Farm to Table trend strikes again

Did you miss it?  75th Street Brewery held their Farm to Table beer dinner to celebrate American Craft Beer Week.  The 5 course sold out event featured some great food and special release beers with all local ingredients and Midwest beers.  Among the beer highlights, I thoroughly enjoyed Nebraska Brewing Company's Apricot Au Poivre Saison.  This Belgian style ale was bold yet smooth, with enticing notes of ripe apricot and fresh cracked pepper.  It was expertly paired with a roasted Olathe corn and grilled heirloom tomato salad.  I didn't need pepper for the salad because it was in the beer.  All the food was delicious, and I rarely say this.  But, I have to give props to the dessert as my favorite course.  A royal berry shortcake made from River Market berries.  It featured a fresh berry mousse and Chantilly cream.  Simply divine.  I've posted a few photos from the event below.  If you were not able to attend this time, they announced an upcoming event at Barley's Brewhaus on 119th street in Overland Park.  The theme is a backyard BBQ, but with a twist of well crafted cooking and fine beers.  Looks to be a big hit as well.  I can't wait to try the Cuban style whole roast pig.

"Don't Hassle the Hops" - David Hasselhopp

    

American Craft Beer Week - May 13 - 19, 2013

It's like the Super Bowl for craft brewers! American Craft Beer Week is easily the biggest and best celebration for microbreweries and home brewers of this great country. Running from Monday, May 13th to Sunday, May 19th, this event has really expanded since it began in 2006. Starting with just 124 breweries, it has grown to include over 1,500 officially posted national events from all 50 states. With beer tastings, brewmaster's dinners, festivals, contests, brewery tours, pairing parties and so much more, it's exciting to see how this year's celebration will eclipse the last. Join 75th Street Brewery all week long for daily events featuring drink specials, live music, canned craft beers, Bloody Mary bar on Sunday and a delicious Farm to Table beer dinner on Tuesday. Plus we'll be tapping special kegs from the brewery's cellar all week long. On the Kansas side, its all about exciting specialty beers - both Barley's locations will be serving up the best of what craft beer can be. We'll post the full line-up of events soon, but first check out some of the beers we'll be pouring next week:

75th Street Brewery

- 'Hops to You' Good Hope IPA firkin loaded with fresh Cascade hops

- Waldo Wallace Hopped Scotch Ale

- Up All Nitro Java Porter

- Broke 'da Mouth Coconut Brown

- Blueberry Wheat

- Cowtown Wheat

Barley's Overland Park

- Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

- Avery Mephistopheles Imperial Stout

- Avery Hog Heaven Barleywine

- Green Flash Palate Wrecker Imperial IPA

- Green Flash Green Bullet Triple IPA

- Left Hand Beer Week Sauce Coffee Porter

- North Coast Old Rasputin XIV Imperial Stout

- Odell Tree Shaker Peach Imperial IPA

- Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine

Barley's Shawnee

- Schlafly Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout

- Tallgrass Ethos Imperial IPA

- Empyrean Dark Side Porter frirkin with cherries & chocolate

- Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA

- Avery The Czar Imperial Stout

- Ommegang Gnomegang Belgian-style Strong Ale

- Rogue Roguenbier Rye Ale

Happy Cinco de Mayo from Beer Forward KC

By now, everyone knows that Cinco de Mayo is really an American holiday.  It’s evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage within the US rather than the original intent of the true minor Mexican holiday.  Much like St. Patrick’s Day, we Americans enjoy a good excuse to party (even if we don’t know why we are celebrating). 

To honor this display of displaced revelry, I thought a brief discussion on Mexican beers would be appropriate.  Mexico is the top exporter of beer in the world, by the way.  I know there are some nice microbreweries in Mexico, but for this discussion I thought it best to list the beers that we can actually try without a trip south of the border.  Almost everywhere has Corona, which is Mexico’s best selling beer.  But as we know in the US, best selling rarely means best quality or best taste.  Dos Equis has really made a splash of late with their “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign.  It almost feels sophisticated to be ordering it.  Others that quickly come to mind are Pacifico, Sol, Carta Blanca, and Tecate.  All have that distinctly drinkable quality making them great for warmer, beach-like conditions.  When I think about pairing a beer at a nicer Mexican restaurant, I’m usually drawn to Modelo and Bohemia.  They tend to be richer and fuller than their counterparts and stand up better to food. 

Let's hear from you. Which Mexican beer will you be drinking this holiday weekend? Will you stick to the tried and true, revisit an old friend, or venture out into the unknown? What advice would you give to the beer explorer on May 5th?

Introducing Tallgrass Ethos IPA

Kansas's largest brewery, Tallgrass Brewing Company, has been making some serious strides in the advancement of canned beer's reputation. Packaged exclusively in 12 oz. and 16 oz. cans, as well as kegs, their Halcyon Wheat, 8-Bit Pale Ale, Velvet Rooster, Buffalo Sweat, Oasis ESB and classic formula Pub Ale have quickly become local favorites. Their newest offering, the yet-to-be-released Ethos double dry-hopped India Pale Ale, comes in at 6.8% ABV and a whopping 110 IBUs. Made with 6 different hop varieties, this big, bright and bold IPA "bestows upon you all the complexities of the hops' flavors without overpowering your senses." Through clever use of viral marketing campaigns, their Canifesto, and most importantly, making great beer, Tallgrass has made a name for itself in the myriad of new breweries, continuing to make the central Midwest a legitimate craft beer destination. We'll be joined by Tallgrass representative Kelly with Ethos on tap, along with some unique ingredients to randall it with, on Wednesday, May 15th at Barley's in Shawnee as part of the 2013 American Craft Beer Week. More details coming soon - cheers!

Sierra Nevada Beer School at Barley's - May 13, 2013

Coming up on Monday, May 13th at Barley's in Overland Park is the next edition of Beer School, this time featuring beers from Chico, California's Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Beginning at 6:00, we'll have representatives from the brewery on hand to discuss the ideas and creation process behind some of their world-class beers. We'll be tasting and talking about:

- Summerfest: with a nod toward the original Czech tradition, Summerfest is brewed to feature the best of the Bohemian nature. Crisp, golden, dry and incredibly drinkable, Summerfest has a delicate and complex malt flavor and spicy, floral hop character - the perfect warm weather beer; 5% ABV

- Pale Ale: beginning as a homebrewer's dream, Pale Ale grew into an icon and inspired countless brewers to follow a passion of their own. Its unique piney and grapefruit aromas from the use of whole-cone American hops have fascinated beer drinkers for decades and made this beer a classic, yet it remains new, complex and surprising to thousands of beer drinkers every day. It is - and always has been - all natural, bottle conditioned and refreshingly bold; 5.6% ABV

- Hoptimum: hopped, dry-hopped and torpedoed for incredible hop flavor and complexity, Hoptimum is the pinnacle of whole-cone hoppiness and the biggest imperial IPA Sierra Nevada has ever produced. It features resinous 'new school' hop varieties: Magnum, Chinook, Simcoe, Citra and a new experimental hop variety exclusive to Sierra Nevada. With intense hop flavors and aromas of grapefruit rind, pine, herbs and tropical fruit, Hoptimum is an aggressive drinking experience; 10.4% ABV

- Bigfoot 2013: Bigfoot is a beast of a beer, brimming with bold flavors of bittersweet malt and heaps of aggressive whole-cone Pacific Northwest hops. First introduced in the winter of 1983, Bigfoot is a cult-classic beer brewed in the barleywine style, meaning a strong, robust, bruiser of a beer with the refined intensity of a wine. Bigfoot is prized by beer collectors for its supreme cellarability. Under the proper conditions, it can age like a fine wine, developing new flavors and character as it matures in the bottle; 9% ABV

- Brux 2012: Brux is a 'domesticated wild ale', or ale fermented with Belgian yeast, finished by a secondary bottle fermentation with Brettanomyces bruxellensis. This one-off production was brewed at Sierra Nevada's Chico brewhouse in collaboration with Santa Rosa, California's Russian River Brewing Company and is very dry, earthy and spicy. Brewed in early 2012, bottle-conditioning for over a year should allow the brett characteristic to be more pronounced and even more funky; 8.3% ABV

- Torpedo: what began as a crazy idea scribbled in a pub eventually became Sierra Nevada's newest year-round hop bomb, Torpedo Extra IPA. The first beer to feature their 'Hop Torpedo' - a revolutionary dry-hopping device that controls how much hop aroma is imparted into beer without adding additional bitterness. Torpedo is an aggressive yet balanced beer with massive hop aromas of citrus, pine and tropical fruit; 7.2% ABV

We'll be serving Torpedo in the 19 oz. Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head & Spiegelau collaborative IPA glass that you get to keep! This glass is designed specifically for hop-forward beers to improve head retention, mouthfeel and appearance and is yours to take home after class. Tickets are only $15 and must be purchased in advance so come by or call us at (913) 663-4099; seating is very limited so make your reservations ASAP - cheers!

Farm to Table Beer Dinner at 75th Street - May 14, 2013

Hot on the heels of last Thursday's Flavor Fusion beer dinner at Barley's, we're excited to announce the next edition taking place at 75th Street Brewery. Tuesday, May14th at 6:30 is the Farm to Table Beer Dinner, a four course beer and food pairing featuring locally made beers carefully paired with dishes using ingredients from local farms and farmers' markets. Here's what's on the menu:

first course: roasted Olathe corn and grilled heirloom tomato with Burger's sugar-cured bacon, baby spinach and heirloom tomato vinaigrette paired with Nebraska Brewing Company's Apricot Au Poivre Saison (Papillion, NE)

second course: roasted beet & ricotta cheese ravioli dressed in poppy seed butter and fresh parmesan cheese served with Schlafly Hefeweizen (St. Louis, MO)

third course: Golden Rule Farms braised beef short ribs with barley cake and dandelion greens with blackberry gastrique, paired with 75th Street's Easy E.S.B. (Kansas City, MO)

fourth course: River Market berries, house made shortcake, fresh berry mousse and Chantilly cream paired with 75th Street Uniquity - sour Belgian-style quadrupel (Kansas City, MO)

Tickets are just $45 per person - $40 for Mug Club Members - and  must be purchased in advance so stop in for a beer or call us at (816) 523-4677 to make your reservations today. Cheers!

Flavor Fusion Dinner Pics

Thursday night's Flavor Fusion Beer Dinner at Barley's in Shawnee was a unique four course beer and food pairing showcasing some non-traditional flavors through the use of beer randalling and the combination of international cuisines. Using a French press filter, each beer was passed through a variety of different herbs, spices or fruit resulting in one-of-a-kind craft beer creations. The dinner was hosted by Barley's general manager Nick Carpenter, beer director Grant Tower and head chef Vladimir Vergara. Nick and Grant discussed the ideas behind the ingredients that went into each beer while Vlad explained the concepts behind the rather unconventional food creations. It was a great opportunity to experience some familiar flavors in brand-new ways and one of the more experimental beer dinners to happen in the area. Big thanks to those of you who made it out, but for those that didn't here's what you  missed: (click an image to view larger or launch the gallery)

Schlafly American IPA with green tea leaves and fresh lemon peel; lemon increased citrus flavors while green tea added an earthy characteristic to help balance the bitterness

Crispy fried home-made Vidalia onion and Yukon potato tater tots with dum aloo curry sauce and wasabi pea salt

Beer manager Grant Tower explaining the randalling process

Boulevard Tank 7 with cilantro & Serrano chili peppers

bulgogi pork pozole - hearty soup of hominy, onions, garbanzo beans and roasted chilis with bulgogi pork dumplings and guacamole; this Mexican & Korean fusion provided an amazing pairing for the spiced Tank 7

Chef Vladimir Vergara

Deschutes Black Butte Porter with toasted hazelnuts, cinnamon & espresso beans

ahi tuna molé negro - espresso-seared ahi tuna, stir fried greens and Mexican risotto

Sweet Meyer lemon bar with rhubarb jam and brown sugar mint crumble paired with Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge with mixed berries & turbinado; fresh fruit increased the fruitiness of the sour brown ale while the unrefined brown sugar provided balance really improving the beer overall

Big thanks to all of the staff that provided excellent service and made this dinner so amazing!

We'll have information regarding the upcoming Farm to Table Beer Dinner at 75th Street Brewery posted very soon so stay tuned - cheers!

Firkin Friday Tonight at Barley's

As we continue rallying through 17th Anniversary Week at Barley's in Shawnee, tonight's Firkin Friday features a showcase of hops with cask-conditioned double dry-hopped Ranger IPA from New Belgium Brewing Company. Introduced in 2010 due to frequent requests from retailers to offer a year-round IPA, Ranger is named in honor of New Belgium's salespeople - or Beer Rangers. Cascade, Chinook & Simcoe hops lead off the beer with Cascade added again for an intense dry hop flavor. Brewed with dark and pale caramel malts that harmonize the hop flavor from start to finish, Ranger is a bitter yet sessionable IPA. This rare dry-hopped cask version will emphasize Ranger's intense citrus and floral notes. We'll also be tapping some hop bombs from Green Flash Brewing Company as well, including their Hop Odyssey Black IPA, Green Bullet Triple IPA and Palate Wrecker Imperial IPA. Plus we still have some of the Rather Large Stouts on tap too so come by and get your weekend started right - cheers!

Have You Tried Deschutes Yet?

Introducing a new series of articles written by the Beer Forward KC team. These articles will share personal experiences, favorite beers or breweries, and other general information regarding craft beer in Kansas City.

Have you tried Deschutes yet? This is a beer whose influence has finally reached Kansas and Missouri. Its available currently in 18 mainly western and central states.  The microbrewery began in 1988 in Bend, Oregon. Their Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Inversion IPA are always medal winners. They offer seasonal, specialty series, reserves and collaboration brews as well. But the real gem of their portfolio is their consistently highly rated flagship, Black Butte Porter. Certainly unusual to have a porter as a flagship beer, it proves its worth by being the number one selling craft porter in the US even with its limited availability.  I first tried it in a bottle in Topeka at the Blue Moose.  I was immediately hooked by its creamy cocoa and burnt toffee notes with a subtle hop on the front palate.  This beer is bold and complex.  I purchased several six packs over the next few weeks and introduced it to my beer bros as well.  I was really enjoying this beer and I was certain I’d never find a better porter.  I was wrong.  A few days later I saw it on tap at Barley’s in Shawnee.  I was shocked to see how it was improved upon as a draft.  I’m seriously considering a keg fridge now for my home.  If you haven’t tried this brewery yet, get out there and welcome them to Kansas City.  If you have friends east of here, be kind enough to take a bottle when you visit. We'll have Deschutes' very own mobile travern, Woody, serving up all kinds of awesome Deschutes brews this coming Saturday at Barley's in Shawnee as we close out our Anniversary Week.        

Cask Beers at Barley's Tonight

photo courtesy westsixth.com

While some of us might still be recovering from last night's Rather Large Stout Night, we're excited to bring you another night of unique and delicious brews. As part of Barley's 17th Anniversary Week, tonight we'll feature some unique cask beers, some rare kegs as well as some glassware give-aways. For those unfamiliar with cask beer, KC Beer Blog has a great article explaining it, but the condensed version is that casks are the traditional method of storing and serving beer before CO2 draft systems were invented. Stored in firkins and pins (10.8 gallons and 5.4 gallons respectively), cask beer is typically unpasteurized and uses gravity to pour instead of gas pressure, resulting in a less carbonated, fuller bodied beer. These vessels also give brewers the opportunity to add additional ingredients during storage, allowing the beer to absorb flavors of whatever ingredients they choose to add. Tonight we'll be pouring:

- Tallgrass 8-Bit Pale Ale with Columbus hops and fresh raspberries; pin
- Empyrean Watch Man IPA with Citra hops and mango; pin
- Free State Dirty Kanza Rye pale ale; firkin
- Schlafly Black IPA; traditional keg
- Boulevard TBA (you probably don't want to miss this)

We'll have representatives from each brewery hanging out with us all night. We've still got some of the ridiculous line-up of imperial stouts from last night so come by and meet the faces behind the beer and try something new.  And while you're here, don't forget to get your tickets to tomorrow night's Flavor Fusion Beer Dinner - cheers!