text:
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57623402455208843532016-05-26T12:22:23.660-05:00KC Beer BlogKansas City's Source for Everything Craft Beer. Jay firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-23209911817056570342016-05-26T12:14:00.001-05:002016-05-26T12:22:23.725-05:00Goose Island Migration Week Comes Back to KC! Bourbon County Brand Stout Abounds...

Mmm...BCBS...

After missing us last year, Goose Island is coming back to KC with their Migration Week! In the past the Migration Week events have been little more than tastings and special tappings of Bourbon County Brand beers, but this time they've got all kinds of different and unique events scheduled. There will be Bourbon County Brand Stout galore along with other Bourbon County Brand beers at a lot of the events along with vertical vintages. There isn't a definite listing of everything available, but whatever is at the events, it's sure to please! And even if all you get is BCBS...well that's pretty much great in and of itself.

Of the events, I'm sure the Human Foosball tournament on Tuesday will be awesome, but what really caught my eye for the hardcore beer nerd is the BCBS deconstruction at Grain to Glass on Wednesday. Brewer Bill Savage will be there with the raw ingredients, liquid samples of BCBS as it goes through the brewing process (i.e. pre-fermentation), fresh/un-aged BCBS, and 2015 and earlier vintages of BCBS.

Also, if you didn't notice...the event at the Foundry on Wednesday is free by RSVP and includes a complimentary pour of BCBS. Free BCBS! Can't get any better than that...

*Update: between me writing this and actually publishing it, the events at Grain to Glass and Bier Station were sold out! The rest of the events also have limited tickets, so get yourself prepared now if you want to attend!

Tuesday, May 31

Goose Island Human Foosball Tournament

Time: 6-9 p.m.
Location: Up-Down Arcade (101 Southwest Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108)

Description: The Migration Week crew from Goose Island is in Kansas City for the first time in two years. We couldn't think of any other way to say we're sorry for being gone so long than to bring a bunch of rare beers, build a human foosball field and invite all our friends (and your friends too) to join us. Do you need anything else? Well how about Goose Island brewer Bill Savage. He will be there too. There is no better way to start your week. Spots are VERY limited so clear your calendars and invite your friends. You weren't doing anything else on Tuesday anyways.

Tournament Details
o Please visit Up-Down Arcade on Monday, May 23, at 6 p.m. to sign up your team.
o $150 per team ($25 per person) - All proceeds benefitting the KC Pet Project.
o Registration includes: Beer for the evening, one game guaranteed, Goose Island swag and your chance to raise the cup.
o Only six team slots available for registration and six players per team.
o Check In: 6 p.m.
o Games start: 7 p.m.
o Games are 10 minutes long

Wednesday, June 1

Deconstruction of Bourbon County Stout @ Up-Down *SOLD OUT*

Time: 5-7 p.m.
Location: Grain to Glass (1611 Swift Ave., North Kansas City, MO 64116)

Description: Very few people have ever tasted Bourbon County Stout BEFORE it goes into the barrel. Thanks to the Migration Week team, you will now have the chance. Join Goose Island brewer Bill Savage as he walks you through a sensory experience that is the brewing process of Bourbon County Stout. Class includes exposure to all the solid ingredients of a BCS brew, liquid samples from the brewing process, finishing with a tasting of fresh Bourbon County Stout (and maybe a few rarities).

Beers Featured: Bourbon County Stout 2015, Vintage BCS
RSVP Here: https://bcsdeconstructionkc.eventbrite.com

Grit & Grain Documentary Viewing @ the Foundry

Time: 8-11 p.m.
Location: The Foundry (424 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO 64111)

Description: To the folks at Goose Island, Bourbon County Stout has always been more than liquid in a bottle. That's why a group of employees set out to uncover the full story of Bourbon County Stout. What we found was a story larger than we had ever realized. A story that crosses state lines, and spans generations—from the loggers who down the American White Oak used to make bourbon barrel staves, to the distillers that fill and age bourbon on those staves. This is Grit & Grain. This is what it really takes to get Bourbon County Brand Stout into your hands. Be a part of our team as we watch our first full-length documentary on the big screen. Join us to see why the folklore is as rich and layered as the beer itself as you sample Bourbon County Stout.

Event Details
o Event starts at 8 p.m. in the parking lot of The Foundry.
o Movie will begin around 8:45 p.m.
o Blankets and chairs are encouraged.
o Carryout from The Foundry and local restaurants will be available.
o Proof of RSVP will get you one complimentary pour of Bourbon County Stout

Beers Featured: TBD
RSVP here: http://gritandgrainkansascity.eventbrite.com

Friday, June 3

Flight School @ Bier Station *SOLD OUT*

Time: 3-5 p.m.
Location: Bier Station (120 E. Gregory Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64114)

Description: Looking to learn about and taste more of our beers? No problem. Join us at Flight School! Our brewer Bill Savage will walk you through a sampling of some core Goose Island brands, with an appearance from a few of our most sought out beers and the story behind each one of them. Cheers!

First Friday Goose Island Celebration of Beer @ Ruins Pub

Time: 7-12 a.m.
Location: Ruins Pub (1715 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64108)

Description: First Friday, a Kansas City monthly tradition, will be that much better on June 3, as Goose Island and the Migration Week crew partners with Ruins Pub to host an evening with art, music, charity and of course, those rare beers of ours. A partnership between Kansas City and Chicago artists will happen live, while multiple vintages of BCS will be on tap. It's Friday, and there's no better way to close out the week. See you there.

Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-52482697605798980202016-05-16T13:52:00.000-05:002016-05-16T13:52:46.861-05:00Our Big Fat American Craft Beer Week List 2016It's American Craft Beer Week right now! In the past, I've written out a whole big fat list of events, but since I'm "dad lazy" these days, and since smart phones and google calendar actually don't suck anymore, I'm just keeping the majority of the events to the calendar. So go over there to check out all the events. We've got over 50 events listed for the ACBW in KC this year! Most of them are special tappings and happy hour type specials along with a few beer pairing and meet-the-brewer events.

There are a couple of standout events that you should definitely try to make it out to:

Waldo Hopfest

Of course, the capstone of the week is Waldo Hopfest on May 21! They've got 63 breweries coming including some of the best from the region. And if it's anything like the previous years, the brewers will get into their reserve stock and bring out some awesome rare beers for us. So get your VIP tickets and get in there early to beat the lines and make sure you don't miss out on the good stuff!

Flying Saucer ACBW Events

Flying Saucer

Now for the rest of the week--you need to get yourself down to Flying Saucer as soon as you can and start drinking as many $3 pints of Crooked Stave as possible. That's a hell of a deal and going on all day today! Thursday & Friday at Flying Saucer also sound pretty solid. Thursday is beer and ice cream pairing with Urban Chestnut Brewing Co, and Friday is a happy hour with reps from the brewers in town for the week. You'll likely see a bunch of the reps that will be at Hopfest the next day, but in a much more casual setting where you could actually chat with them without having 15 people in line behind you.

Cinder Block

Cinder Block has a lot of events scheduled for the week, but Wednesday sounds like the best to me. On that night they're having a barrel aged beer release (beer is a mystery to me still but I'm sure it will be amazing!) and a cheese pairing to go with the BA beer. Cinder Block is also taking part in the Biggest Small Beer Ever brew going on around the country. Breweries from all 50 states are brewing the same small batch beer to show solidarity with each other. Craft Beer geeks across the country will toast this beer at the same time at 7pm (CST) on Thursday 5/19, so get yourself there and get yours ordered!

KC Bier Co

Again, KC Bier Co has a number of events scheduled through the week, but my go to will naturally be the Bavarian Breakfast & beer tapping on Saturday. There's no better way to start a Saturday than with weisswurst, pretzels, and hefeweizen! Then, you can also do yoga in the biergarten that morning after your hearty breakfast. Unfortunately, I'll miss the music in the afternoon because I'll be at Hopfest!

Barley's Brewhaus

Barley's Brewhaus has a couple stand out events as well. I'd try to hit up Barley's on 119th on Wednesday & Saturday if I were you. On Wednesday they'll have 3 different barrel aged variants of Breckenridge's 471 Imperial IPA, and on Saturday they'll have special tappings from Prairie, Roughtail, and Coop from Oklahoma. Barley's Brewhaus on Midland Drive also has a couple great looking nights. On Tuesday they'll have Free State's Chili Mac Imperial Stout & Oak Aged Bacchus on tap. on Thursday they'll have Firestone Walker's Sucaba & XVIII 2014 Anniversary Ale on tap.

And finally, I leave you with this feel good video including a beard, overalls, and a beer.

Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-87170968761673267582016-05-03T09:38:00.000-05:002016-05-03T09:44:24.615-05:00Fest Report: Parkville Microbrew Fest

Radius Brewing Co's Boysenberry Gose--my
favorite of the fest

I have corrected a major deficiency in my life--I've finally attended the Parkville Microbrew Fest! Yes--it's true--I must admit...I had never been. But now I've set my life straight. I have always heard that Parkville was one of, or the best festival in KC. However, as a Parkville virgin, I feel like I can make some unbiased observations.

The Good

There are a couple of things this festival excels at: organization and festival grounds setup. Because the festival is in the English Landing Park, they have plenty of room to spread out, making it easier to manage lines at the entry and brewery tables. They make the most of their space by arranging the brewery tables in a giant U shape in a grassy lawn bigger than a football field. There's enough space that even with 2000+ people at the fest, there's room to set up lawn chairs out in the middle of the tasting area.

The bathrooms and music stage are set up centrally to the fest, so you could hear the music all throughout and it would only take you a minute or two from any location to get to the bathroom. And with about 100 Johnny's, there were virtually no lines for bathrooms.

The professionals.

You can also easily come and go from the festival area to other parts of the park. They had vendors and food tents set up outside the tasting grounds and they also have a playground, a disc golf course, and lots of other park amenities that you could use if you (or your kid or your dog) needed a break from beer for a few minutes. And of course, the tasting area is just steps away from the MO River--It's really just a beautiful setting for a beer fest.

The Bad

There really isn't much to knock this festival for. The only two things that I could probably nitpick are the location of the fest and the parking. Location because it's a pretty long drive for me to get to this fest and probably most of you readers out there too. But you get the good with the bad--it's an amazing setting for a festival, but a long drive. Meh.

Parking was pretty unorganized, but I think in the end I might have walked 5 minutes from my parking space to the fest entrance. It would have helped to have a few more parking attendants there to tell you where to drive to find the overflow parking.

Blind Tiger Brewery doing it right!

The Beer

Of all the things this festival is, a beer nerd's pantheon it is not. They bring in a ton of breweries every year, but for the most part these breweries bring their more standard, year-round brews. Your whale hunting expedition is probably better served at Boulevardia or Strong Ale Fest. But with 350+ beers on the festival grounds, that's not to say there wasn't some excellent beer hiding around. (Or not hiding--the line for Perennial was about 100 people deep when I walked by. As much as I would have liked some, I had to pass.)

I did find some hidden gems though. I finally was able to try out Zip Lines brews and their IPA is fantastic. I was also surprised to find that I really liked Empyrean's Peanut Butter Porter--I've never thought peanut butter and beer should ever be put together, but this beer was pretty excellent.

My best of show goes to Radius' Boysenberry Gose--perfect amount of acidity, great berry flavor, and fantastic color. Overall it was just the perfect beer to be drinking out on the festival grounds.

The Bottom Line

This is my new favorite beer fest in KC, especially for the dirt cheap price tag of $30. Next year, I'm planning on showing up at 11am, spreading out the sun shade, lawn chairs, picnic blanket, and the rest of the setup and making a proper day out of it.

Check out our photo album on the Facebook page:

Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-47778840141428023782016-04-15T11:38:00.001-05:002016-04-15T11:38:29.255-05:00Stockyards Brewing Co Opens Today!

Stockyards Brewing Co opens in the West Bottoms today.

Seems like it's been a while since a new brewery opened in KC. Ok, so Crane only actually opened about 4 months ago, but at the pace we've been having new breweries open in the area, 4 months seems like a long time to me! Well, you have to wait no longer--Stockyards Brewing Co is opening down in the West Bottoms today!

If you're not familiar with the brewery, they're going to occupy about half of the former Golden Ox space right next to the Livestock Exchange building. This little area right up the street from Kemper Arena has really taking off in the last couple of years. There are a number of restaurants and bars including Voltaire, Rockstar Burgers, Genessee Royale Bistro, and the Amigoni Urban Winery among others. It's a cool backwaters of KC, and I highly recommend a visit. And now with a new brewery, you have no excuse not to go down!

The brewery is starting off with their Hefeweizen, Golden Alt, and Saison. They'll soon follow this up with a black IPA. They're also going to have a full service bar and a selection of cold cuts (a la Bier Kitchen), but they won't have all of this up and running right away. If you want to learn more details about the brewery & the folks behind it, friend of the blog Pete Dulin did a great writeup on them and an interview with the founders for Feast Magazine.

As much as it's becoming an everyday occurrence in KC for another brewery to open, you can't downplay the difficulty involved in making it happen or the dedication and sweat the founders have to put into a place like this to get it open. So many congratulations to the folks who made this happen, and best of luck!

Also, a plea for civility--please understand that the beer quality might not be at 100% on the first day of service. While I haven't tried their beer yet, and have no idea what it's going to be like, I see this scenario play out over and over and over again: Beer Snob X goes to a brewery on opening day. X tries the beer, is unimpressed, and promptly goes on the internet to rail the brewery on the internet and vows to never go again. I'm frankly just tired of seeing these ridiculous reviews.

Please realize that there are a lot of difficulties with brewing on a brand new system that are primarily out of the brewer's control. So please, CUT THEM SOME SLACK and if you don't think the beer is good, come back in a month or two once they've got the kinks worked out and try it again. If the beer remains poor quality, by all means rage away on the internet if it makes you feel better. Otherwise, maybe think about not saying anything at all if you don't have anything nice to say.

Black IPA must have had a good night. pic.twitter.com/k7gSWQ6WFX
— StockyardsBrewingCo (@StockyardsBeer) April 10, 2016
Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-83092814170326012052016-04-08T10:07:00.000-05:002016-04-11T14:00:06.189-05:00KC Beer Bloggers, Unite! (And Roughtail Brewing Tasting!)A couple of us beer bloggers in town thought it good to meet up and talk about how we could combine our forces for the fight towards better beer. We all share the common goal of continually making KC a better place to brew, drink, and think about beer, so we thought, why not work together towards this goal. So, I give you, the More Perfect Beer Bloggers Union: Alex with Scouting the Taps, Jim with KC Beer Scouts, Sarah with KC Beer Guide, and (if you hadn't guessed) myself with KC Beer Blog.

We haven't actually figured out exactly how we're going to work together, which is why we're the More Perfect Beer Bloggers Union and not the Most Perfect Beer Bloggers Union, but for now we knew that we just needed to get together and drink some beer. So it was a great coincidence that Roughtail Brewing from OKC was hitting the streets here in KC right when we were first meeting and they sent us bloggers a few samples to try out. We all have our tasting notes on our respective blogs (or will soon), and Jim from KC Beer Scouts also made some fancy flavor waves showing all of our tasting profiles together. Tasting notes below!

Roughtail Pale Ale

The pale is decidedly hop balanced. The aroma is balanced with some bready and cookie like malt aromas and a traditional American hop character with citrus, floral, and earthy aromas. The flavor on the other hand is all hops. The hops bitterness is sharp and lingers. It's kind of like eating a hop cone. I'm not a huge fan of this styling, but if you love sharp, super bitter, lighter-bodied beers, this is for you.

KC Beer Guide Pale Ale Tasting Notes
KC Beer Scouts Pale Ale Tasting Notes

Roughtail IPA

Now this is what I'm talking about! This beer is nearly identical in character to the Pale Ale, but with much more malt flavor, residual sugars, and body to back up the bitterness. Traditional American hop character and bready, cookie, & munich malt character. Lots of bitterness, but a good round body and enough sweetness to balance it out. This is my kind of beer.

KC Beer Guide IPA Tasting Notes
KC Beer Scouts IPA Tasting Notes

Roughtail Hoptometrist Double IPA

Again, this is very similar to the Pale & IPA, but even bigger. The hop & malt character remain the same but the addition of the extra strength, some light fruity cherry & plum aromas come out to add some complexity. It's very very hoppy but with a good malt sweetness and full body to take the edge off. A solid DIPA that doesn't go too far on the bitterness and stays just sweet enough to balance the hops without becoming cloying.

KC Beer Guide DIPA Tasting Notes
KC Beer Scouts DIPA Tasting Notes

More than any beers I've ever had before, these three beers were nearly identical only each stronger than the last. Each beer had similar hop and malt profiles in the flavor and aroma, but with the addition of more malt & residual sugars and more alcohol, each beer had a slightly different balance. The beers were all crisp and cleanly fermented and great examples of the respective styles. If nothing else, these beers can serve as a great teaching tool for people trying to figure out the difference between a Pale Ale, IPA, and DIPA. I'll be excited to try their other offerings and hope they come visit us in KC at the festivals and to hold events around town.

Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-71561337115716302912016-03-22T10:25:00.001-05:002016-03-22T10:35:06.645-05:00Snake Bite Beer Opener--A Throwback to Simpler Times

The Original Snakebite in brown.

The enterprising folks at Snake Bite recently sent me over one of their new openers to test out. They're one of the few successful crowdfunded companies that has actually started production and is actually selling stuff. They're headquartered in St. Louis, and their products are all made in the USA from American-sourced materials. They were just a bunch of craft-beer loving dudes in StL that came up with a pretty good idea and made it happen.

That idea was the Original Snake Bite opener. Essentially, it's an update on the original chruchkey patented in 1933. I say update, and not necessarily improvement, because they're not really for the same purpose. The original churchkey was for ripping a large hole in a can (without a pop-top) and drinking out of that hole. The Snake Bite is to assist the pouring of the can out of the pop-top hole, not to make a hole you drink out of.

You use the Snake Bite to punch a hole on the other side of the pop-top hole to vent the can and allow for a much quicker and smoother pour. If you did this to a modern aluminum can with an old-school churchkey, you'd practically rip the top of the can apart. I tried it out and it really works well as advertised. You can dump a full can of beer in a glass in about 2 seconds and get a perfect head on it. The Snake Bite also opens bottles (shocking!), with ease.

The opener feels extremely solid and well built--actually probably overbuilt. I'm going to lose this thing long before it wears out. The metal is thick and solid with well cut, sharp edges on the business end. The cover is also thick and feels like quality leather. It's like a vision of the past when your grandpa carried a leather briefcase to work and ripped open beers in steel cans afterwards while he watched your parents run around the perfectly groomed lawn. It really is a thing of beauty.

My only real complaint about it is the size. I have limited real estate in my pockets, and this opener is pretty large. It's about twice the size of a regular key chain bottle opener or key. For some of you this may not matter, but you skinny-jeans-wearing people out there--this probably isn't the opener for your pocket.

Bet this guy wished he had craft beer in a
can and a Snakebite opener to vent it.

Now the real question: is it worth it? The Original Snake Bite costs $22. I've never paid more than $10 for a bottle opener, and that was an awesome antique cast iron fish bottle opener that weights about 3 lbs. Most of the bottle openers in my collection were free or about $1 at a flea market or garage sale.

Also, for just $30 you can get a Swiss Army Knife that will get you to the beer just as well as the Snake Bite, do a bunch of other stuff, and will also last a lifetime. You also have to think--do I really need to pour my beer out of my can in under 2 seconds? I could just take 10 seconds to get the perfect pour and save my $22.

So, I'd say if you're buying for functionality, forget it. But if you want a connection to a (maybe anachronistic) 1950s American Dream past with a solid, American-made opener that will outlast you, then the Snake Bite is for you. You can also get Snake Bite openers fully customized with monograms or company logos. Although they are pricey, a customized Snake Bite opener would be a pretty sweet gift.Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-88298848666906043862016-03-18T16:02:00.001-05:002016-04-08T07:53:00.210-05:00KC Biermeisters Competition Roundup & Pictures

KC Bier Meisters put on another great competition this year. It turned out being the largest competition they've ever put on with 543 entries from 20 states. All of the results of the competition are posted on the competition website. The top honors went to Brad Ebinger in beer for his English Brown Ale, Scot Shaar in mead for his Habenaro/Hatch Pepper Mead, and Elliott Lillard & Belinda Kocen in cider for their English Cider. I think it's an amazing testament to the integrity of the Beer Judge Certification Program that out of 500+ beers, with plenty of sours, stouts, super IPAs, and barrel aged everything, that a mild mannered English Brown Ale can take the top spot at the competition. Bravo, judges.

I personally went into the competition a little bummed at my judging assignments--I judged light lagers and light hybrid beers. That means Bud Light and Boulevard Wheat clones. Those styles where, in the best case, they all taste the same (and don't have much taste at that), or they just taste like any number of off-flavors--mostly butter, creamed corn, and band-aids. Yummy.

But I was actually very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed judging the light beers. For one, I wasn't sauced by the end of the day (the usual result when judging imperial stouts, belgians, or IPAs). And for two, I had some absolutely fantastic beers. The best & highest rated beer I judged turned out to be an American Light Lager (yes--Bud Light clone). Never thought I'd write that! The beer seriously tasted like a much refined and much better tasting version of any of the macro lite beers. If I remember right, I gave it a 45/50, which classifies it as a "world class example of the style." One of the highest scores I've ever given at a competition. Well done, Eric Armstrong of the South Omaha Brewers!

I also had tons of fun judging with new people and old friends. I even had a great stroke of luck judging alongside Tyrell Foster, the media relations officer for his unit at Ft. Riley, who brought his camera along. I brought mine, but failed to realize that it had no SD card in it... So Tyrell helped me out with pictures of the judging! Check out the gallery on our Facebook page!

Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-47004629354808407212016-02-26T14:41:00.001-06:002016-04-08T07:52:53.060-05:00Parkville, HopFest, Boulevardia, Oh My! The festival season is almost upon us! This was going to be a post about how the three best beer festivals in town are on sale right now, but then Boulevardia sold out in like 45 minutes again. So, this post is about the three best beer festivals in town, two of which have tickets on sale. Well, you can technically still get Boulevardia Taps & Tastes tickets, but we'll get to that later. So, I give you, the festivals:

Parkville MicroBrew Fest - The Naturalist's Festival

As I'll write a lot in this post, this is a great festival, and one that is not to be missed this year. This is especially true if you live north of the river, since this is the closest you're going to get to a northland festival in the spring.

I say it's the naturalist's festival because it's set in just the most idyllic setting you can imagine on the banks of the MO. The English Landing is a great place to hang out on any average spring day and watch the river roll by, but even better when you're sipping some top flight beers. In addition to this, the festival is super laid back, with plenty of room to roam, short lines, and rock solid organization (they're in their 13th year!), which makes you and (very importantly) the people pouring the beer happy so everyone has a great time! The festival is also an absolute steal at $35/ticket.

Fest Info:

Festival Date/Time: April 30, 1pm-5pm
Festival Cost: $35 advanced, $45 at the gate
Website: http://www.parkvillemicrobrewfest.com/
Breweries: 72 total booths as of posting. Mostly local/regional midwestern breweries, with some Colorado & West coast breweries thrown in the mix. Most complete showing of KC, KS, and MO breweries of the 3 fests. Also includes homebrew clubs. Check their website for a total listing.

Also includes: live music, food trucks, & commemorative logo glass. Pets are welcome!

Waldo HopFest - The Middle Ground Festival

Waldo HopFest is yet another excellent festival for KC. I feel like it's a good middle ground between Parkville & Boulevardia. It's not quite as super urban as Boulevardia, and not quite as far out there as Parkville. (I hate to call Waldo suburban because people would ream me a new one--but just remember, Fairway, KS is closer to downtown than Waldo is!) The fest also has a more even mix of local/regional breweries to nationwide breweries than Parkville's local/regional focus or Boulevardia's nation-wide focus.

And I say it every year, the location sounds horrendous. The parking lot of a plumbing supply store?? But really, it's actually a pretty excellent place for a brewfest. Plenty of room to move, easy access to water and bathrooms, and lots of room for breweries to set up huge tents! The biggest problem every year is parking, so just get a ride! You're going to need one on the way home anyways. I sure did last year...

Just like Parkville, this fest is very well organized. You would also be hard pressed to find a cheaper full-fledged beerfest anywhere in the country than HopFest at $30 for GA tickets.

Fest Info:

Festival Date/Time: May 21, 2pm-6pm (VIP Starts at 1pm)
Festival Cost: GA: $30 advanced, $35 at the gate. VIP: $50 advanced, $55 at the gate.
Website: http://www.waldohopfest.com/
Breweries: 51 total booths as of posting. A good mix of local/regional and national breweries. Check their website for a total listing.
Also includes: live music, food trucks, & commemorative logo glass.

Boulevardia Taps & Tastes - The Urban Super Festival

Boulevardia is the festival that requires no introduction. As it was the last two years, tickets to the Taps and Tastes (the beerfest part of the whole thing) sold out in a matter of minutes of going online. With good reason too--this fest consistently brings in some of the best breweries from around the country and world.

Most of the breweries that attend Boulevardia are local/regional scale breweries with crazy cult followings that also happen to not sell beer in KC. So unless you're traveling out of state on beer-cations (which you should also do!), then this is the only place you're going to get most of this beer. Always notable is a huge array of Side Project Beers, Funkwerks, and this year Arizona Wilderness Brewery (rated the best new brewery in the world 2015 in by BeerAdvocate).

Even at $75 for GA tickets, and $100 for VIP, this festival is a great deal considering all the amazing brews that are on showcase at it. If you play your cards right, you could probably sample enough $10-$20 beers that you'd otherwise end up spending $1000 on the bottles.

As I mentioned, tickets are sold out, but you can still get Taps & Tastes tickets by buying the Ultimate VIP Weekender Pass for $1000. I shit you not. But you should look at what it includes. It would pretty much be the most bad-ass ultimate Father's Day present ever given to a dad. Just saying.

You should also keep your eyes & ears out for people selling tickets--everyone has to buy tickets so far ahead of time that a number of people usually end up not being able to go. So keep an eye out on the CraftBeerKC forums or the Beer Tasting KC facebook page. Most beer geeks in KC are awesome people and will sell their tickets at face value if they can't go. Don't buy from the shitwads trying to sell tickets on Craigslist for $500.

I should also mention that there's a whole raft of other things to do at Boulevardia besides Taps & Tastes. It's like a whole carnival set up in the West Bottoms. So go check out their website--there's bound to be something else there for you besides unlimited beer sampling! Let's just hope that the temperature is something less than the surface of the Sun this year!

Fest Info:

Festival Date/Time: June 17-19
Festival Cost: Whole bunch of different tickets and prices
Website: http://boulevardia.com/
Breweries: 50 total booths as of posting. A crazy lineup of world-class breweries. Check their website for a total listing.
Also includes: A whole carnival, massive amounts of live music, and all kinds of other good shit.Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-71147871847697670812016-02-19T14:18:00.000-06:002016-04-08T07:52:43.968-05:00Stouts & Oysters & BarleywineSeems like it's that time of the year to drink a bunch of big ass beers and eat oysters. While I can whole-heartedly support drinking the big ass beers, I can't personally recommend oysters. The only times I've had them, it was kind of like eating gelatinous gym socks. So based on my experience, I can't really see why you'd go out of your way to eat them, but it sure seems like a whole lot of people think they're the greatest food on Earth. So, being the equal opportunity man that I am, I'm going to throw the oyster fests out to you along with the other great events coming up in KC soon!

(And, as usual, I'll mention that there's a whole bunch of other beer events besides these going on in KC that you can find over on our calendar page!)

Big Ass Stout Day @ the Foundry - Saturday 2/20

The Foundry is putting on their famous Big Ass Stout Day once again this weekend. The festivities go from noon tomorrow until close (or they run out, I suppose--probably best to get there early just in anyway). They're tapping 14 imperial stouts, the list of which will start your mouth watering right now. Full pours and 6oz pours will be available with a limit of ordering two at a time to give everyone an equal shot at the brews. So, start making your strategy now! They're also raffling off the opportunity to buy two bottles of Bourbon Co Rare at 3pm. All the details on their facebook page!

The beer list:

4 Hands Madagascar
 Bell's Expedition 2014
 Bell's 30th Anniversary
 Boulevard Imperial Stout
 Deschutes Abyss
 Firestone Walker Velvet Merkin
 Founders Breakfast Stout
 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
 Humbolt Black Xantus
 Lagunitas High Westified
 Perennial Abraxas
 Perennial Sump 2014
 Prairie BOMB!
 Sierra Nevada Narwahl 2014
(And maybe Ursa Major 2014!)

 Barley Wine Week @ Flying Saucer - Sunday-Friday 2/21-2/26

Flying Saucer is hosting another one of their style-focused weeks, and, appropriate for the weather or not (who the hell knows, it might snow next week), the beer they're serving is always appropriate. They've got all the details of each nights events on their calendar, but rest assured that you'll pretty much be able to get some rare/awesome barley wines no matter what night you walk into the Saucer next week. Highlights include 2014 Sucaba & Helldorado on Monday, and 2014 Old Curmudgeon & Backwoods Bastard on Tuesday.

In addition to their regular nightly lineups, they're putting on an beer dinner with Urban Chestnut on Sunday starting at 6pm. The menu sounds pretty ridiculous, so I'm just going to post the whole damn thing here. I mean, wild boar! Tickets are $65 ($55 for members). Call the Saucer for more info: (816) 221-1900

-Welcome beer course: Bushelhead Cider paired with cider skillet cake, assorted cheeses and snacks
-First course: Daft Barleywine paired with a gourmet cheese selection
-Second course: Trafalgar Ale paired with Mulligatawny stew
-Third course: Old Tjikko Spruce Ale paired with smoked salmon, Swedish potato cake and chive creme fraiche
-Fourth course: Oxnbrau Dopplebock paired with toasted barley risotto, grilled flank steak ribbons and sauteed spinach
-Fifth course: Wolpertinger paired with wild boar ragout over pan-seared polenta and broccolini
-Dessert course: Barrel Aged Daft paired with pecan toffee bread pudding, bourbon white chocolate mousse and stone fruit sorbet topped with vanilla bean caramel sauce

Cinder Block Oysters - Wednesday 2/24 & Saturday 2/27

So with my caveat above, these events are no doubt going to be awesome if you actually like oysters. The first is here in town at Jax Fish House. They collaborated with Cinder Block to produce (as far as I know), Kansas City's first Oyster Stout. If you've never tried oyster stout, you're not alone. I haven't either. But apparently it's a thing, and getting more and more popular all the time. Seeing how I like other seemingly terrible flavors in my beer (mmmm...horse blanket...), maybe oyster gym socks is the perfect marriage with stout. I'll withhold my judgment till I try it though.

Anyways. Jax Fish House is hosting an oyster eating competition on Saturday 2/27. The grand prize is $1,000 and proceeds will benefit the Midwest Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They'll of course have Cinder Block's Oyster Stout on hand for the event as well.

In addition to this, Cinder Block is having a stout party featuring the Oyster Stout among other awesome stouts on Wednesday 2/24. In addition to the oyster stout, they'll have 2013 Bourbon Barrel-Aged Squirrel, the 2014 Bourbon Barrel-Aged Squirrel and the un-oaked never before tapped, 2015 Black Squirrel. The beer's being tapped at 4pm! Be there!

Schlafly Oysters - Friday 3/4 & Saturday 3/5

Schlafly's Annual Stout & Oyster Festival is also coming up soon. The event is on Friday, March 4 (5 p.m. to midnight) and Saturday, March 5 (11 a.m. to midnight), at the Schlafly Tap Room (2100 Locust St. at 21st). Yes, this is the KC Beer Blog, but hey, Schlafly's cool and if you're into oysters & stouts, I'm sure you can make the drive to St. Louis! The festival is free to enter (although you will pay for the oysters by the shell (only about $2/oyster) and beers by the pint. They're partnering with Southwest Airline Cargo to fly in 60,000 fresh oysters, with six different kinds from both the east and west coasts.

Schlafly will also have all of their 10 stouts available a the fest. This includes their standbys like their Oatmeal Stout, Coffee Stout, & Irish-Style Extra Stout, and also their very own Oyster Stout. There's also going to be bands on throughout the day and an oyster shucking competition. They even put together a nifty video about the fest, in case you were wondering what the fest looks like (and also how great Southwest Airlines Cargo is, apparently!).

Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-64224029002466451002016-02-05T09:48:00.001-06:002016-04-08T07:52:36.426-05:00Boulevard Brewing Co Visitors Center Expansion

There's exciting news out of Boulevard--they're planning another major expansion. This one isn't just another collection of massive fermenters or a new brew house to produce more beer--it's an expansion for us! They've purchased a building across from the brewery, and are planning on opening a much bigger visitors center. The new visitors center will include a larger tasting room, gift shop, and a "Beer Hall," which will serve Boulevard beer and food (can I hope for a Bob's Oktoberfest celebration??). They anticipate a grand opening towards the end of June this year.

According to the press release from Boulevard, "In 2015, Boulevard hosted almost 60,000 visitors on some 2,300 tours, turning away thousands more due to lack of space." This expansion will give them almost 20,000 square feet of space dedicated to serving visitors and hosting events. For reference, the existing gift shop & tasting room is about 2,000 square feet total. The new visitor center will occupy the two lower levels of the Skelly Oil Building. They've got a few renderings of the new building and space put together, and it looks great, even if lacking some of the character of the old tasting room.

My only hope is that they don't mothball the old tasting room. If you've never been, go down there now! It's totally open to the public and one of the coolest bars in town. Also, you can get any number of test beers on tap and, of course, The Calling IPA fresh off the line. Mmmm...making me thirsty just thinking about it.

Rendering of the new tasting bar & gift shop on the lower level.

Rendering of the planned exterior of the new visitors center. The Boulevard parking garage can be seen in the back. The main brewery building sits on the opposite side of the parking garage.

Location of the new visitors center. The main brewery building is to the west.
Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-26150231208054153622016-02-01T15:16:00.000-06:002016-04-08T07:52:21.421-05:00KC Bier Meisters Competition - KC's Premier Homebrew Competition - Is Coming Soon!Kansas City Bier Meisters is once again hosting their spring homebrew competition! This is the biggest and most comprehensive competition in the city and one of the bigger and more respected competitions in all of the Midwest. You can get a full listing of all the detailed info on their club website.

This year, the competition organizers expect nearly 600 entries in every category. So getting a medal in this competition is a big deal for any of you hopeful homebrewers out there! The judging is also top notch (mostly because I'm there judging...), so you can expect to get great scorecards back from your judges. And because the competition is so large and well known, there are always a lot of awesome prizes. For the entrants, there are TWO scale-up prizes this year! The winning beers will get scaled up sold commercially at Cinder Block and KC Bier Co. In addition to these awesome prizes, there are a bunch of other awesome prizes like a counterpressure bottle filler, a 10 gallon brew kettle fitted with a ball valve outlet and thermometer, and a build-your-own jockey box kit.

Some of the raffle prizes from last year.

It's also a great festival if you've ever thought about judging or stewarding a competition. I've heard from many an experienced judge that the KCBM competition is one of their favorite to attend. There are a lot of experienced judges there to help out newbies, and the flights are usually pretty reasonable (usually <10 beers) so there is enough time to really put a good effort into judging each brew and discussing them. The organizers also have food, commercial & homebrews donated for your drinking pleasure outside the judging flights, and an awesome raffle. This year, they've got over $9,000 worth of donated items for the raffle for volunteers. In addition to this, they'll have custom engraved "can" glasses & coozies for each volunteer.

Entries for the competition need to be registered and received by this Friday. Volunteers also need to sign up by this Friday. You can access the entry website here. The judging will take place the from Feb 16 - 20. See you there!

Note: If you are entering beers for this competition, please remember that we'll be using the new 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines. These are significantly changed from the 2008 guidelines. PLEASE review the 2015 guidelines before you enter your beers!! First competition I judged with the 2015 guidelines, about half of the brews I judged were entered wrong and got dismal scores as a result. These are beers that might have award winners if they had been entered correctly. Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-78018703430946722962016-01-29T14:56:00.000-06:002016-02-01T15:18:10.175-06:00Crane Brewing Out on the Town!If you've been living under a rock for the last two months (as I have been--I'm finally catching up from the time-eating trinity of holidays, job, and kid), then you missed Crane Brewing Co's launch! They launched in Kansas in mid-December, and this week is their Missouri launch. Central States Bev & Crane have hosted events all around town over the last week at places like Flying Saucer, Rock & Run, the Belfry, Happy Gillis and on and on. There is still one final launch event tonight up north at Conrad's in Liberty. The Crane folks will be there at 6pm to talk beer & brewing. They'll have their Saison & Orange Gose on tap as well.

Regardless of whether you missed out on the launch events, you can be certain that you're going to start seeing Crane beers all over the Missouri side of the state line now. You should start seeing Crane in liquor stores in bombers as well as on tap. I might be premature, but I predict a total takeover of the KC metro by Crane. Their beers are fantastic, they have great branding, and Central States is obviously putting all their efforts behind them. If you're not familiar with the brewery and their story, Sarah Gish at the Star published a great article about them just a few days ago.

Right now they've got four beers out around town. These are the Saison, Farmhouse IPA, Orange Gose, and Apricot Weiss. I've had the Saison before at festivals, which is a very solid and easy drinking classic saison, but I haven't yet had a chance to try the rest. I'm really looking forward to try the Gose, and mainly just thankful that a KC brewery has finally put a gose in their year-round lineup. It's one of my favorite styles (year-round!), and I highly recommend that you get out there and give it a try if you haven't ever had one before.

Check them out at Conrad's tonight at 6pm!

This year yet, Crane plans to release three more beers--the Grapefruit Gose, Tea Weiss, and Beet Weiss. I can attest that the beet beer is a very well brewed, and very weird beer. I can't quite say it's to my taste, but it's definitely an experience to drink it. Also, Michael Crane has been known in the past for a myriad of great, award winning, one-off sour beers. The new brewery's got a full fledged barrel aging program going (thanks to many of you for your crowdbrewed contributions), and I can only imagine what amazing creations are going to come out of it in the near future. Regardless, I'll be looking forward to anything and everything coming out of their brewhouse!

Congrats to the Crane team and cheers!

Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-82094106583245129562016-01-07T21:40:00.002-06:002016-02-01T15:18:00.432-06:00Torn Label Brewing 1 Year Anniversary PartyIt is hard to believe that it has already been one year since Torn Label's beers started showing up around town. Last year around this time we gave you a sneak peak inside the Torn Label brewery and a look at the events planned for their launch week along with some of the plans in store for their inaugural year.

To say that Kansas City was excited for Torn Label's debut would be a vast understatement as that article was viewed far more than almost any other article featured on KC Beer Blog in 2015.

Torn Label definitely did not disappoint.

Whether it was releasing their Belgian coffee dubbel, Cafe Dubbel, on a bitter cold February morning at Bier Station, tapping a firkin of their House Brew made with Thou Mayest coffee beans that were aged in Dark Horse Distillery rye whiskey barrels at Green Room Burgers & Beer or doing their own version of an advent calendar by releasing a different variant of their Old Believer imperial stout in their tap room each week, Torn Label set an impressive standard for themselves in 2015 and created a high benchmark for their future.

And while it is easy to look ahead to what is on the horizon for Torn Label in 2016, I think it is also important to reflect on and celebrate the accomplishments of everyone involved at Torn Label and the impact they had on Kansas City in just one year.

To celebrate their one year anniversary, Torn Label will be throwing an all-day party in their tap room this Saturday 1/9 starting at Noon. The tap list for the festivities is listed below and will feature Torn Label's fullest draft list they have ever had. In addition to having all 12 of their taps flowing at once, they will be putting on some rare beers that you will not want to miss including the debut of Barrel Aged Long Time Comin' imperial stout.

Alpha Pale
House Brew
Monk & Honey
Oscar
Hang 'Em High
Day 4 Night
Ravager
Bloody Christmas
Long Time Comin'
Old Believer
BA Long Time Comin'
BA Quadquila

And in case you want to see where all this delicious beer has been brewed throughout the year, Torn Label will be giving public tours of their brewery for the first time since they opened their doors.

Cheers to Torn Label on a remarkable first year and to many, many more.Ryan Caldwellhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-29640890829342215512015-12-08T17:16:00.000-06:002016-02-01T15:17:52.247-06:00Drink Now: Torn Label Old Believer

Kansas City is still playing catch-up to St. Louis, as far as smaller breweries go. They have Perennial, 4 Hands, Side Project, and others making unique and delicious beers.

Torn Label is doing their best to bridge that gap. Of the recently opened breweries in Kansas City, Torn Label is probably my favorite. Their most recent offering is an Russian Imperial Stout that clocks in at 11.1%. The brewery is planning an Advent Calendar, of sorts, to show off this beer and its variants. The regular version was tapped on Sunday and is available at the brewery now. Each subsequent Sunday leading up to Christmas, the brewery will tap a different variant keg. There will only be a single keg of each variant.

Here's what the brewery has to say about their latest concoction:

"At over 11% ABV, it's the highest gravity beer we've brewed to date, but the silky, slightly sweet notes of dark fruit, cocoa and black bread impart a consummate drinkability that belies its hefty strength.

To celebrate the release of this RIS, we'll be holding an Old Believer Advent here at the brewery. Beginning November 29th - the first Sunday of 2015 Advent - we will debut Old Believer at the taproom. Each following Sunday in December, we'll release a different single keg variant of Old Believer on draft only. We will announce the specific variants the week before they're released."

I went in to try the regular version on Sunday and really enjoyed it. The beer is a full bodied imperial stout with tons of roasted malt flavor and hints of dark chocolate. The base beer is great, and I can't wait to try the upcoming variants. The first variant on Sunday, December 6th featured Thou Mayest's Brazilian Coffee. The second variant pairs the base with toasted coconut. Go get it when they open at noon on December 13th!

Bottles of the regular version will be available the second or third week in December. In addition, a portion of the beer is aging in whiskey barrels for very limited release in mid to late 2016.Patrickhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-3938872857539329482015-11-30T09:10:00.002-06:002016-02-01T15:17:45.679-06:00Ballast Point KC! Launch Events Today!

Ballast Point! In KC! I thought this day would never come.

I had the Ballast Point Sculpin IPA fresh in San Diego about a year ago and it changed my whole outlook on IPAs. In my opinion, it perfectly embodies the new world tropical hop character that so many brewers try to pull off these days. It's got that super fruity hop aroma typical of the New Zealand and Australian hops with lemon, grapefruit, mango, apricot, and peach characteristics. At the same time, it's got a solid floral fresh hop backbone and a solid balance. Bitter, but not make you cringe bitter like some of the SD IPAs.

At the time I had it, it was probably in the top 5 IPAs I had ever tasted. I kind of assumed that we wouldn't ever get Ballast Point in town, but now Central States is doing me a solid and they're bringing BP to KC! And it's happening today! There's four launch events today:

11am - Martin City Brewing Co
3pm - Green Room Burgers & Beer
4:30pm - Barley's Brewhaus Midland
6pm - Tapcade

At each of the events they're going to be taping:

Sculpin IPA
Grapefruit Sculpin IPA
Calico Amber Ale
Big Eye IPA

In addition to the tappings, the brewers will be on hand at Barley's at 7pm for a meet and greet. So go show them some KC love and make this gloomy day brighter with some of the best IPAs in the world! Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-16811101075765019812015-11-29T19:59:00.000-06:002016-02-01T15:17:38.929-06:00Fest Report: Strong Ale Fest 2015

Strong Ale Fest shockingly focuses on strong ales. I'm just now getting around to writing this review because I'm still hungover. Just kidding. Sorta. This fest is one of the good ones, folks. The people at Beer KC have these fests down to a science at this point. Read below to see the details and what I thought were the best beers of the festival.

Not Beer
Organizationally, the festival is great. From the beginning with checking IDs early to speed up the line, to plenty of porta potties for the eventual urge to pee, things just go well. There's plenty of space for lines to form with Pennsylvania Avenue between McCoy's and Kelly's providing the venue for the festival.

Beer
At $40 for tickets ($50 at the door) this festival is about average for a beer festival. Value is good because the line-up features some nice obscurities. Perennial, for instance, brought 2 beers that hadn't been in the KC market before. You won't find any out of market options, but most of the breweries who bring their A game. Lines are very manageable, and for nearly the entire festival, you beers were available with little to no waiting. There was still tons of delicious beer available when the festival ended, too.

Best in Show

This one wasn't hard for me. Perennial brought their Maman aged in Evan Williams 23 year barrels. Maman (which means mom in French) is the base for Perennial's excellent adjunct stouts, like Abraxas and 17. They throw it in barrels, because who doesn't love a good barrel-aged imperial stout? This variant of Maman was a bit more thin than the regular, but I didn't mind.Honestly, Maman is such a thick beer, that the slightly thinner body might be an improvement. This beer created the only line in the entire festival, and was a good 50 to 75 people long at some points. However, despite the line, in what may be the greatest gift ever given mankind, this beer lasted for just over 2 hours. I might have been responsible for drinking over 20 pours.

The runner up wasn't hard, either. 2nd Shift brought Coffee LSD with Kenyan Karimikui coffee. When pouring at the festival, the beer was only 2 or 3 days old. An already great beer, the addition of coffee makes it fantastic. I need more of this in my life.

Running out of the sought after beers is just a fact of beer festivals. This is a new category I'm adding to highlight some under the radar beers that make it to the end of a festival. For this fest, I was drinking Cinder Block's Imperial Coffee Hop'd with Cocoa Nibs at the buzzer. This imperial brown has a ton of coffee in it. The cocoa is barely noticeable with the amount of coffee, but I'm not complaining. This is a coffee forward beer, and I'll gladly guzzle it down.

Check out a few photos on our Facebook page below.

Patrickhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-47254976915304653272015-11-23T08:26:00.000-06:002015-11-30T12:55:09.626-06:00Bourbon Co Pig Roast at the Belfry
Instead of competing with the deal-crazed maniacs trampling each other to get 25% off some electronics they don't need anyways this Friday, might I make a suggestion:

And short of that, just go get yourself some BCBS and chill at home and watch the mayhem on TV.Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-58342340071109431222015-11-20T16:06:00.000-06:002015-11-30T12:54:56.532-06:00Thankful for BeerAfter Oktoberfest, which isn't really a nationally recognized holiday (yet), I think Thanksgiving may be the greatest holiday in America. I would go with Christmas, because, well, Christmas is awesome, but it's not really a holiday that everyone can celebrate. (I mean, everyone could celebrate Christmas, but I imagine it makes non-Christians feel a bit strange. Of course, it's really just a winter solstice celebration re-appropriated by the Church to appease those wild Saxons anyways...)

Thanksgiving is not a religion-specific holiday, not particularly patriotic or nationalistic, and not specific to any group of people. Because of this, I think we can all agree that Thanksgiving is awesome. You'd have to be a pretty hardcore cynic to disparage being thankful for stuff. Also, eating and drinking too much and being with family (maybe too much also). And here's the other reason Thanksgiving is awesome--it's the perfect holiday for beer.

There are several reason for this--first is that Thanksgiving food doesn't really lend itself to pairing with wine or cocktails. It can be done, but beer provides a much better compliment to the food on the turkey table. Being a bit liquored up also helps you to take your crazy uncle's conspiracy theories in stride (yes, we all have one). Of course, Thanksgiving is an all day drinking affair, which is best managed with beer. And the final, and possibly best reason you should be drinking alcohol regardless of the vehicle--it helps keeps you from overeating so damned much. I shit you not--drinking alcohol with a meal has been scientifically proven to make you feel fuller for longer, reducing the chance that you're going back for that third slice of pumpkin pie. Or pecan pie. Mmmmm....pecan pie.

Santa Fe Java Stout

The point is, we need alcohol to manage this great holiday, and beer is the best fit. I, for one, will most definitely need to stay liquored up all day. In fact, I might need to stay in a constant state of inebriation for the next week. We're hosting Thanksgiving at our house for the first time ever, and 25 people are showing up (that we know of). Compound this with a sick 11-month old baby who is at home projectile vomiting as I write this, and the stress levels are running high in the Aber household. Regardless, Thanksgiving will be great.

Now, if you don't already have your beer plan mapped out, allow me to humbly present my strategy:

Pre-Game.
I need to have a buzz on before all the people start showing up, but I'm also going to need a morning pick-me-up, so I'm starting with some coffee imperial stout. My go-to these days for a great, reasonably priced, and easy to find coffee stout is Santa Fe Java Stout. It's the perfect breakfast beer. Of course, there's tons of other options out there, and if I was rich and had a personal assistant (or the ability to plan more than 3 days ahead), I would probably be drinking Prairie Bomb! or Epic Big Bad Baptist for breakfast. But that clearly isn't happening at this point this year.

Dinner--Kickoff.

Ba ba black sheep, have you any beer?

I'm probably going to start my dinner off with something rich and dark, but not overly sweet or heavy. I haven't made up a mind on what beer exactly this is going to be, but I love American Brown Ales and Schwarzbier for the task. They perfectly compliment the turkey table food flavors, and they have a balanced, dry finish that's going to keep you going. My favorite browns around are Avery Ellie's Brown, Civil Life Brown, and 4-Hands Cast Iron Oatmeal Brown. If I'm going with Schwarzbier, it's got to be Uinta Baba Black Lager.

Dinner--Second Half.
By the time we're passing the food around for the second time, I've got to have something a little lighter if I'm going to have any hope of making it to dessert. It's got to be something spritzy and tart. Lambics are usually too sour for the task--if I took a sip of lambic after a mouthful of cranberries, my mouth might implode. So, lactic soured beers like Berliner Weisse or Gose are the way to gose. I'll probably be drinking Boulevard's Tell Tale Tart, but if I can get my hands on it, 4-Hands Preserved Lemon Gose would be badass.

Post-Game.
If I can fit it in (haha, if), I'm going to be shoveling as much pumpkin and pecan pie in my pie hole as I can. To match these flavors, not overwhelm, and help wash it down, I like a roasty oatmeal or dry stout. The flavors compliment, but the styles aren't overly sweet so as to overload your palate. I'll probably be quaffing some Buffalo Sweat Oatmeal Stout with my pie. If there's any Vanilla Bean Buffalo Sweat left over, even better!

Boulevard Tell Tale Tart

Thanksgiving Day, 4pm.
Beer doesn't pair well with naps unless you're living in a frat house. When I wake up, though, I'm probably drinking the rest of that Tell Tale Tart.

Pumpkin Beer.
I can't very well write a Thanksgiving Day post without throwing in a mention for Schafly's Pumpkin Ale. I know, I know, I may have just lost all credibility with the hardcore beer geeks, but I don't care. I love pumpkin beer, and Schlafly's is the most unabashed, in your face, pumpkin pie beer there is. It's like 8% alcohol of sweet, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin. I don't think I could really handle this beer ON Thanksgiving Day, but I'm definitely enjoying it before and afterwards. There, I said it. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale

Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-46087331166305197912015-11-02T22:10:00.000-06:002015-11-30T12:54:45.306-06:00Flying Saucer Stout Week and Westport Strong Ale FestivalSo I'm a little late in getting this post up. My original plan was to have this up Sunday night but from the sound of the fireworks (and what I'm pretty sure was a small bomb) along with my neighbors screaming and celebrating through the night, I didn't think too many people would be in their home browsing the web for beer news anyway.

So even though one of the events below has already started for the week, there's still plenty left in store to keep the victory celebration going all week long. I hope everyone has fun this week and can enjoy some of the festivities for the Royals victory. They had an unbelievable season and are truly deserving World Series champions. Congratulations Kansas City.

Flying Saucer Stout Week

Like I mentioned, I'm a little late in posting this but the good thing is Flying Saucer isn't hosting Stout Night. No, instead of just making an evening out of it, Flying Saucer is hosting their annual Stout Week this week.

In my opinion, this is the best time of the year to start cracking open some of those bigger stouts you've been hoarding in your basement. I don't discriminate though. I still like to enjoy a big stout from time to time in the warmer months but with the cooler temperatures and earlier nights, a rich, robust stout is sometimes the perfect ending to a long day.

This week Flying Saucer is going to have some pretty special beers on tap each night. All beers will be tapped at 7:00 PM and will include:

Tuesday 11/3 - Bell's Brewery Night featuring 2012 and 2014 Expedition Stout

Wednesday 11/4 - New Holland Brewing Night featuring Dragon's Milk, Coffee Dragon's Milk, Raspberry Dragon's Milk and Dragon's Milk with toasted chilis

Thursday 11/5 - Stone Brewing Night featuring 2014 and 2015 Woot Stout

Friday 11/6 - North Coast Brewing Night featuring Old Rasputin XII and XV

Also, the original plan was to have the Deschutes Beer dinner this past Sunday, but due to the Royals game it was postponed until Monday 11/9. If you're interested in attending, contact Flying Saucer for reservations.

Westport's 5th Annual Strong Ale Festival

Beer fests can be a tricky adventure. While fun, they are not without their pitfalls. Typically you're given a 3 or 4 ounce glass to sample an unlimited amount of beer from breweries who have brought some of their most sought after releases to showcase for the event. It's understandable to lose track of how much you have consumed in that short period of time.

If you plan on attending Westport's Strong Ale festival, I would recommend pacing yourself, eating before, during and after and drinking plenty of water in order to avoid forgetting the event altogether.

This Saturday November 7th from 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Westport's Strong Ale festival will take place in the heart of Westport and feature over 70 beers weighing in at over 8% ABV.

Tickets will cost you $40 in advance ($50 at the door) and can be purchased here.

You may also want to break out your cowboy hat and boots (keep the spurs at home) because this year's theme is Spaghetti Western. Prizes will be awarded to the best dressed in attendance.

In case dressing up in western gear and day drinking isn't enough to persuade you to buy a ticket, just take a look at some of the beer that will be available throughout the day.

4 Hands Brewing - Ca$h Mony
2nd Shift Brewing - Brew Cocky, Coffee Liquid Spiritual Delight
75th Street Brewery
Bell's Brewery - Uberon (bourbon barrel aged Oberon), 30th Anniversary Ale
Boulevard Brewing - Saison-Brett 2014, Imperial Stout 2014, Rye-on-Rye, Love Child #5
Cinder Block Brewing - Black Squirrel, Imperial Coffee
Deschutes - The Dissident, The Stoic
Duvel Moortgat - Duvel
Firestone Walker - Double Jack, Wookey Jack Black Rye IPA
Founders Brewing - KBS, Big Lushious, Dirty Bastard, Dark Penance
Free State Brewing - Chili Mac (Owd Mac's), Cloud Hopper Imperial IPA
Goose Island - The Muddy
Gordon Biersch Restaurant & Brewery
Green Flash Brewing - Double Stout, Imperial IPA
Kansas City Bier Co - Wunderpils, Winterbock
Lagunitas Brewing - Imperial Pils, Brown Shugga'
Logboat Brewing - Imperial March, Alien Gold
Martin City Brewing - The Poitier, The Highwayman
McCoy's Public House - Tripel, Wee Willy Scotch Ale 2014, Ursa Major 2012
Mikkeller - Mosaic Imperial IPA
Mother's Brewing
Nebraska Brewing - Fathead, Barrel Ages HopAnomoly
New Belgium - Hop Stout, Rampant
North Coast Brewing - Old Stock, Brother Thelonious
Odell Brewing - Mountain Standard Double Black IPA, Russian Pirate
Perennial Artisan Ales - Maman aged in Evan Williams Japanese Blue Label 23 year barrels, Savant Blanc
Prairie Artisan Ales - Spaghetti Western
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project - Baby Tree
Samuel Adams Brewing
Santa Fe Brewing - Chicken Killer Barleywine, Imperial Java Stout
Schlafly Beer Co - 2013 Oak Aged Barleywine, Christmas Ale
Sierra Nevada Brewing
Southern Tier Brewing - Krampus, Creme Brulee
Tallgrass Brewing - Big Ricc, Velvet Rooster, Wooden Rooster
Torn Label Brewing - Lumber Lung, Quadjillo, Quadquila

Ryan Caldwellhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-52534437454491984132015-10-28T11:16:00.000-05:002015-11-30T12:54:33.881-06:00Ruins Pub - A Review of KC's First Self-Serve Beer Bar

Ruins Pub--KC's first self-serve bar.

The Ruins Pub opened a couple weeks ago in the Crossroads at 1715 Main. It's KC's first self-serve craft beer bar. I went down to check it out just before the grand opening to get an idea of what the hell a self-serve craft beer bar is. To be honest, I figured that the self-serve part of it was going to be a silly gimmick. (I despise the self-checkout lines at grocery and hardware stores.) But in spite of my skepticism, I was surprised to find that I love the concept. More on that beer part later--first, a little background on the place.

A few years ago, Scott Kalwei was doing the daily grind as an engineer in KC. In what seems to be becoming one of our generation's American Dreams, he got fed up with the desk job, quit, and went to Europe to teach English. The plan originally was teach in Europe for a while, then go over to Asia to teach there as well. But he landed in Prague and loved the area so much that he just ended up sticking around there for a couple years.

VW Bus in the middle of the bar!

While there, Scott discovered the ruin pubs. They're essentially just bars set up in old decaying buildings and courtyards that have been neglected for decades--not unlike setting up shop in the West Bottoms or Crossroads. After Scott came back to the US, he decided to recreate his favorite kind of Eastern European hangout in KC.

The bar has the same feel as a ruin pub from Budapest--there's a VW bus parked in the middle of the bar with a table in it, all manner of weird stuff hangs from the walls and ceilings, there's a mishmash of random furniture (including a bathtub cut in half as a love seat), and a huge graffiti-style mural adorns the wall next to the bar. The bar has a feel to it that is just weird enough that it doesn't come off as silly or disingenuous.

The food is an eclectic mix to match the decor--they've got the typical Eastern European goulash, fried bread and sausages, but also street tacos and pub sandwiches. Everything we ordered was good and reasonably priced. Service was slow, but it was the first day they opened for full lunch service, so I'm sure they've ironed out any issues in the kitchen or with the servers by now.

Self-serve taps with the RFID card.

Ok, now what you're probably really interested in--the beer! Like I said, I thought it might be a gimmick, but I quickly realized that idea is awesome. How it works--you get a card with an RFID chip and a pint glass when you sit down. Take the card and your glass up to the bar, set your card in the slot of whatever beer you want, and pour away.

The system measures and charges your pours to the 0.1 oz, so you can fill up a tiny sample while you're trying to decide, or just fill your whole glass. The system ticks up like you're at a gas pump. When it's time to pay, you just hand your beer chip card over to your server. You could literally stand there and go down the line and sample every beer on tap. And the beer selection was great, so you'll probably want to get a taste of all of them.

If you're really adventurous, you could even use Ruins Pub as your very own beer blending laboratory! No, I'm not talking about making a suicide...I'm talking about real beer blending like the pros do--blending various sours to get the perfect level of tartness, blending unrelated beers like IPAs with hefeweizens or sours with stouts to create something new, or even rounding out a barrel aged beer with some fresh stuff to get it just to your liking. I really don't know of any other place, unless you own your own bar, where you could do anything like this with this many different beers at once.

The bar has 40 self-serve taps.

I do see some potential difficulties with the self-serve concept that they're going to have to work through being the first of their kind. Normally your bartender would fix you up with the perfect pour--not necessarily so with the self-serve system. If you pour a beer, and you get all foam, you're not going to want to pour off that foam to fill your glass since you already paid for it. I'm also wondering what happens if you blow a keg and the get last bit of dregs or if you get a beer out of a keg with a dirty tap line? Will there be a way to dump a beer and get the money comped back from your card if something like this happens?

The other tricky thing is to keep an eye on how much money you're spending. They give you a 16 oz. pint glass but some of the beers are priced like they should go in a snifter (and rightly so). I managed to accidentally fill my pint glass full with New Belgium le Terroir to the tune of about $12. The per-oz and per-pint prices are on the menus at the table, and the system tells you exactly how much your pour costs real-time, but even with this it's still easy to pour yourself a mighty expensive beer if you're not paying attention.

Regardless of these potential pitfalls, I thought the place was great, and will definitely be making it one of my regular stops. Go check it out and let us know what you think of the self-serve setup!

Owner Scott Kalwei.

Yep--that's a bathtub and a wire spool.

Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-88499116690096487422015-10-25T20:03:00.000-05:002015-11-30T12:54:24.545-06:00Short Pours Week of 10/26This is hands down my favorite week of the year. Not only do I turn another year older (which is starting to get not so great) but the week includes Halloween and the start of the World Series, which I am sure many people reading this will be watching closely. As a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, I wish the Royals the best of luck and hope they can finish it off this year with a championship. They are a fun team to watch and the pride Kansas City shows for them is unmatched from any other city I've seen. But since this a blog about beer, let's talk about some of the events going on this week to check out and enjoy a beer while cheering on the Royals.

Samuel Adams KMF Grand Cru Tour

This week will see the return on Samuel Adams Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru (KMF) in the Kansas City area. In case you forgot, this beer made an appearance in Kansas City around this time last year. Sam Adams hosted an online poll to determine the last city that would see the KMF tour and Kansas City blew the competition away (actually I am not sure what the final numbers were but I know Kansas City won). This year though, no voting was required as Kansas City made the cut for a stop on the tour.

If you missed out on this beer last year, do not miss it again. I was lucky enough to try KMF last year due to the generosity of Justin Kendall from The Pitch after a kickball game and it was easily one of the best beers I tried last year. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to name a beer I tried last year that I enjoyed more.

So where can you try to get your hands on this gem this week? The list of participating bars and restaurants is below. Make sure to call ahead or check social media to see when each place plans on tapping their allocation.

bd's Mongolian Grill
Bier Station
Blvd Tavern
Conrad's Restaurant & Alehouse
Flying Saucer
Helen's JAD Bar and Grill
Charlie Hooper's
Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House
Lew's Bar & Grill
Martin City Brewing
McCoy's Public House
Rock & Run Brewery and Pub
Ruins Pub
The Tank Room
Tapcade at Crossroads
The Well
Waldo Pizza

Odell Beer Dinner - Nick & Jake's on Main

This Wednesday October 28th at 6:00pm, join Nick & Jake's on Main as they host Odell Brewing Co for what looks to be a fantastic beer dinner.
Tickets are $40 per person. Call 816-421-1111 for reservations. If you're thinking about going, don't wait too long to get tickets as same day reservations will not be accepted.
The menu for the evening looks like this:
Welcome Beer - Loose Leaf
Appetizer - Pair with 90 Schilling - Butternut squash & ricotta ravioli with sage brown butter and shaved pecorino romano cheese
Salad - Paired with Brombeere Blackberry Gose - Kale salad with roasted Brussel sprouts, black figs, honey roasted pecans, crispy prosciutto, feta cheese and white balsamic vinaigrette
Entree - Paired with Odell IPA - Chorizo Sausage, cherries and cornbread stuffed pork chop with bourbon maple glaze and roasted spaghetti squash
Dessert - Paired with Mountain Standard Double Black IPA - Pecan pie cheesecake with creme caramel

Flying Saucer The Black Pour and Deschutes Beer Dinner

As I mentioned earlier, Halloween is this week. Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year and with it being on a Saturday this year only makes it better. Now I'm not big on dressing up or coming up with an elaborate costume but I do love watching some old horror movies (think the early Halloween movies, not the third one though, that is still one of the worst movies I have ever seen) while snacking on a few Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins and opening up some special beers for the occasion.

Flying Saucer will be celebrating Halloween this year by hosting an event properly named, The Black Pour.

Join Flying Saucer on Halloween night as they tap 2011 Big Eddy Imperial Stout, 2013 Black Xantus and Evil Twin From Amager with Love.

Updated Monday 10/26
Well, it looks like the Deschutes beer dinner is being pushed back to Monday November 9th now due to the World Series. We'll have more information as it gets closer.

If you don't get your fill of dark beers on Halloween night, Flying Saucer will be teaming up with Deschutes Brewery to kick off Saucer Stout Week with a beer dinner Sunday November 1st at 6:00pm.

We'll have more on the events for Saucer Stout Week a little later, but if you are interested in attending the Deschutes beer dinner, contact Flying Saucer to make your reservations.Ryan Caldwellhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-68301352502192331682015-10-15T11:02:00.004-05:002015-10-15T11:02:38.668-05:00The Macros are Becoming The Macro

Soon: ABSABInBevMiller. Or something.

I've written in depth in the past about macro breweries and why their beer sucks. The too long; didn't read version is this--macro brewery beer sales in the US have been declining for years and the Macros only have two options to remain profitable--acquire other breweries and lay people off ("find efficiencies"), or cut costs in their brewing process.

It looks like AB InBev is now going on the ultimate quest to find efficiencies--SABMiller has tentatively accepted an offer from ABI for $104 billion to buy out the company. If this deal were to go through, ABI would control about 1/3 of the global beer market, and 3/4 of US market share. Needless to say, this is never going to pass the anti-trust regulators in the US. What's most likely to happen, is that SABMiller will divest its interest in Molson-Coors, of which SABMiller only owns a portion. This would probably keep the ABI/SABMiller market share in the US at around 50%.

Where's Zack when we need him??

Even if they were to divest Molson-Coors, there's no guarantee that monopoly-like price fixing won't abound in the macro beer market. ABI and SABMiller have already been colluding on price increases for their products for years now. Their pricing practices played a central role in the lawsuit brought by the Justice Department against ABI when they attempted to acquire Grupo Modelo.

The price fixing will probably continue even more aggressively since the ABI/SABMiller and Molson-Coors executives will have had such close business ties over the years. They will only be phone call away from massive price manipulation. Of course, this could all turn out to be a win for craft beer, since higher priced macro beer will lead the average beer drinker to start thinking harder about buying premium beer that doesn't cost much more.

The biggest problem I see for us craft beer geeks might come as a result of our 3-Tier System. (If you don't know what the 3-Tier system is, read this.) The vast majority of the beer distributors in the US are tied to either Anheuser-Busch or Miller--some are even owned outright by the big breweries (thankfully, this is illegal in KS and MO). If ABI and SABMiller are allowed to merge in the US, they will either own or wield an enormous influence over the distribution of nearly every beer sold in the country.

But what about franchise laws, you ask? Good question! In most states, brewer-distributor relationships are controlled by franchise laws that are designed to keep large breweries from forcing small distributors to do their bidding. Of course it doesn't always work that way. It's been alleged over and over that the Macros "encourage" their distributors to price, market, and sell their products a certain way. They also do everything they can within the law, and outside the law, to push competitors (including craft brewers) out of the market. In fact, it was reported on Monday this week that the Justice Department is investigating ABI over concerns that they're attempting to force distributors to stop carrying craft brands.

Imagine if Martin City or Torn Label had gone to shop around to the half dozen or so beer distributors in KC and were turned down by all of them? Without any right to self-distribute their beers, they would have no legal avenue to sell beer outside the walls of their breweries. Of course, they could sue the distributors or ABI, but how could a tiny startup brewery hope to win a legal battle against a company with a $300 billion market capitalization, an army of lawyers, and politicians eating out of their hand?

We're lucky to have great distributors in KC today. They do a great job taking on new craft breweries & promoting existing accounts, sponsoring & hosting events, and helping bars and liquor stores with quality control. However, I worry about what this merger might mean for the future. I only hope that our distributors can retain their independence and keep supporting craft beers the way they do now. Otherwise, we may all have to join in the fight to abolish the 3-Tier System if we want to continue to have our craft beer. Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-26865723562904022612015-10-09T12:14:00.001-05:002015-10-09T12:14:37.376-05:00Weekend Planner - Oct. 9-11Looks like it's going to be another fantastic Fall weekend in KC! Now that the Oktoberfest fun has come and gone (mostly), we can get back to our regularly scheduled business of BEER.

Barley's Brewhaus 20th Anniversary Month

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Barley's Brewhaus first opening and they've got a special tappings, brewer's nights, beer schools, happy hour specials, and more every single night this month of October. They've got some awesome stuff coming up, including Mother's Brewing night tonight with brewmaster Jeff Scrag, Santa Fe Brewery's Kriek tapping on Monday, Nebraska Brewing breaking out the good stuff from the cellar next Friday, and on and on. Also, New Belgium Disc Golf Tournament on Oct 24. I might just have to find my old discs for that one...

The Barley's events for this weekend include Mother's Night tonight at Barley's Leawood, Santa Fe Brewing Can Day tomorrow all day at all Barley's, and Great Divide 21st Anniversary Beers & Grand Teton American Sour Beers tappings on Sunday at Barley's Midland.

The Botanical Brewfest

This is the second year running for this alt-beerfest sponsored by Crawford Sales beer distributor and the Friends of the Arboretum and located out in the sticks. I say alt-beerfest because it's not run like your typical fest. The event is held at the Overland Park Arboretum, and the brewery tables are distributed throughout the woods along the walking trails. There's going to be about 25 breweries there--mostly local breweries and a couple regional & West Coast breweries.

There will also be food trucks, bands, and other activities going on. Given the great weather forecast and the leaves changing color right now, I can't imagine a much better thing to do than cruise the woods while drinking craft beer.

Tickets are $40 for friends of the arboretum or $50 for us commoners. You can also buy two tickets together for $90. The proceeds benefit the Arboretum.

KCPT Brew Debut @ Martin City Brewing Co

KCPT, Feast TV, and Martin City got together to brew some beer and put on a party for us! MCBC will be tapping their new beer "19" (get it--channel 19??) tomorrow that they brewed in collaboration with the kind, gentle, velvet voiced folks in public TV. The tickets for the event are $30, which will get you a sampling of local brews, some light food, and a 1-year subscription to Feast Magazine. The proceeds go to benefit KCPT, if you hadn't guessed that. Feast TV has been doing a great job of documenting our local and regional breweries lately, so if you haven't, check them out!

Green Room & Beer Paws Coconut Porter Tapping

Green Room Burgers & Beer and Beer Paws are having a release party for their Coconut Porter on Saturday at 2p. If you haven't heard of Beer Paws, they make doggy biscuits out of spent grain from our local brewers. I don't have a dog, so I wouldn't be able to tell you how much dogs like biscuits made of spent grain, but they've been making them for a while now, so they must be pretty good.

Green Room & Beer Paws collaborated on brewing the Coconut Porter and making the doggy biscuits from the beer's spent grain. The biscuits & beer will be available on the patio for any dogs who show up to the bar. I think people are invited too.

They'll also have copies of Recommended Daily's Cookies & Beer book out for sale. The cookbook contains the original Coconut Porter Beer Paws recipe! So when you come across a large amount of spent grains, you can even make your own doggy biscuits! Jay Aberhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-78925319982106352082015-09-24T19:59:00.000-05:002015-09-24T19:59:13.430-05:00Boulevard 2016 Release ScheduleIf you have been like me and just going through the motions this week, you may have missed the announcement from Boulevard unveiling their 2016 release schedule. Yes, I know it isn't even October yet but I'm all for looking down the road and seeing what Boulevard has in store for us in the coming year.

Boulevard plans on brewing at least 10 new beers for 2016 including 8 new Smokestack releases.

Looking at the calendar below there are a few beers that really grabbed my attention. The first beer that has me looking forward to its' release is the Early Riser Coffee Porter currently slated for a January release. I am a sucker for coffee beers so I am definitely looking forward to enjoying a couple of these during the cold winter nights.

The release schedule also shows that we will get two Rye-on-Rye variant releases next year. The first, Rye-on-Rye-on-Rye will see a release early in the year around February followed up with a yet to be announced variant released around August.

Other new beers Boulevard has slated for 2016 include Tripel Julep, Funkier Pumpkin, Love Child No. 7 and every soccer moms soon-to-be favorite beer, Chocolate Ale with Raspberries.

The entire release schedule is below for your viewing pleasure. Keep in mind that the release schedule for these beers is tentative and subject to change but we will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

So tell us, which Boulevard beers are you looking forward to the most next year?

Ryan Caldwellhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762340245520884353.post-29103172925677024332015-09-18T10:30:00.000-05:002015-09-23T09:43:10.548-05:00Boulevard Collaboration No. 5 with Cigar City--Release Party Tonight!As if you didn't have enough stuff going on this weekend, here's another one for you: Boulevard is putting on a release party for their Collaboration No. 5 beer tonight! This latest beer from their collaboration department is with legendary Cigar City Brewing Co out of Florida.

The beer is being called a Tropical Pale Ale. From Boulevard: "This year's release of our annual collaboration series utilizes freshly sliced grapefruit and passion fruit juice and huge late hopping to create a pale ale that is slightly tart and super citrusy." It sounds pretty damn excellent to me for a late summer beer, and also oddly appropriate given our tropical hot/humid/rainy weather we've been having lately.

They're tapping the first keg of the beer tonight at 4pm at the Boulevard Tasting Room. They're going to have the Plantain District truck out front selling Cuban grub, and Boulevard's Trip Hogue (of Long Strange Tripel fame) providing the tunes. You should start seeing the beer on liquor store shelves and in bars by the end of September.

High Plains Brewhof

I'd be remiss if I didn't drop a quick mention for the High Plains Brewhof going on tomorrow as well. Tickets were all claimed for the event a while back, so I didn't figure you needed a lot of info since you're already all going! Needless to say though, I'm sure it'll be a great event again this year--especially with the ticketing/entrance process worked out. If you see a guy with a camera and a little beer nerd cruising around on his back, say hey. Jay Aberhttps://email@example.com


text:
Westmoreland Wedding Made Possible Thanks to Generous Donations From the Community
Two active duty members of the United States Army were able to get married over the weekend, thanks to the community stepping up.
Two active duty members of the United States Army were able to get married over the weekend, thanks to the community stepping up.
What a year 2015 has been! Naomi Lynn dedicated a lot of time this year exploring the area, and learning what she could about CNY. These were her Top 5 adventures for the year.
Beer, pizza, and wings help New York rank as one of the top states for the best food and drink. But where did it fall on the list exactly?
Congratulations to Jo-Ann Fabric in New Hartford - They are our latest 'Feed Me Friday' winners!
It's happened to all of us in some point in our lifetime; we open up a present on Christmas morning only to realize it's something we really don't want. The kids in this video can't seem to muster up much excitement over their unwanted gifts either.
Col. Chris Hadfield may be best known for his rendition of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity,' after he played it on the International Space Station, but in this video he gives us a glimpse at how life is actually lived on the ISS.
There's something oddly amusing about watching giant objects (like refrigerators and such), get destroyed. This video will not disappoint.
If you ever wondered in the Star Wars Universe what side you would be on, we now have an answer, thanks to Distractify.
If only every little boy and girl was this easy to please; all this little guy wants for Christmas are some cough drops.
If you have never seen a ship being launched for the first time, you might be surprised at just how its done.
We've seen it before - Christmas lights being set to music, but have you seen 13 houses time out their lights together for one song?
Thousands of topics trend on Twitter everyday, but this one could be the best of the year. #2015In5Words

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Load Balancing Jobs in the City of London
Jobs 1 to 4 of 4
Linux Systems Administrator- Oxford Circus- £40K + benefits
CentOS, Server, LAN, IP Routing, VPN, Samba, Active directory, Disaster recovery, VMware ESXi…... Essential skills: 3 years hands on experience in Linux servers/systems administrator (Redhat/CentOS) Working knowledge of LAN, IP Routing and VPN Configuration. Hands on experience with DNS, DHCP, Apache, LDAP, AD, Samba and load balancing... Desirable...
City, London -
Talent International
Salary: £35000 - £40000 per annum + benefits and developmentPosted: 2 days ago
DevOps Engineer - Central London - 6 Month Contract
Responsibilities: DevOps Engineer (AWS / Chef / Elastic Search / Jenkins / Terraform) Ensure scalability, reliability, security and efficiency... Requirements: DevOps Engineer (AWS / Chef / Elastic Search / Jenkins / Terraform) In-depth understanding of Linux and Open Source Technologies. Chef. Ruby and Python Scripting. Proven experience working with Infrastructure as Code, configuration management systems and CI/...
City, London -
Involved Solutions Ltd
Rate: £0.00 per dayPosted: 2 days ago
Technical Project Manager (Datacentre/Migration/Networks)
Technical Project Manager (Datacentre Architect / Migration / Consolidation / Network Specialist) My client are a fin-tech company based in the heart of London. They require an experienced Technical Project Manager (Datacentre Architect / Migration / Consolidation / Network Specialist) to lead their datacentre migration and consolidation initiatives. The successful Technical Project Manager (Datacentre Architect /...
City, London -
Energon People
Salary: £60000 - £75000 per annumPosted: 5 days ago
Senior Messaging Administrator (PowerShell, SCCM and VMWare)
5-7+ years as a Messaging Systems Administrator working in a fast paced, dynamic environment with the ability to think, diagnose and resolve issues as they occur - Strong knowledge of Exchange 2010 & 2013 including High availability, Load Balancing & DAG's. - Strong knowledge of Enterprise Vault Email archiving - Strong Knowledge of...
City, London -
Twenty Recruitment Group
Salary: £60,000 per annumPosted: 5 days ago
Load Balancing Jobs in the City of London


text:
ABB announced that the first vessel to feature Onboard DC (direct current) Grid has been delivered to Norwegian offshore owner Myklebusthaug Offshore by Kleven Yard.
The Platform Supply Vessel (PSV) "Dina Star," designed by Norwegian company Marin Teknikk, is 93 meter long with deadweight tonnage (DWT) approximately 5000 ton and will serve as a multipurpose oil field supply and construction vessel in the North Sea. ABB supplied the Onboard DC Grid system, including all power, propulsion, automation and advisory systems. ABB said the system will allow the ship to operate at the highest energy efficiency level to minimize emissions.
In traditional electrical propulsion vessels, multiple DC connections are made to thrusters and propulsion drives from an alternating current (AC) circuit, accounting for more than 80% of electrical power consumption. ABB's Onboard DC Grid represents a breakthrough for the maritime industry in optimized propulsion by distributing power through a single DC circuit providing significant power savings.
ABB unveiled the Onboard DC Grid concept in mid-2011, with a pilot project contract following six months later. The concept has attracted high levels of interest from ship owners operating a wide range of ship types, namely offshore, tugs, jack ups, ferries and yachts. For the time being the DC Grid is available in low voltage with an installed power up to approximately 20 megawatt. By distributing electricity in DC, the system allows the operation of the generators at a variable speed and consequently at the optimal specific fuel consumption. This is particularly beneficial for offshore vessels operating in Dynamic Positioning (DP) mode, where average power demand is low.
The DC Grid configuration also means bulky AC switchboards and propulsion transformers are no longer required. This, combined with greater system lay-out flexibility, increases the available space and deadweight for cargo.
Maritime Today
The Maritime Industry's original and most viewed E-News Service
The Royal Thai Navy has ordered a new 90-m offshore patrol vessel (OPV) to be constructed at Mahidol Adulyadej naval dockyard in Sattahip.
The newbuilding, an improved River-class design,
Norsafe has released its first RIB, the Marathon 900, to compliment its range of boat models for professional and military customers.
Launched at High Speed
Wärtsilä has donated an 8-cylinder Wärtsilä 20 engine and generating set, to the Marine Engineering Technology Department at Texas A&M University at Galveston.
Hercules Offshore Inc said it planned to file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just six months after the rig contractor emerged from bankruptcy protection.
DONG Energy's has set a potential $16 billion price tag on its stock market debut, giving investors a chance to buy into the growth in offshore wind power, but
Rolls-Royce has signed a contract with shipyard Astilleros Gondan in Spain to design and equip a second Service Operation Vessel for ship owner Østensjø Rederi.
Leonhardt & Blumberg was founded in 1903 and has managed more than 180 vessels, the majority of which were general cargo vessels and bulk carriers. Today the company
U.S. shipbuilder General Dynamics NASSCO hosted a keel laying ceremony on Thursday, May 26 for the Liberty, one of three new ECO Class Jones Act tankers under a
SAFE Boats International (SBI), a manufacturer of aluminum boats located in Bremerton, Wash., has completed the first Coastal Interceptor Vessel (CIV) on contract from U.


text:
Email this article from PlasticsNews.com
Plastics recycling: Still confused?
Most non-plastics folks don't know about the difference between PET, oriented polystyrene and PVC. And that can be a problem when someone wants to do the right thing and recycle their plastic products.
More Events > Upcoming Events
Most Popular
SPI to become the Plastics Industry Association
NEWS Thursday, May 26
Flint seeks '21st century approach' to water but rebuffs free plastic pipe
BLOG04 Thursday, May 26
Color Master growing at two Indiana sites
NEWS Thursday, May 26
Plasman adds European exposure with acquisition of Sweden's Plastal Industri
NEWS Thursday, May 26
Increased imports force PP prices down
NEWS Friday, May 27


text:
|Today's Hours:
|Phone Number:
|Store Location:
Center of Mall
|Where to Park:
Entrance Near Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Store
An icon of American style, Brooks Brothers offers a classic assortment of premium-quality clothing and accessories. Discover warm-weather favorites including T-shirts, shorts and swimwear in fresh new colors.
From exquisite fabrics to detail-rich, handcrafted styles and exclusive designs, J.Crew brings impeccable quality to its men's and women's collections at irresistible Factory prices.
Discover signature styles for men, women, children and home at exceptional everyday values.
Banana Republic Factory Store is the premier destination for elevated style and quality at affordable prices. With city styles and chic wear-to-work looks, Banana Republic Factory Store offers stylish, versatile apparel and accessories for men and women.
Women's and men's apparel, accessories and shoes
Banana Republic
Returns of Banana Republic Factory Store product will be accepted within 90 days with an original receipt. Other restrictions apply, please see store for complete details.
American Express
Store credit/gift card
Mall gift card
Earn $25 in StyleCash for every $50 spent at Banana Republic Factory Stores (maximum of $75 in StyleCash per transaction) in the U.S. only.
Not valid on giftcards, packaging, applicable taxes and prior purchases. Can earn only one StyleCash coupon per transaction. While supplies last. Redeem $25 in StyleCash on eligible purchases of $50 or more at Banana Republic Factory Stores in the U.S. only from 6/4/16-6/12/16 (maximum $75 StyleCash redemption per transaction). Not redeemable on giftcards, packaging, applicable taxes and prior purchases. Can redeem only one StyleCash coupon per transaction. Any unused StyleCash value will be forfeited. See store for more details.
Shop in store today and take 50-70% off on select items for a limited time.
Offer valid on merchandise in store. Cannot be combined with any other offers or discounts. No adjustments on previous purchases. Offer subject to change without notice. See store for more details, exclusions may apply.
The information presented here has been provided to us by the retailer. Please contact the retailer directly to confirm product availability and current sales information.
Sign up for emails on sales, stores, events & more!