If you’re craving a more crafty, unique beer this week, Flying Saucer has you covered. Each night this week, they will be tapping a different barleywine. These barleywines are some of the best in the world, so if you’ve never had a barleywine before, this would be a great place to start.
All tappings are at 7pm and Wednesday night is their “Keep the Glass” night.
So, what is a barleywine? A barleywine is a beer that reaches an alcohol strength of 8-12% by volume. The American style is hoppy and bitter with colors ranging from amber to light brown. The English style is much different – less bitter and has little hop flavor with more variety in color ranging from red-gold to opaque black.
The modern barleywine was created as a response to the elite’s desires for strong drinks during the conflicts between England and France in the later 18th century. It was considered an upper class drink for some time. Anchor Brewing Company introduced the style to the United States with its Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale in 1976.
Although it has the word wine in its name, it is indeed a beer because it is made from grain and not fruit.
Openings and Anniversary Parties are all the rage this month as two new beer places open and three breweries celebrate anniversaries.
First to open will be Screenland’s newest theater featuring a craft beer emporium, restaurant, and arcade games perfectly dubbed the Tapcade. The new Crossroads location will have 48 taps, 50 different bottles and cans of beer, and a cocktail menu featuring Dark Horse Distillery drinks. The biggest draw may be the 30 classic video games, including Pac-Man and Street Fighter II. It will open on Friday, February 20, and is located at 1701 McGee.
Set to open the very next day, Saturday, February 21, Border Brewing Company will be serving up some brews in their Crossroads location. Located less than a quarter mile from the new Screenland location, Border will have on tap Blonde Ale, Patio Extra Pale Ale, Rooftop Red Ale, Imperial IPA, Campfire Porter, and Chocolate Milk Stout. The will be open from 11am until 11pm on Saturday and 11am until 6pm on Sunday at 406 East 18th Street.
On to anniversaries, Martin City Brewing Company‘s Pizza & Taproom celebrated their first with a shrimp boil, live music, and specials on February 7th. The brewing company, initially established in 2011 with a Pub, expanded to include the Pizza & Taproom within view of the brewing system in 2014. They now distribute their beers to bars all over Kansas City.
Kansas City Bier Company will be celebrating their first with a week-long party. As far north as Rock & Run in Liberty to as far west as LiMESTONE Pizza in Lawrence, there’s a party for you. There will be giveaways, special tappings, live music, and more all leading up to their party at the Bier Hall. To find out more about the celebrations read our previous post here: kansascitybeer.com/50/
And finally, maybe older than most of you reading, Free State Brewing Company will be celebrating 26 years. In 1989, Free State became the first legal brewery in Kansas in over 100 years. Flagship brews, like Ad Astra Ale and Copperhead Pale Ale, are great representations of Kansas while small batch brews, like Iron Man Imperial Stout and Old Backus Barleywine Ale, are great for the more experienced beer lover. You don’t have to travel all the way to Lawrence to celebrate, though. Bier Station will be hosting the party with a selection of taps, merchandise giveaways, Cheddar Ale Soup, and more. Party begins at 11am on Saturday, February 28.
Maybe I just like the cold weather, but the 4th Annual Westport Strong Ale Fest was one of the best festivals I’ve been to in a while. The street in front of McCoy’s Public House in Westport was closed off to celebrate Strong Ales this past Saturday.
The beers were great. The very last keg of Love Child No. 4 from Boulevard , limited amount of Owd Mac’s Double Russian Imperial Stout Aged on Templeton Rye Whisky Barrels from Free State, Sierra Nevada‘s Narwhal Imperial Stout, and the quickly-out 4 Hands Madagascar were the highlights of the beer selection. I tried everything I wanted to try except for Oskar Blues‘ Ten Fidy. They were listed to be there, but I didn’t see them. A few other breweries who weren’t on the list showed up, so it’s not like there was a lack of beer.
The lines at each brewery were nonexistent and the crowd was pleasant. Even though the beers were all 8%+ ABV, nobody was wasted by the end of the event. This is the type of event you enjoy the beer rather than try to drink to get drunk. The DJ played great music that appealed to the crowd with a mix of late nineties to current day songs.
There were enough heaters to keep everyone warm and with the amount of people there, it was easy to stay warm. A few more tables for attendees would have been great, but with McCoy’s open to the attendees it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Overall, if my biggest complaint was the lack of enough tables, it must have been a great event, right? 9.5 out of 10.
Did you miss out on 75th Street Brewery‘s wort giveaway this morning? (We didn’t; check future posts for a Brew Day Session.) Good news for you, Free State Brewery has wort to give away. There’s no contest with this wort, just the satisfaction of making your own beer.
Free State hates to see things go to waste, so they’re offering their unhopped, unboiled, leftover wort from when they brewed their Old Backus Barleywine. They only take the strongest of the wort from their mash to make the barleywine and what’s left still has a lot of sugar in it. That’s what you get! It’s the first time they’ve tried to collect this, so they don’t know what the strength is.
What you need to do to get some is bring a sanitized container and enter the brewery from the west end dock. Kansas charges 20¢ per gallon in taxes so they ask for $1 for each 5 gallons you pick up. There’s no limit on how much you can get right now, but if there’s a huge demand, they may limit it.
Go to Free State Brewery in Lawrence on Thursday, October 2nd, starting at 6pm to get some for yourself.
So, what is a barleywine? A barleywine is a beer that reaches an alcohol strength of 8-12% by volume. The American style is hoppy and bitter with colors ranging from amber to light brown. The English style is much different – less bitter and has little hop flavor with more variety in color ranging from red-gold to opaque black.
