Beer Blog Summit

It was a long time coming, but we finally got together. Lee and his lady from Austin, Muddy Mo, Bad Ben and myself (Bull E. Vard) met up for a beer or five at the 75th Street Brewery, we even gave Beer Girl a call and left a message. With the professionals in the house, 75th Street was in for some serious judging. Some great discussion was had amongst us about the Oregon Brewers Festival, the dudes at Beer Geek TV, 100 mile runs and home brewing. Bad Ben and I had a good time questioning Lee about his "love" of Granite City Brewery. Beer's not even brewed on premises at Granite City.

75th Street was unfortunately out of the XXXmas Ale and the Belgian Trippel that have made me happy on my last couple of trips. So were pretty much stuck with the regulars, not a bad thing to be stuck with. I started with the Belgian Ale, which was just alright. Then when I met up with Lee, who was having a flight, I ordered an IPA. I expect more from the 75th Street IPA than I got, we had trouble telling which one was the IPA from Lee's flight. The wheat wasn't very flavorful at all and the raspberry wheat wasn't much better. But there was a star; the imperial stout. I think everyone at the table had at least one stout and everyone really enjoyed it.

We also got an unexpected surprise as we were finishing up. Chimpotle walked past us. I get excited at seeing D-list celebrities, I probably would have been just as excited to see Jm J. Bullock, but Chimpotle would do. I yelled at him to come over, he thought we were some crazy folks, he was probably right. It turns out there was a meeting of KC bloggers happening, so I got to meet some other KC semi celebrities.

Lee was kind enough to come back in and bring Bad Ben and his son, Muddy Mo and myself a Kodiak IPA, which he described as a Texas beer. We broke the law and opened that thing up poured it in a couple of the empty glasses on the table. Stupid me left the bottle cap on the table and we were totally busted by the waiter. I told him I just took the bottle cap out of my pocket. Still didn't explain suddenly full beer glasses. The waiter didn't seem too concerned, he'd made about $30 from our table for a couple of hours work. The scene was a little like the movie "Sideways" when Jack cracked open the special wine Miles had been saving and started drinking it from the bottle. Usually I try to use clean glassware for a big beer, but we just used whatever was on the table and I'm not entirely sure I drank from a glass that was mine to begin with. No worries though, the beer was fabulous and worth whatever sickness I may get from drinking after someone else. Kodiak IPA has a tremendous hoppy taste, Bad Ben impressed Mo and I by telling us the four kinds of hops used just by the smell. We knocked out the 22 oz. bear in about 5 minutes.

We then went on our way, Mo and I sat down with the other KC bloggers for a while and had another beer which was really not needed. Overall it was a fun evening over at 75th Street and I hope we can all get together again.

Other Popular Posts on KC Beer Blog