Boulevard/Flying Saucer PSA

Pausing for a commercial break:

The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium will present a beer tasting featuring Kansas City-based Boulevard Brewing Company on Monday, March 9 at 7 p.m. at its location in the Kansas City Power & Light District at 101 East 13^th St.

The event will be hosted by Steven Pauwels, brewmaster at Boulevard. Five beers from Boulevard’s Smokestack Series will be paired with specially selected artisan cheeses and a dessert. Featured pairings include the Long Strange Tripel with a St. André Tripel Crème; the Smokestack Saison with a Great Pyrenees Goat with green peppercorns; the Double-Wide I.P.A. with Blue Stilton; the Smokestack Imperial Stout as a stand-alone feature; the Sixth Glass Quadrupel with chocolate truffles; and one special “mystery” beer from Boulevard.

“At The Flying Saucer, we want to be the beer destination for the Kansas City area, and hosting tastings with local favorites like Boulevard is a part of that,” said Matt Gardner, general manager at The Flying Saucer. “Boulevard celebrates its 20^th anniversary in 2009, and in those 20 years, it has become the largest specialty brewer in the Midwest, producing great yearlong and seasonal brews. Beer enthusiasts will not want to miss the opportunity to try six Boulevard beers in one sitting. Plus, we don’t even know what the mystery beer will be!”

Tickets for the event can be purchased at The Flying Saucer and are $30 for U.F.O. Club members and $35 for non-members. Reservations are recommended as space is limited.

For more information about the event, please call (816) 221-1900 or visit www.beerknurd.com/stores/kansascity.

I would totally be here on this day, except it's kind of a big day at work, so I prolly won't make it. sniffle Poor me. So, who is going?

A continued love affair

Me + Winter = Stout Love Forever

I was wandering the shelves of my friendly neighborhood liquor store, looking for something, anything different, really, and not finding much that piqued my interest. At the bottom of a display, I saw a sixer of this. Check out Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, brewed by the Anderson Valley Brewing Company in Booneville, CA. According to the brewery’s site:

With its deep, dark brown-black color, thick, full-bodied, velvety-smooth mouth feel, mocha character, and, strong yet subtle hop bite, Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout is one of the thickest, richest, and most complex stouts on the market today. In 1990, it became our first gold medal winner, at the Great American Beer Festival. Barney Flats was judged so superior to the other stouts that no other medals were even awarded in its category. Try it and see why Stewart Kallen described it as, "Slippery, creamy, dark, and sweet as a Pacific May morning," in his book, The 50 Greatest Beers in the World.

Jason, of the Almstrom Bros of Beer Advocate, noted the following:
Presentation: 12 oz brown long-neck bottle with no freshness date. Blurb about the beer on the back label.
Appearance: Stout black with a wispy light brown lace.
Smell: Sweet and tangy with a mild coffee and chicory aroma.
Taste: Rich, smooth and textured. A fight between the roasted flavour and hop oil … hop oil finally gives up. Hops give a good fight with a flowery bitterness and leave a short trail of flavour. Roasted flavour keeps on pushing on, full bodied and a bit of sweetness come through. The finish is of a faded tangy roasted ending.
Notes: Seriously hearty stout, very full bodied and pretty much no holds bared on your taste buds. This is what you call a beefed up stout … where is my cigar?

My pathetic reviews can’t top Jason’s insightful notes, so I am not going to try, except to let you all know that this is hands down, absolutely, my favorite stout right this second. Go find some!

Oh, and I ripped this picture off of the Google. I didn't go on a glass buying spree. Mine was consumed from a regular old pint glass. Of course.

Beer at Work

I need some help from all of my KC brew buddies. Recommendations, anyone?

We have a kegerator at work, and it is currently empty. It is empty because we can't seem to find a decent source of small/pony kegs. When we have giant parties, we go thru standard sized kegs, no problem. But our office staff of 9 can't seem to kill a keg in a timely manner, and the lines get gross, and by then, well, it's just too late. We all like interesting beer, and variety. We have good beer in the fridge, but it just seems like a waste to have a kegerator and not use it.

So, where can we pick up pony kegs of GOOD beer? (Don't tell me to brew my own. I know. I'm just starting to get my head wrapped around that, and you really wouldn't want to subject my coworkers to a first batch.)

One of these things is not like the other

OK, so this isn't beer related. But I have been living in a bit of a hole, apparently, and I just learned that Phillips Chop House closed. WHAT?! DAMMIT. I haven't been that in love with a restaurant in a while, and now I can't drag my husband there for Valentines Day. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Snowboarding in 70 degree weather!

This weekend my company will be dumping 68 TONS OF SNOW on the KC! LIVE Block. Why? Well, because we're having a snowboard tournament in the middle of the Power & Light, of course. Saturday, February 7th. And of course it'll be 70 degrees that day. So you should DEFINITELY come down to see the craziness. It'll be as family friendly as possible, with most of the bars closed during the day. Once the booze-mall picks up steam, the kidlets should have gone home anyway. The later crowd will enjoy the pro-am teams doing crazy tricks on the rails in the later evening.

Over the course of the next three days, a ski hill will emerge in the Live! Block descending from the skywalk to the Live! Stage standing over a story and half tall, 50 feet wide and 107 feet long. A total of 150 pre-registered local and national riders will compete in the event and 16 will be named to the “Scion 16” for an opportunity to team up with one of 16 professional riders for the finals competition. A large crowd is anticipated for the finale as it is the biggest snowboarding event to take place in the Midwest.

Date:
Thursday, February 5, 2009 (Ski hill construction & snow dump)
Saturday, February 7, 2009 (Competition)

Times:
Thursday, February 5, 2009
7:00 a.m. – Ski hill set-up begins (continues all day, until finished)

Friday, February 6, 2009
1:00 p.m. – Snow trucked in from Snow Creek in Weston, Mo.

Saturday February, 7, 2009
7:00 a.m. – Snow trucked in from Snow Creek in Weston, Mo.
9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Registration)
Noon – 6:30 p.m. (Snowboarding Competition)
9 p.m. – 11:30 p.m. (Finals)

Location:
The KC Live! Block in The Kansas City Power & Light District

The Foundry

Have I mentioned how much I love Westport now? Well, I do. Because I am not single OR 23 years old, and I cannot hang in the P&L too often. Westport grew up a little, and I like it better. Especially on slow weeknights.

Yesterday was our 7th anniversary, and we did the fancy expensive dinner thing over the weekend. So we decided to catch happy hour beers and pizza at the Foundry in Westport. Between McCoy's, Blanc, The Foundry, and Harry's, there are quite a few options in Westport, and it makes me happy.

We both had a couple of stouts (Kalamazoo for me, Left Hand for him), some tasty pizza, and good conversation. Even if 75% of it was about work.

Know what else makes me happy? Servers who are so friendly that they draw you happy little pictures on your leftover pizza box.

RIP Rivermarket Brewery

I got a heads up from a rivermarket resident that the Rivermarket Brewery finally closed. He said, "It disproves my theory that the only reason that place was open was to launder money. It's a good loss because the microbrewery beer was simply god awful, and the food was mediocre at best. It's regrettable that despite the drink, it was close by and I considered it my local. A lot of good friends have lost work."

He makes good points. I haven't been to the Brewery in years. Honestly. I didn't enjoy their beer, and the whole experience of just being there was vaguely uncomfortable. So I am not surprised, unless you think about how long it was open, past when it SHOULD have closed. It's a loss for the Rivermarket community, but it also means that Harry's should be a bit busier on a regular basis. Did anyone else even notice they closed?

**edited to add that this observation was sent to me yesterday, and my late posting due to workload means bullevard and fatcity totally pwned me on this one :)**