Stout Week

The stouts are rolling in. While it seems as though the cold weather is never going to get here, not that I really want it, the cool fall nights certainly put me in the mood for some roasted bold flavors. The Flying Saucer is celebrating this feeling by holding Stout Week this week.

Stout week will feature some of the hardest to find and rare stouts available to Kansas City with a few more available but great stouts thrown in. The stouts are on draft and the action starts tonight at 7, so get your kids trick or treated, give your wife an Ambien* and sneak out of the house for the coffee stout night tonight. Fat Cat KC has the rest of the details, but Wednesday night's Parabola shouldn't be missed and Thursday night will probably feature a packed house to get at some Canadian Breakfast Stout.

*Don't drug your wife, this was just a joke.

B4TW - Shiner Holiday Cheer

We already have a beer for tonight's game. But what should we drink the rest of the weekend? We've been seeing so much Texas in the playoffs and our weather is going to be like Texas at Thanksgiving we should be drinking a little bit of Texas for the weekend. And Texas has delivered one of my favorite beers of any time of year, but one that goes well with the cool crisp nights after warm sunny days, Shiner Holiday Cheer.

Holiday Cheer is Shiner's winter seasonal and boasts 2 great Texas flavors, peaches and pecans. It's a bit of a dangerous beer because of a sixer will go down so easy you'd think you just saw a St. Louisian greet David Freese. Peach beers don't do much for me, but Holiday Cheer transcends the fruit flavor fireld with the addition of the sweetness of the pecans. There's simply not a better beer for this weekend when we could be celebrating the Texas Rangers' first World Series championship. And as the Riggins boys would say, Texas Forever. That's why Shiner Holiday Cheer is the beer for the weekend.

Beer for Game 7

Let's hope we don't ever see this again

This has been just about the best month and a half of baseball in years. We saw 2 epic September collapses* including a complete retooling of a successful organization, great playoff series, great playoff games and that epic beast of a sucker punch last night. We've moved beyond a Li'l Smokie Sixth Glass to take the edge off the playoffs, we need something celebratory to watch game 7.

CBS for Beds

Did you miss out on Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout in the bottle? Most of us did, there's some crazies out there for the CBS. Well, Waldo Pizza is giving you an option to get a great beer and help out a charity at the same time. They are auctioning 6 different bottles of CBS on Ebay. Right now each of the bottles is going for around $25, sure to go up. That's quite a bargain right now. All Half the proceeds from the auctions will go to Sleepyhead Beds, a charity that gives beds to needy children. Remember that scene in "The Blind Side" when Michael Oher said he'd never had a bed? Well if Memphis had Sleepyhead Beds he would have had a bed long before LeAnn Tuohy took him in.

The bottles are only available for local pickup so you won't be bidding against people from outside the area. This may be your last best chance to get a bottle of CBS for home consumption. It's definitely your best chance to help out some kids while you get your mapley stout goodness.

Double the Bastard

The Flying Saucer is tapping the first keg of Stone's Double Bastard in KC tonight. More kegs of it will be popping up over town over the next couple of days, but The Flying Saucer is the only place giving away a Stone glass with it. Double Bastard is one of the few beers from Stone that actually passes over the 10% ABV threshhold that newer breweries routinely cross meaning this Stone beer will be even more bastardy than you would think a beer called Double Bastard would be.

Double Bastard will also be coming out in bottles but not for at least a week or two. Rather than creating a frenzy this week with a small alottment, the distributor is holding it back until the second shipment comes in so there's a little more to go around. It also eliminates that weird thing where a beer comes out, we all go nuts trying to get it, I post it on here, people complain about the unemployed getting all the good beers (which is really kind of an odd complaint) and then various feelings are hurt all over town. Then a couple of weeks later the beer shows up again with no fanfare, the employed stumble upon it and buy it and complain about beers being overhyped. Now it will all show up on the same day and there should be enough to go around for all you bastards that wanna Double up.

Colostomy Bags and Trucker Hats - KC Beerfest 2011

We at the KC Beer Blog have been rather critical of KC Beerfest in years past for the simple reason that it's not a good beer fest if you run out of beer too early. Also, odds are, your beer fest sucks if you have the likes of Shock Top, Corona and Bud Light Lime playing prominent roles. So, when the opportunity arose to attend KC Beerfest* I didn't get that excited about it.

We showed up about 15 minutes before the brewhaha started up and the line to get in was massive. I think as many people as attended Hop Fest were in line already to get into Beerfest. I started to worry that by the time I got in there that the firkin of Tallgrass Real Ale would be gone before I could get to it. I had no reason to worry, this crowd wasn't savvy enough to know what beers to go for. Most were slowed up by the huge Shock Top display and table right at the front of the fest. I don't know about you, but when I encounter a group of people lined up to get at some Shock Top, I take a mental picture of those people and hope to never encounter them again. In any case we got to the firkin and by Nate from Tallgrass' reaction, I was led to believe we were the first to taste the firkin greatness. It certainly wasn't the best beer of the day, but it was one of the few I couldn't go to the store right now and buy.

B4TW - Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye

Speaking of beers that are leaving the market, Bear Republic is pulling back from Missouri and Kansas to better serve their other markets. What's left on store shelves now is all that's left. Bear Republic has been one of those kind of forgotten beers in town the way that breweries that come in with primarily bombers do. But, I've always been a fan and have bought Bear Republic beers fairly frequently. My favorite of the bunch, though, is Hop Rod Rye.

I like virtually every rye beer but Hoss and Hop Rod Rye are my 2 go to rye beers and buy them quite a bit. Hop Rod Rye, though, seems like a perfect beer for this time of year with its spicy notes, bready taste and hoppiness, great stuff for a warm Fall weekend. Hop Rod Rye is the perfect beer to kiss summer goodbye with and help you remember Bear Republic fondly until they get back to Missouri and Kansas. That's why Hop Rod Rye is the beer for the weekend.

Chambly Noire, We Hardly Knew Ye

Let me tell you something about my wife Stella. She is not a bellwether. If she likes a new fall TV show, it is almost certain to get cancelled pretty immediately (be on the lookout "Ringer" and "Homeland"). She, rather famously, watched 10 minutes of the "Grey's Anatomy" pilot and deemed it stupid. She hates "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and probably singlehandedly killed the show "Reunion" because she would read about plotlines on fan sites and such. Her work is not confined to just television, Schlafly No. 15 was her favorite beer and we all know what happened to that.

I didn't think too much of her anti-bellwether  when she grabbed a drink of a new to us beer the other night. I didn't think too much of it when she grabbed a bottle of that beer for herself to go with dinner last night because she loved it so much. It was my immediate thought when I was buying a 4 pack of that same beer this morning (it was on sale) and Brad at Royal told me that it was not going to be available in bottles anymore.

Founders Here

Founders Breakfast Stout and Backwoods Bastard is hitting the back counters of the city's finest liquor purveyors this afternoon. Actually Breakfast Stout may be on the regular shelves as there appears to be quite a bit of it, but you'll probably have to ask for the Backwoods Bastard. These are only available in Missouri and should go pretty fast so you'd best be planning on a liquor store run this evening if you want some (especially the Backwoods Bastard).

Hop God Now

Nebraska Brewing Company showed up in town about a month ago, but has only been available on tap. I've had the Infinite Wit a couple of times on tap and have loved it. I've been looking forward to trying even more. Well now's my chance and yours too as Barrel Aged Hop God is now available in the better KCMO liquor stores. Barrel Aged Hop God is the feather in the hat of the Nebraska Brewing Company and is well worth seeking out. Hop God is a Belgian Style Trippel aged 6 months in French Oak Chardonnay Barrels and hopped to bring out citrus, grapefruit and floral smells. It's a pretty limited release so you'll have to ask for it at Royal Liquor or Gomer's or wherever you can find it. Let your fellow beer travellers know where you found yours, the cost and any limits in place. Then sit back and enjoy a bottle of it tonight.

Stringer Bell's Business School

Many of you may have seen the Ad Age article about declining sales of big brand beer. The powers that be see their competition for the alcohol dollar being spirits because spirits are playing on the television advertising field. The article had barely a mention of the beers we drink dismissing them as beer for rich people. I've long thought that most of life's problems can be solved by implementing ideas from "The Wire" so for free of charge I'm giving big beer a gift, Stringer Bell's advice for marketing an inferior product. How long until they take Bodie's advice and just put the same beer in different packages to confuse everyone? Oh wait...

Get Your Winter On - Boulevard Edition

With the weather we're having this week I can think of nothing better than having a couple of winter beers. Lucky for us, the KC winter beers are here. Boulevard Nutcracker and Harvest Dance are hitting store shelves all over the metro as I write this. You can be sipping on Nutcracker right when you get home tonight.

Harvest Dance should be widely available. It will sell out before Nommo Dubbel does and could be gone from KC by Thanksgiving so you'd better get your bottle for Thanksgiving dinner pretty soon. Harvest Dance is one of the few beers I buy a couple extra of to drink next year. Few things are better than a 1 year old Harvest Dance while watching football on Thanksgiving (Packers vs. Lions this year, I can't wait). Nutcracker always sells through pretty quickly and we'll be lucky to still have it around for Christmas (Irish may even be on store shelves by Christmas, everything has been 2 weeks ahead of last year and Irish hit on January 4, 2011 so a week before Christmas is my prediction). Both beers should be easy to find today, so don't go out of your way, but these are 2 of Boulevard's finest offerings so definitely pick some up this week. And keep in mind my Nutcracker ditty.

With a name like Nutcracker

I didn't think I'd be a backer

Yet, I love thee so

I get pretty low

When you're no longer around

Our time together is so short

I never get bored

With your wonderful taste

that is caramel based

I drink with too much haste.

Ooh, Nutcracker I do love you

And you love me too

You treat me right

We never fight

Even when there's too many of you in a night.

10-211 and Keg Tagging

Last year, when Trader Joe's was getting an exemption to the liquor ordinance 10-211 I wrote about a fictional trio of guys, Joe, Rick and Ryan who wanted to open specialty beer, wine and liquor stores. Because of KC ordinance 10-211, a waiver must be applied for through the city to allow for a certain number of liquor licensees based on the population within a certain area near the store. I argued that 10-211 was a needless law because people wouldn't open liquor stores where there were already too many liquor stores to serve the population and posited that it actually made liquor stores worse because it didn't allow for specialty liquor stores.

B4TW - Left Hand Fade to Black

We have two ways we can this weekend, you can do the good and run the Waddell & Reed Marathon and 5k or spend the weekend in Weston Irishing it up at the great Weston Irish Fest. You can freeze outside in the mornings and evenings or you can spend your afternoons outside in the warm late summer sun. But the best choice of all may be the Lenexa Chili Festival, one of my secret favorite things to attend each year. So, to embrace the heat of the chili festival and late summer sun as well as taking in the cold of the early fall evenings your beer needs to encompass the cold and warm. That beer is Left Hand Fade to Black Vol. 3.

Obviously this is the 3rd iteration of the Fade to Black from Left Hand. The first 2 were a Foreign Stout and a Smoked Baltic Porter and I enjoyed both. This year's Fade to Black is a pepper porter or chili porter. It promises a dried fruit flavor with a smoky pepper flavor bringing the heat. Fade to Black may make you sweat for the warm afternoon but will bring you some warmth in the familiar roasty flavors of a standard porter for the evening. Fade to Black brings the good (sweet) and the bad (heat) just like this weekend. That's why Left Hand Fade to Black Vol. 3 is the beer for the weekend.

Fade to Black may be a little hard to find this weekend. Any liquor store that carries Left Hand products should carry it, but the shipment was a little light so every store may not have gotten theirs. I got my sixer from Royal on State Line, but they only had a case of it and it may be all gone now.

Priaprism Cracker

To prevent an influx of calls about priaprism to all local urulogy offices, Nutsack or Boulevard Nutcracker Special Reserve or Boulevard Extra Fresh Hopped Nutcracker Ale will not be available on tap at local bars and restaurants. I post this because Beer News posted the keg ring for Boulevard Extra Fresh Hopped Nutcracker Ale that went through label registration in Missouri. This is a standard practice for Boulevard to get label approval for every beer they bottle or keg, no matter if it will be available for retail sale. This allows them to make it available at festivals with no extra problems.

Nutsack may be available in the tap room at Boulevard if you're lucky enough to be scheduled for a tour. It may also pop up at beer festivals or maybe even a beer dinner or two over the next couple of months. It's a great beer and should be sought out, but you're not going to be able to buy it anywhere other than the Amber Market*.

*The Amber Market is the beer black market, I'm coining this term and all proceeds from such coining are payable to me.

Watermelon Halcyon

It's another Firkin Friday with Tallgrass. This time they're tapping a firkin of watermelon Halcyon with orange peel. This is really a combination of 4 of my favorite things; watermelon, Halcyon, orange and firkin. If you're unsure about watermelon in a beer then you've probably never had 21st Amendment's Hell or High Watermelon Wheat which I had and enjoyed on a 45 degree night in July in San Francisco. It won't be that cold tomorrow night in Olathe so you don't have to worry about having a chill while you're sipping on some watermelon. Better yet, it's going to be just about the last day near 75 for the year, so sipping on a summer beer will be the perfect thing to do.

The firkin is going to be tapped Friday night at 7 at the Old Chicago in Olathe. The last time they did a firkin at Old Chicago, the crowd was a little light. Tallgrass does quite a few firkins, if we want to continue to get some instead of them wasting them on emaw's in Manhattan we need to show up. Remember about 4 years ago when Old Chicago (and Barley's) were the only places in town to get special releases? We've come a long way in a short time. Anyway, Old Chicago has a pretty friendly relationship with Tallgrass and deserves to be rewarded by filling the place up for some firkin Halcyon.

Double Pumpkin on Tap

Sam Adams has taken a turn to offer some beers for the more seasoned beer drinker. I've noticed it a little bit with the seasonal variety packs and the Latitude 48 Deconstructed variety pack (and more in this vein is on the way). Now they've released a beer only available on draft, Double Pumpkin. This is a pretty limited release and will only be available in town in bars or restaurants that carry or have carried some of the more limited seasonal beers such as the East-West Kolsch. If you want a couple of sure things, The Well and Charlie Hooper's put Double Pumpkin on tap this morning.

As the word "double" would imply, this beer is a bit of a beast compared to other Sam Adams beers weighing in at 8% ABV. If it's anything like other beers in the Sam Adams oeuvre in the more challenging beer styles, I would guess this will be a little milder or less bold than something like Pumking (which is fabulous, but tough to get and gone for the year for the most part). But, depending on how you feel about pumpkin beers or Sam Adams in general, will be well worth seeking out. Again, the Double Pumpkin is only available on draft, it will not be bottled at all.

Free State in the Village

Want Free State tonight but don't want to drive to Lawrence or put up with the denizens of Lawrence? Well, you're in luck, because Free State's coming to us for a couple of hours tonight. Tavern in the Village in Prairie Village is hosting a Free State popup location from 6-8 tonight.

Free State and Octoberfest inspired food and drink will be available in the bar area. I don't know if this is a total tap takeover or what, I don't even know if Tavern in the Village has taps. What I do know is neither their wine list nor drinks menu lists any beers, no taps, no bottled beers, no mention. I could either conclude that they don't have beer or don't hold it in any regard. They list this as their first beer event, maybe it's the first time a beer has been served in the location. Maybe inviting Free State in to show them what's up is just what they need.

B4TW - Boulevard Two Jokers

It looks like we have an Indian summer situation going on this weekend. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, you're going to have some leaves to rake up. I don't recall ever raking leaves in 80+ degree heat. When you're done bagging or mulching your leaves you're going to want a beer to cool you down and numb your sore arms. That beer should be Two Jokers.

Two Jokers has reemerged in the past couple of weeks and you should be able to find it at nearly any liquor store in KC. This also may be your last great weekend to buy it and drink it as there are rumors of Two Jokers' demise. Based on the fact some of it is sitting on liquor store shelves in early October I can't really fault Boulevard for putting it on hiatus. But, this year's version is by the far the best version of Two Jokers yet and has become my 3rd or 4th favorite Boulevard beer.  That's why Two Jokers is the beer for the weekend.

Haus

Gourmet sausages, great draft beer and Martini Corner, sounds like something that can be pretty great. That's the idea behind Chris Seferyn's (Velvet Dog owner) newest Martini Corner place, Haus.  Chef Alex Pope, formerly of R Bar and the popup restaurant Vagabond, will be supplying the sausages from his new sausage enterprise (that's what a nerd who has been laid calls his bed, The Sausage Enterprise*).

*Pope's Sausage would be a great name for this as well. Maybe only underage boys would get the sausage though.

Progress

I was tasked by Stella to clear out all of my XXL t-shirts that I've undergrown, I'm actually down to Large. I have a Rubbermaid tote that I have all of my old t-shirts from college, mostly fraternity and party favor shirts that I opened up to throw the old shirts in. As I dug through the old shirts I found this "Life is full of important choices" shirt circa 1996. As I looked at it, I only noticed 5 or 6 American microbrews, everything else is an import. If such a shirt were around today, and I'm sure there is, I don't think so few American beers would be pictured.

Pils Please

If I were Viggo Mortensen I would totally be wagging my tail right now. As part of the Lagunitas expansion and them sucking and all by not being able to meet demand for everything, we in KC have gotten a little bonus. Much to my dismay, Lagunitas Pils has been the only Lagunitas beer that we don't get in KC. That is no longer true, Lagunitas Pils is now part of the Lagunitas oeuvre in KC.

CBS Now!

These are dangerous times on KC's streets. You could be between a beer geek and an unclaimed sixer bomber of Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout(CBS). This is the first time CBS has been bottled and it's the beer geek's white whale. This is a super limited release with super big demand, meaning it will all be gone immediately. Royal Liquor on State Line has sounded the horn that they have theirs. It will be at all the usual suspect stores by tomorrow. Get your name on a list and don't be a jerk. Once you've gotten some don't go get more at another store. Spread the love, enjoy the karma. Be a dear and leave a comment where you got yours, how much is left at the store (if you can ascertain that info) and any limits that are in place.

The Mountain Climbing of Crosstown Station

Did you see the story on Alex Honnold on "60 Minutes" this weekend. If you didn't (video of the story below) you really missed something. Honnold is a mountain climber, probably the best in the world, but he does it differently than you've probably ever seen someone climb a mountain. He uses no ropes, no safety equipment, nothing but climbing shoes, a bag of resin and his fingers. It was a tough thing to watch, one miscalculation, one little foot slip, one crumbly piece of rock and Honnold would fall to his death. Obviously, he's yet to make a mistake and he has climbed some of the toughest routes up a mountain in the world, routes that great mountain climbers with ropes and other safety and climbing equipment could not climb. They said his weirdly strong fingers (it looked like he had 10 Oscar Meyer weiners for fingers) is what helps propel him up the mountain with barely any grip available from the rock. In any case, it was impressive what Honnold could do with no aid from anything but his own hands and feet.

Lagunitas Sucks

I'll bet you didn't expect to see that title on this blog, but we'll get to that in a minute. First, though, it's Lagunitas Doppel Weizen day. That's right, the newest Lagunitas bomber is hitting shelves all over KC this morning. Doppel Weizen means double wheat and the folks at Lagunitas claim it to be a double hefeweizen. But, in true Lagunitas style I would guess it wouldn't fit that neatly into a category. I'm pretty excited to give this one a shot.

Mini Stone Week

Stone really knows how to do promotion. This week they're knocking out 2 pretty great events, or 1 great event and one interesting event (depending on your interest in Scotch Ales).

The Tour de BBQ I Did Not Knows

Ready to ride

Maybe it's because I'm 20 pounds lighter, maybe because I'm in much better shape or maybe because there was no 30 mph headwind this year, but the Tour de BBQ didn't absolutely kill me this year. That doesn't mean that the first 10 miles, from downtown to Smokestack Barbecue, that was basically uphill didn't make me feel like my heart was going to explode. The chicken wing and slightly cold baked beans at Smokestack didn't do much to make me feel good about the next 10 miles to Oklahoma Joe's. Once we got there, I knew it was going to be okay, 15 miles to go, mostly downhill or flat, with 3 more barbecue stops on the way back to downtown. The RJ's Bob-be-que pulled pork sandwich was wonderful, the oranges at Johnny's were much needed and the chicken at Woodyard wasn't that great.

Last year's ride inspired a best/worst list because for much of the ride, a good 2 hours, I didn't know if I was going to make it. That kind of feeling makes you feel everything a little more acutely than you feel things when you're just a little fatigued. But, I did learn some things along the way this year.