Flea Market Taps

Westport Flea Market has long been known as a place for a great burger. It always seems to be an afterthought, not the first place you think of, when thinking of someplace to eat. At least it is for me.

I guess they're trying to step it up a bit by making it a destination for beer drinkers. They've added 22 new taps giving them a total of around 45 now. Any bar with 45 taps has to have some really good beers ready for you to drink. And any bar that is in the discussion for best burger in town that has 45 taps certainly deserves first thought status.

Welcome to the club, Westport Flea Market, I'm now going to think of you more often.

Gotta Love Philly

We're not usually in the business of advertising or publicizing beer events outside of KC, but I think you'll understand our thinking on this one.Join the fun!

Eat, Drink and Enjoy at the
2nd annual Philly Oktoberfest,
a celebration of German-style beer and food
in America's Best Beer-Drinking City.

Savor the very best Oktoberfestbier
from Germany.
Enjoy fall-time favorites
from America's best craft brewers,
including pumpkin beer.

Join the fun and hoist a brew
at the historic 23rd Street Armory
(22 S. 23rd, between Market and Chestnut),
home of the First City Troop
of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

NEW THIS YEAR

* Authentic German music!
* Biergarten seating!
* More food!
* More potties!

So if you're in Philly on September 19th, you may want to check out the Oktoberfest. Maybe, just maybe, your server will look like the girl above.

KC's Super Sweet 16

The 75th St Brewery is celebrating their 16 year anniversary this week. I generally tend to avoid 16-year olds with a prior history of burning sensations, but 75th is still going strong 2.5 years after the Kennedy's fire. At this point, you've already missed Monday's festivities, but the brewery is featuring events and specials all the way through Sunday. Check out the flier below.

Saturday looks to be the most interesting with a chance to judge the home brew contest from 11 - 6 and a High 5 competition starting at 10PM. Local blogger Dan from Gone Mild won last year's brew competition with his Triple Sugar Tripel.

Draft With Stank

It's that time of year again where fat, out of shape office workers nationwide descend into basements, bars and backyards with their friends and hold fantasy football drafts. Draft day is the ideal day to drink some beer and talk some trash, 2 of my favorite activities. It's also the ideal day to use some beer snobbery to victimize fellow owners. How can you use beer snobbery to victimize someone you ask? Well let me tell you.

I make it a goal to show up at the draft with the highest quality beers of anyone equipped with my own cooler, bottle opener and pint glass. This sends the message that you are prepared not only for the draft, but for a good time. Included in my selection is one of my favorite beers in a bomber, I had Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye last year. The bomber is what you want to be drinking. If you're drinking regular 12 oz. beers, it's a lot easier to keep popping them open and end up getting drunk and drafting Brodie Croyle in the 10th round. No one wants that.

I also like to go into the draft with a couple of victims in mind. I'm in a 16 team keeper league that I've been in for nearly 10 years. I've known most of the people in the league for nearly 20 years. Almost everyone has a track record of at least 5 years and in a keeper league, bad owners consistently rock out bad teams and we have at least 4 owners that are doormats. This is the first type of victim, the hapless. Every draft pick they make should be mocked, everything they say shall be refuted. The second type of victim is the owner that brings Budweiser, Miller or Coors products to drink. These are your targets for the rest of your cooler of beer.

You need to find some high alcohol sixers like Great Divide Titan IPA, Goose Island Matilda or some Longshot Double IPA if you can find it. Give these beers to the swill drinkers. If they won't drink them make fun of them mercilessly. They'll end up drinking them. This is important because one beer with 7% ABV is the equivalent of 2 Coors Lights. They're planning on drinking to excess anyway, so this will get them lit up by the 7th round. They'll also be thrown off their game because you get to make disparaging remarks about them because of their choice of beers. All the while, you'll be enjoying your Hop Rod Rye or Boulevard Long Strange Trippel (beware the high ABV beers).

I also like to have a couple of giving out beers in my cooler to build some goodwill. In my league there are a couple of good beer drinkers. So, it's always good to bring something that you can trade to get something else. I've traded a Bully Porter for Moose Drool (before it was available in KC). So it's nice to bring something good for others. You need to build goodwill so the room doesn't turn against you when you're yelling at someone for trying to draft Matt Forte 3 rounds after somebody already drafted him. You want to feel like others are going to back you up a little if you might cross the line just from good natured ribbing to making someone cry. Nothing greases the skids quite like some Boulevard Bully Porter.

My team, the Stank Johnsons*, has won the past 2 championships in my league so I don't let anyone forget who the top dog is. Before each pick this year I plan on saying something to the effect of "The 2 time defending champion Stank Johnsons would like to invite "Limas Sweed" to join the championship roster, I hope Limas' ring finger is ready for a ring". No one can argue that you don't have the right to rub it in everyone's faces, that's why everyone's playing, so they can win.

*The Stank Johnson name derives from a Royals player that no one remembers, but, for a time he was one of my favorites. His real name was Rontrez Johnson. My friends and I nicknamed him Stank because he used stank in a quote. Ol' Rontrez has a claim to fame, he was one of the first players on the field to wrestle William Ligue Jr. and his son off of Royals coach Tom Gamboa. Rontrez was quoted in the paper saying "his breath stank" and it just struck my friends and I funny. We started calling him Stank Johnson. Then he got sent down or released or something a couple of weeks later and hasn't been heard from since. In fact, this little blurb may be the most that was ever written about ol' Rontrez Johnson. I hope one day Rontrez will come to the draft with me to see all that his name has created.

If you've played your cards right you'll have finished your big beer just about the time you've drafted your starters and sleepers with only defenses and kickers to go. This is when I'm cracking open my traded beers and running my mouth. I have a great gift for running my mouth after I've had a couple of beers. I credit my mouth for getting us out of Jocks alive (Chimpo's mouth in the men's room might have played a part as well). This is when you win championships, you throw everyone else off their game and you pick up the one guy with any value left in the draft which you should have identified before you got to your draft (Limas Sweed is my guy, Ernest Wilford has been my guy before too, this system isn't flawless). Yes, you do need to plan ahead, beer strategy won't actually win you a championship, it only enhances your draft.

You follow these tips, you can have a great draft day, win some cash and drink great beer. Ignore these tips and you are destined to throw away your money and let the Budweiser drinkers win. Nobody wants that. Win this one for good beer.

Black Clover Beerfest

It's a good time to be a beer drinker in Kansas City. With July's Wine & Brew Ha Ha and the Zona Rosa Brewfest now under wraps, we are apparently halfway into a four-month stretch of festivals galore. With the 3rd annual KC Beerfest still 2 months away (site now updated), you should now begin diverting your attention to the 4th annual Black Clover Beerfest.

The Black Clover Beerfest is taking place Friday, September 18th at the Riot Room in Westport. For $30, you will be able to sample 70+ beers from 7 - 10PM. After the Beerfest, your ticket gets you into the Black Clover Records hip-hop show, featuring Kansas City's own Mac Lethal along with Grieves, Soulcrate Music and the Pitch's 2009 Best Hip-Hop DJ, DJ Sku.


The three previous Black Clover Beerfest events featured the now defunct Flying Monkey Brewery exclusively. The brewery even gave Mac Lethal his own beer with their Mac's Beer offering. It's nice to see them bringing in a larger variety and level of quality to the beer aspect of the event. Tickets can be purchased through the Lethalville website.

Mad Men Premeire

I think I'm going to fix myself a Manhattan, sit down on my couch, enjoy the season premiere of "Mad Men" Sunday night then get drunk and disappear for a week. But, the KC Ad Club has a pretty great idea, throwing a premiere party at the Screenland. Your $10 admission will grant you access to 2 free Manhattans,some appetizers (hopefully authentic early 60's appetizers) and watch Mad Men on the big screen.

The only drawback (and you might not find it a drawback) is you will be watching a show about ad men with actual ad men. They might start talking about the inaccuracy of a TWA ad circa 1961 or just talk about advertising in general. God forbid a discussion on social media break out. I don't know if I could handle such a thing.

Long live Don Draper!

KC Beerfest is a brewing

After what seems like a month of checking, I was a little disappointed to have Tony's Kansas City beat me to the KC Beerfest announcement with a promo video that could have been written by the Beer Blog's very own Wes Port.

Turns out the KC Beerfest website still remains stagnant from the 2008 season. My disappointment in the promo video was lifted when I saw a date listed for this year's event, except for the fact that October 15th is a Thursday. I'm not sure even WyCo wants to attract a rooftop full of people willing to drink beer from 1 - 5PM on a weekday.

So I dug some more and found my way to the Legends Shopping Center events calendar with a confirmed date of Saturday, October 17th for the 2009 Beerfest. The Power & Light District calendar makes no reference to having a session booked there as they did last year. We'll share more of the specifics as they come in.

Swagger

The DLC beat me to Swagger (8431 Wornall) and posted an excellent review of it. While his blog focuses on the food, and the food looks and sounds great, I'm more concerned about the 42 taps.

I heard about Swagger at the Boulevard luncheon I went to and was encouraged to go. It's a really great beer bar and the owners really care about presenting good beer to go with good food I was told. Unfortunately for me, I just don't get over to Waldo very often and definitely don't get south of 75th on Wornall, so I still haven't had a chance to get over there.

But they do have Tank 7 on tap and 41 other beers chosen with care by someone who cares about their beer selection. Once I get over there I will have to add it to my (thankfully) growing list of great beer bars which includes Harry's Country Club, The Flying Saucer, The Foundry, Westside Local, Waldo Pizza Tap Room and Grinders.

Vinino is Bust

Hearne Christopher is reporting that Vinino in the Power and Light District will be closing next week. I must say that I'm a little disappointed it wasn't Bice Bistro first (just because I predicted its demise at the beginning of the year), but I can live without Vinino as well.

I went to Vinino one time for a drink, didn't eat and never went back. I never even thought about the place again. Hopefully, I'll never think of it again. This marks the second P&L closure this week, Yummo was the first. I can name 7 more places I'd like to see go. I suppose they'll close in time.

Let's hope that something acceptable opens up in the open spot.

Welcome to the Power & Light

A gorilla visiting KC walks into a bar in the P & L, pulls up a stool, and orders a beer. The bartender pours him a tall, frothy mug and says, "That'll be five bucks."

As the gorilla is paying for his beer, the bartender adds, "You know, we don't get many gorillas in here." To which the gorilla replies, "At five bucks a beer, it's no wonder."

Savvy Beer Selection

I'm just throwing this out there since I don't really know what to make of it. I went in to Savvy the other night to get a cup of coffee to drink during our movie. While I was in there waiting on my cup of coffee to be brewed (they really do brew coffee one cup at a time) I was looking around. I noticed in the pastry display case the beers they sell, namely I noticed the O'Fallon Wheach which I've never had and odds are I never will have it. I thought it a weird beer for them to have since they only carried about 12 different brands. As I looked at the other beers in the case I was blown away that they had St. Bernadus Abt 12, one of the best beers available in KC, for $9.25/bottle at Savvy, it better be really good. I don't know what to make of the whole thing.

They also carry Unibroue's Ephemere, Founders Cerise and Delirium Tremens in addition to the Boulevards, Budweisers and Millers. I haven't seen a beer selection so eclectic before, it just blew me away they carried those beers. I don't think Savvy will be the place to go for great beers, but if you're with a wine crowd, you can definitely get a great beer there.

Zona Rosa BrewFest

Next Saturday, August 15th, Zona Rosa will be hosting the first ever BrewFest sponsored by Unico Kansas City. Unico is apparently an Italian-American service organization, and I would like to commend them for presenting the event since Italians hardly ever craft a beer worth drinking.

The event runs from 3 to 9PM. If you are looking for something to do prior to the event, there is free face painting in the Children's Park from 1 to 4PM. As is pretty standard at these events, your admittance fee will net you a free tasting glass to enjoy your 4oz beer samples in. Tickets are $25 at the gate, or you can get a $5 discount by hitting up Zona Rosa guest services from now until Friday, August 14th.

I would hope they might have some decent food offerings, since Zona Rosa seems to be 75% restaurants. But if the KC Beerfest has taught me anything the past two years, it's that beer festival organizers generally suck at coordinating food to go with all the alcohol your body is absorbing. There will be two bands at the event: Grand Marquis and the Blue Shakers. Grand Marquis is a local jazz band and not to be confused with Brother Marquis of 2 Live Crew fame.

Manifesto

Stella and I tried to go to Manifesto about a month and a half ago on a weekend night and never made it in. I mentioned that fact and the fact that we never actually got a call back in a post shortly after. It was no big deal, I just thought that our dear readers would like to know some of the complications of going to Manifesto. What regular readers don’t know is that Ryan Maybee, proprietor of Manifesto, wrote to me to apologize for the incident (which wasn’t needed) and invited Stella and I over for a drink on his dime.

Last night we took him up on his offer. About 10 P.M. our movie “Funny People” ended at the AMC Mainstreet and we decided to end the evening with a cocktail at Manifesto. I gave them a call to make sure we could be seated (they only have room for 40) and whoever I talked to assured me we could get in, which should be expected on a Tuesday evening.

As we walked up to the “secret” backdoor at 1924 Main another couple was walking out so we didn’t have to go through the rigmarole of buzzing the buzzer and getting led down. But since we weren’t going through the rigmarole Stella commented as we walked down the narrow hallway, “this is like a movie where we stumble upon a group of wiseguys hatching a Brinks truck robbery plan”. Luckily when we walked through the curtain into the bar area I saw a guy sitting at the bar wearing a Chiefs hat. No self respecting mobster would sit at Manifesto wearing a Chiefs cap.

One of the waiters told us we can sit where we want so we made our way over to one of the half moon booths. Not that this happened or anything, but I’m willing to bet that the half moon booth at Manifesto on a Tuesday night might be the safest public place in KC to unzip your fly and let it all hang out (one of the curtain booths at the Melting Pot comes in second).

Safest place in KC to whip it out

Our waiter came over and introduced himself and asked our names and he even shook my hand. I like that, I see a waiter/waitress as a partner in my drinking/eating experience not as a servant and the shaking hands thing kind of cements that relationship. You may feel differently, that’s fine. But this made it all the harder to tell the waiter that I was Bull E. Vard from the KC Beer Blog and I needed to see Ryan. Amazingly, the waiter took it well and didn’t laugh in my face. I don’t think I’m ever going to do that again, a free drink just doesn’t seem worth the embarrassment.

Ryan came by the table and we chatted for a couple of minutes about the blog, the origins of the Bull E. Vard name (maybe I’ll turn Bull E. Vard into a Dread Pirate Roberts thing) and various other things. Ryan then explained a couple of drinks to Stella because most of the ingredients in the drinks are hard to recognize. When you go in to Manifesto, have a cocktail starting point in mind. What’s your favorite cocktail? Most of the cocktails at Manifesto are based on classic cocktails from the 1850’s through the early 1900’s. Stella’s starting point (and mine as well) is the French martini. From there your waiter will explain a couple of options that you might enjoy. Since Ryan was doing the recommending, the explanations were flawless.

Stella got the French martini knockoff, Napoleonita. I was a pain and had Ryan create something special for me based on the Ward and Precinct (a Ward 8 knockoff). Getting a drink at Manifesto is much like ordering a meal at a restaurant, it’s going to take them a while to make it. If you go in knowing that, the happier you’ll be. It took about 5 minutes to get our drinks.

I wish that I could put the same smile on Stella’s face as the Napoleonita did. It was like a French martini only more so. Since the Napoleonita didn’t use Chambord which Ryan said was a one note liquer and did use Trennel Cassis a more full flavor liquer the Napoleonita delivered a more full flavor.

We also got a Wildfire Cobbler which is a fruity vodka based drink with some chili pepper puree. It looked a little like a bloody mary and had just the right amount of spice. I’d never had any chili pepper puree in any drink I’ve had before. That was clearly an oversight on my part.

As we had our drinks we enjoyed the salsa and standards music selection in the nearly completely dark room. Manifesto certainly has a unique look and feel to its bar area. I can’t think of anyplace in KC anything like it. As mentioned before it was quite private where we were sitting even though there were about 10 other patrons in the bar. Plus it definitely had an adult vibe, not the kind of place younger people go to try to slam as much alcohol into their system as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time possible. Those people have the Power and Light district. Manifesto is for people who want to enjoy a well crafted drink and pay attention to their companion. The drinks were sufficiently strong to ensure that some extra attention is paid to your companion once you get home or a dark street with some parking.

Surly Tour

I made it known that I consider Surly the beer of the future. The beer trip crew actually hit up Surly and got a tour from the owner and founder, Omar. I so wish I would have done some research before we went to Minnesota so that tour could have been mine.

Downtown Sports Bars

Downtown has had a noticeable lack of sports bars* in the area south of I-70 and KC Beer Blog favorite Willie's. With the departure of Tanner's and Fred P. Ott's in the past couple of years the trend has been towards less sports bars. McFadden's bills itself as a sports bar, but I (and I don't think I'm in the minority here) view McFadden's as a douche delivery system (if you're looking for a douchebag, McFadden's is the place to go to get your fill).

*Sports bar - (n) An establishment that serves alcoholic beverages, has more than 2 TV's in sight and has at least one item of flair of or relating to sports.
The trend is now moving in the other direction. On Wednesday, Johnny's Tavern will be opening up on the corner of 13th and Grand, probably the prime location for a Power and Light bar that caters to sports fans. Actually, since there isn't an anchor sports tenant in the Sprint Center, it seems that this location probably won't give Johnny's any great advantage.

Johnny's has 2 nights of soft openings by invitation only (I didn't get one, so it must be exclusive, I'm sure Tony got one) tonight and tomorrow. Then on Wednesday, August 5, they're open for realz.

In some less known news, the spot formerly known as Vivace and Redhead Lounge in the River Market is going to its 3rd concept since they hung the Vivace signs. It is now called the River Market Sports Bar. I don't think the owners have too much hope for it because they still haven't taken down the Vivace signs, which are nice, but since the place isn't actually called Vivace anymore, the signs can only add confusion.

I don't know if the River Market Sports Bar is open yet or not, it kinda looks like they are since they have the beer signs hung up with the new name (yet not covering the Vivace signs). I'd better quit writing about it because I'm just getting more and more angry that the Vivace signs are still up and the place has been closed for 6 months.

All this Vivace talk reminds me of the show Check, Please! that was on KCPT last fall (and still shows reruns sometimes). On each episode, they would have 3 people choose one of their favorite spots and the other 2 would eat there. They would then sit around a table with the host and talk about the restaurant. On one episode they featured Harry's Country Club, one of my favorite bars and the Classic Cookie, a place that Stella and I like. When they started talking about Harry's Country Club, 2 of the people raved about it (of course it was the one guy's choice so of course he loved it) and the other person (a lovely young lady) didn't like it and complained about it. She also didn't like the Classic Cookie either. This girl pissed me off so I was really interested to know which place she chose because I was sure it was going to be a real douchey craphole. It turned out we never got to find out, because in the time it took to get the show to air, her place had closed. I don't remember now how I know this, but I do know it. The place she had chosen was was Vivace.

I don't know if I'll ever go to the River Market Sports Bar, but I know I won't go until they take the damn Vivace signs down.

Best of KC Beer Blog

All of you KC Beer Blog's regular readers may not know that we consulted on a story in this morning's KC Star about glassware, beer and such. Again, it should come as no surprise some of the beers mentioned as favorites in the article are beers we've written about somewhat extensively on this site. But for all of the new, prospective readers unsuspectingly clicking on a link at the Star, we thought it might be a good idea to link up some of our fun reviews for the beers mentioned in the article.

Schlafly No. 15
Boulevard Single Wide - I've really warmed up to it as temperatures rose and now it's one of my favorites.
Boulevard Bully Porter
Hoegaarden
Boulevard Pilsner - If you read one thing on this site, read this one.
La Fin du Monde - It's the beer I couldn't remember the name of in the post.
Boulevard Sixth Glass
Boulevard Long Strange Trippel

If you read the reviews above you may have figured out that we like to keep it fun and light up in here, no dry, boring reviews of every tasting note. Some of our other favorite posts are linked below.

Beer Roster - We compared our favorite beers to Royals of the past and present.
What Makes a Good Happy Hour
Boulevard Luncheon
Bull E. Vard and the Boulevard Factory
Red Front
Red Balloon Bar and Grill
Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad review
Downtown
The 10 KC bars You Must Visit


If you want some other good, local beer sites, you can check the sidebar to the left under Local Beer Feeds which is a list of the sites I read regularly. The ones listed below are friends that I've shared a beer with. If you don't like what's written on here and are interested in beer, these four might be more up your alley.

KC Hop Head
Wort Hog - In my opinion, the most knowledgeable and informative KC beer blogger
Beer Girl - Our first beer friend.
By the Pint - I haven't actually had a beer with him, but he's comprehensive and interesting.

In short, click around, maybe you find something interesting, maybe you are horrified you were ever on our site. In any case, drink good beer and you'll be happy.