Red Crow Brewing – Kansas City Beer

Don’t Have Plans for the Next Month? You Will!

September and October weekends will be stacked with great beer events, takeovers, parties, and brewery openings. With the cooler weather, you’ll be able to enjoy your beers without sweating your butt off and it’s easier for event planners to get bit more crazy with their events.

This Saturday the 12th, there are 11 different events. 11! This is the busiest weekend for beer. Starting as early as 8am and going into all hours of the day and night, locations from Parkville to Blue Springs to Independence to North Kansas City to Lee’s Summit to Kansas City – you get the idea, you will find something for you! Activities include helping clean a river, finding out winners of a competition, going on a pub crawl, or attending one of the festivals.

September 13-18 is Sour Beer Week at The Flying Saucer. Sour beers have become popular over the past few year due to the uniqueness of the style. It’s a risky form of beer brewing, so only a few local breweries have tried their hand at it. Big Rip expects to release their Tart Cherry Sweet Brown aged in a Pinot Noir barrel in the next month or so and Boulevard has had a few. Crane Brewing, opening next month, has a variety of sours they’ll be sharing.

Several Oktoberfests starting the weekend of September 18th. I can’t speak of the quality of most because I’ve only been to KC Bier Co‘s last year, but it’s all typically a good time. Big glasses of beer, German attire, and bratwursts are all common for Oktoberfests. KC Bier Co promises an even better time than last year with more carnival games, a wooden keg tapping with celebrity tapper Karli Ritter, and a few competitions.

Saturday, September 19, has fewer events than the previous Saturday, but they’re just as good. North Kansas City is holding a citywide Pint Path. If you want to ride your bike a bit more south, check out Pub N Pedal. A scavenger hunt around Kansas City beer locations where you can win prizes. The Kansas City Beer Fest is also on this day at the Power and Light District. It’s been around before the recent surge of craft beer lovers, so it should be pretty packed. The best event of the day is the High Plains Brewhoff. Mostly one-off beers made by homebrewers and celebrity brewers, this event is perfect for the person who has tried everything. Best part, the tickets are free.

A lot more Oktoberfests during the weekend of September 25th, with a few, smaller events mixed between.

Things slow down a bit in October as the weather gets cooler. A few highlights – Crane Brewing and Red Crow Brewing are rumored to be opening, CRAFT Shop, Sip, Feast at Crown Center on the 4th, there will be a beer garden at the Great Midwest Balloon Fest this year on the 23rd & 24th, Sam Adams KMF Grand Cru comes back to Kansas City the week of the 25th, and Big Rip’s Halloween Party will be on Friday the 30th.

Check our calendar for all beer events in Kansas City and be sure to follow us on social media to see pictures from events!

2014 High Plains BrewHoff Review

The inaugural High Plains BrewHoff was yesterday at Brew Lab in Old Downtown Overland Park. While it had a few hiccups, overall it was a terrific event. About 500 beer enthusiasts packed into the Brew Lab parking lot to get a sampling of the best homebrews in Kansas City. With brews like Strawberry Basil Saison, Sour Cherry Porter, and Sour Black Saison, this is one of the more unique beer events in Kansas City. Red Crow Brewing Company won Best of Show for Isabelle, a Belgian Blonde.

Some bad things about the event:

Babies. I saw at least ten babies, most of them with strollers. It was a small event space, so every person’s presence was felt. This is an adult event and organizers should not have allowed anyone under 21 to enter.
Small event space or too many people. 500 people was quite a bit to fit in the location it was held. After two hours, it did start thinning out, so it wasn’t too bad.
Line processing. My group showed up at 12:45pm and didn’t get in until 1:30pm. The end of the line didn’t get in until about 3pm. They had three stations that everyone had to go through. With so many volunteers, there easily could have been a few lines checking people in.
The glass. I bought one and so did everyone else in my group and I knew about it beforehand. A lot of people did not know about the cost of the glass until they got there. Yes, they did have little plastic cups you could have used, but with the quality of the beer that was being served, you need to use glass.

Some good things about the event:

Water stations at every booth.
Pretzels and other snacks at most of the booths.
Enough tables to stand/sit.
Rarely a line at any of the booths.
It was free.
The musician played great songs and played them well.
A great variety of quality beer.
Each booth had beer that lasted through the event even though the pours were pretty big.

Breweries in the making got to show off their selection of beers and give a short speech about their company.

Red Crow says they are looking for a location in Johnson County, but are having some trouble with laws and regulations. Currently, 30% or more of gross sales need to be derived from food sales. They hope the laws will change soon so they can concentrate on making great beer.
Double Shift Brewing expects a Spring 2015 opening in the Crossroads and are committed to making a great product and having a relaxed atmosphere in their tap room. I had Double Shift’s Summer Session IPA at the event and it is exactly that – a summer session that’s easy to drink when it’s 85° out.
Another Crossroads brewery set to open is Torn Label Brewing Company. They’re brewing system is in place to brew three year-round beers and many experimental beers. I tried their Grasping at Straws Wheat Wine, which has an ABV of 9%, but was surprisingly light. They also let me try their Tongue Lash, a sour that wasn’t brewed like a regular sour. They expect to open in a few months.
Crane Brewing Company has been making a name for themselves in the beer industry. They were pouring some of the most creative beers at the event, such as a cream ale brewed with beets and a Belgian Saison brewed with black tea. They will be opening up 18,000 square feet of beer and food space in Raytown in Spring 2015. They intend to stand out from other local breweries by bottling beers for distribution right off the bat and offering sour and wild styles beers.

All of the upcoming breweries had spectacular beers so there’s no doubt that they will all succeed. Kansas City is quickly becoming a great city to get your beer fix.

Overall, I would give this event an 8.5 out of 10 and look forward to next year!

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