The Lemp family history is dogged by death. A new book tracks the rise of its beer empire

The story of the Lemp beer dynasty still holds sway in St. Louis, but it’s the tragedies, suicides — and a supposedly haunted mansion — that have made the family name infamous. But there is so much more to the Lemp family than tragedy. A new book, “Adam Lemp and Western Brewery,” has uncovered records that give us a better picture of what it took to build that beer dynasty, and provides new hints of the dysfunction behind the scenes. We talk about the Lemps with the book’s author, historian Chris Naffziger, and Amanda Clark, a public historian and See STL Tours Manager at the Missouri Historical Society.