Flint Hills Beerfest, ratings and reviews #Awesomesauce

The three Myces brothers have triumphed over yet another beerfest, and we were mostly able to adhere to the Myces Decrees for beerfest survival. So now it has come time to sit back and reflect on this wonderful afternoon of fun, fellowship, and friend-making. This was my first time ever splurging for a VIP ticket, and it was worth the money. The VIP ticket got us in an hour early, because everyone needs an extra hour of beerfest ;), and allowed us some special tastings. We also got a swag box that included a t-shirt, pint glass, koozies, chapstick, and several stickers. Below is an exhaustive list of the pros and cons of the Flint Hills Beer Fest.

The white tallgrass koozie from 2016, it didn't
get used because as a V.I.P, I got a pocket sized koozie on a leash

The free koozie with a holster for being a V.I.P

Limited attendance: By restricting the ticket sales the event made it easy to get a beer, which is one of the top things to do at a beer fest. Lines were short, and it wasn’t overly crowded. I felt as though they probably could have sold a few mores tickets and still maintained the quaint cozyness.

Informed staff: Most of the breweries had a representative, so you could discuss upcoming releases, as well as other brewery news and rumors. We even came across local brewery legend and co-founder of Crane Brewing, Michael Crane, pouring beer.

The BLVD tent

The Ska tent

Ample Swag: There were the usual collections of stickers, bottle openers, and koozies. Dogfish Head even had a limited number of headbands and sunglasses.

Trapeze artists: This was the first beerfest I’ve been to that had trapeze artists hanging out doing routines. It was actually pretty cool to watch and surprisingly none of the attendees got the idea of trying their own trapeze tricks.

The aforementioned trapeze artists

Plenty of beer: To my knowledge, there wasn’t any brewery that ran out of beer, which was great.


Very Minor Cons:
Water: There was not a water fountain available to fill up your glass hourly, but they did have plenty of bottled water (though it showed up a bit late).

Bathrooms:There was not quite the recommended Myces ratio of one port-a-potty per beer booth. But with the small event size, we might have to rethink that ratio. Even with only three port-a-potties, I never had to wait in line. Overall, no major backups at the port-a-potty.

The 3 port-a-potties

No tickets for walk ups: This didn’t affect me, and I realize the need to limit people for space and safety, but I saw a few people who showed up and were turned away. I think it would have been a good idea to save a small number of tickets for same day purchases to accommodate the stragglers that didn’t prepare in advance, but that didn’t affect any of the Myces men.

Weather: I debated including this aspect as a pro and a con. The weather was absolutely gorgeous for the first 4 hours, then a typical Kansas thunderstorm rolled in and closed everything 30 minutes early. I would like to thank all the booths that let the attendees huddle underneath their tents to weather the storm.

A random fan enjoying the #BestDayEver

Overall, my impression of this event was great and I will definitely be back in 2020! Every booth had a wide variety of beer and the weather was great until the very end. I spent most of my time at Ska, Kansas Territory, and Crane. I drank an abundance of Life Coach Lager at Kansas Territory while trying to convince Brandon to distribute to Missouri, and to restart the placing of koozies in their 30 packs. Crane was their usual awesomeness, even without orange gose.

My favorite booth was Ska. I haven’t consumed a lot of their beer, mainly due to their limited distribution to Missouri. I do appreciate their Mexican Logger, and they have been brewing it long before Mexican lagers were trendy. The best of show award goes to Cru D’Etat. Cru is a Solera style sour, and the unique characteristic of this beer is its aging process. For the last ten years, this beer has been sitting in a foeder. They will bottle half the foeder every 2 years, then refill it, making this a truly unique and rare beer. #MeThinksMeLikes I was told there were only about 30 cases of this beer for the entire state of Kansas. They also had Rue B. Soho lager available. It is their Mexican Lager base beer with grapefruit and cascade hops. It will definitely be added to the Myces beer fridge ASAP.

Cru D'Etat

Rue B. Soho from Skaa

Cheers,

Brett A. Myces