The Greatest Thing I Ever Drank

Somehow when you've written a blog for a while you tend to get to know other people around the country with their own blogs. People find you all the time, you exchange a couple of emails and you've got a pretty good contact. That's the way it worked with Nate. Nate was a beer blogger in Ohio and I knew from emailing with him that he had family or something in KC. Then some circumstances changed for him and he found himself moving his family to town (I'll consider wherever the hell he lives part of town, even though I'm pretty sure I've never been there). So almost a year ago, I invited him to Gents so he could meet some beer people in town.
Nate brought some of his homebrew to Gents. I've had good homebrew (John and Ben, I'd write a similar post to this for you guys too) and I've had bad homebrew. Mostly I like homebrew to be something completely different. I don't get clones (I can understand why someone would brew a clone, I would usually just rather drink the original). I thought Nate's homebrew would just be something that was maybe good, but we drink so much great beer at a Gents, sometimes you have to choose your battles and skip over a beer you're not interested in. I almost did that with Nate's beer, but the social convention of me being the one that invited him in the first place kind of forced me to drink his homebrew, a dandelion saison. To be honest, it sounded kind of stupid to me, who eats dandelions? But, it was at least interesting sounding, I figured I could choke down a couple ounces and go on my way to drinking something better.

Well, I didn't drink anything better that night. I'm not sure that I've drank anything better, in any forum, since. At every Gents gathering since "Is Nate coming" is heard from everyone. Nate may be the most popular Gent, because he brings the best stuff, the stuff he brews. Paul A. Ner brings Dogfish Head, Chimpotle brings Surly, JJSKCK brings Pliny the Elder, others bring Three Floyds, doesn't matter, Nate's homebrew is what we most covet and Nate is the most popular among us because of it.

We had a Gents at Boulevard in January where we got to try Chocolate Ale for the first time. I was standing next to Steven Pauwels when Nate walked in and whispered to Pauwels "this guy makes the best beer in KC". To which Steven replied "I know, he brought us a dandelion saison and it was wonderful" (this quote is not verbatim).

You probably know this, and may even be tired of hearing about it, but Nate and his friend Mike have decided to go pro and start their own brewery, Wilderness Brewing. They've incorporated a Kickstarter campaign to help with funding the brewery. Kickstarter allows you to donate to the cause of Wilderness Brewing. With certain levels of donation you get extra stuff from a keychain to having your own beer named after you, to getting to hang out for 3 days, brewing beer and drinking beer with Nate and Mike. You can value those things however you will, but in 20 years after drinking some of the best beer in America, you can say that you helped Nate and Mike start Wilderness Brewing, the best brewery in the land. All you have to do is give a few dollars to the campaign. There are only 3 days left, they need about $15,000 if everyone who reads this today gives $10 then Wilderness Brewing will be in business. That's really all it takes to get some great beer in 2012. Don't do it for Nate and Mike, they get to drink their beer whenever they want, do it for you. Don't have any extra cash to give? Share the Kickstarter page or this post with your pals at work, share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, share it with your knitting club, email it to your contacts, just share it. Some great beer will be ready for you if we succeed in getting this thing funded.

Other Popular Posts on KC Beer Blog