 32 oz, 64 oz or 2 L growler in and we will gladly fill it. LITTLE KNOWN CIVIL LIFE FACTOID #8765 Our growler prices have remained the same price in the 14 years we have been open. Growler fills for 32oz are $4.56 plus tax ($5) and Growler Fills for 64oz are $9.11 plus tax ($10).

Be greener! Buy growlers!

We certainly do.  We stock 1/6 bbls ($63.83 plus tax) and ½ bbls ($155 plus tax).  If there is something you have your liver set on i.e. Oktoberfest or have an event coming up and want us to set something aside, please email me at jake@thecivillife.com and I can send a current list or set something aside for you for when it is put in kegs.  You can always press your luck and just come on down, it is rare for us not to have 6 or more styles available in 1/6 bbls. We currently are not taking deposits on kegs but are going to restart that soon.  Please if you have a keg of ours or are getting a keg be civil and return it when you are finished.

We do not. However, we do have projectors that we only turn on for St. Louis CITY SC matches. We do play the occasional big college game if everyone is going to be watching it, (likely this means Mizzou is in it) and when the Cardinals make the play-offs, or when the Blues approach rounds close to the Stanley Cup, we will gladly put these on to support our local teams. But the foundations of a great pub in our humble old school thinking rely on an atmosphere that encourages conversation and contemplation. The most beautiful thing about a true pub is that it really is one of the great equalizers in that our hope is to be a place that a laborer, a teacher, a doctor, a CEO and everyone in between can end up sitting next to each other along our comfortable bar and strike up a conversation. We are all in this together.

We have ample parking with 45 parking spaces in our lots split between the south and the north lot. Our kind neighbors to the south of us at Fabrication Unlimited allow parking on both sides of their building any day after 4 pm and all day on Saturday and Sunday. There is also ample street parking on Holt and on Beck. It may get crowded but compared to most parking in business districts we have tons and on the busiest days you might have to walk a block but that is a fraction of what happens in most business districts.

Ummm. We don’t. We apologize. Please send us an email at jake@thecivillife.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can. It seems a little bit odd for a business not to have a phone for 14 years and I admit there are rare times when someone leaves something behind that this would benefit everyone. However, in my first business, 95% of the phone calls were people trying to sell me something and the other 5% were for directions or easily accessible information. On a busy night we need all our staff attending to the many needs of people enjoying our pub and that has worked well for us for 14 years. If we had a phone and all of the requests were that rare, we left something in your pub question we’d get one but 99% of the calls will be things that take us away from the all-important task of being present for the customers that came here to enjoy our space. Maybe someday this will change but likely not. I really didn’t even have a functional website from 2020 to 2025 so let’s just be thankful that has changed.

Yes! Since late 2018. For many years in the beginning we were cash only, and it really helped keep some costs down and we would love to return to it, but the pandemic moved us all even closer to a cashless society. It’s been done before so we shouldn’t really be surprised but Lex Luthor did it in Superman III in his “Salami Slicing” scheme when he wrote a program to steal small insignificant amounts of a portion of a cent from every single transaction. This was repeated in Office Space. It’s an old tricky trick. I wish we could go back to the days when we kept track of all the tabs on the bar but honestly, with all its flaws, it sure does make accounting for our transactions easier.

Hi, in our effort to fight AI at all costs and keep this human owned business more human, Jake Hafner, owner wrote all these descriptions.  In fact, he (meaning I as I am writing this too) want to keep this small business as personal as possible.

Funny you should ask. We have enlisted our constant regular and special events liaison Sarah Truckey of Shaw to edit and correct our website for your viewing pleasure. She has edited for friends on 2 continents and when not galivanting worldwide she can often be found in many local watering holes, perusing for grammar, inconsistencies and evaluating wine programs, particularly orange wine, Alsatian whites, and sake. We appreciate her contribution to the Civil Life in many ways and especially in her constant pursuit of exceptional grammar with correct spelling. Any errors whether it be spelling or grammar or incoherence on this site is solely attributed to owner Jake Hafner, who likely is writing while imbibing in some of the finest and sessionable ales known to man. May God shine his light down and bless this man with enough business to keep this interesting project with 30 full and part-time employees in business and hopefully someday profitable again so that Sarah’s favorite watering hole remains solvent. Please do not attempt to approach her during editing duties. It is possible that you will hear her say things like, “Who writes this crap” just as Jake walks by.