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This is a picture that I took at a Flying Saucer Beer bar in Kansas City a few months ago… This was taken with my Iphone and the pictures were stitched together using the “Autostitch” app.

It could remain unsaid but it’s a fact… I have not been posting as regularly as I should. I feel that is due to a combination of things to blog about and my insane work schedule which has been keeping on the road since basically October! As many of you know, I started the “Beers to You Podcast” and that has been going quite well but it is meant to be a companion to the written blog.

Being on the road does have a positive side; I am constantly being exposed to new beers and new bars that serve it well. So let’s call this a Captain’s log report of a few notable places where I have dared to belly-up in the last few months.

Let’s start with Sweden- I am constantly amazed at the ubiquity of American Craft beers! I sat in Lynkoping Sweden drinking Victory Hop Devil and I think I may have converted one of our Swedish R&D engineering colleagues into a hop-head.

Las Vegas- Eh… Not really a craft-beer town.

D.C. – Now that the Brickskeller is closed, Pizzeria Paradiso is all you need to know.

Houston – (Twice) A fantastic visit to St. Arnolds Brewery (link) and of course some quality time at the Yard House. The Yard House isn’t a stellar beer bar, but they have a pretentious display of beer-taps that are sadly stagnant… Nothing new to report on my second visit. (Except awesome crawfish washed down with some SA Boston Lager).

Kansas City- Great ribs and some decent local beers. The Gordon-Biersch let me down (Click for the posting).

Beaver Kansas- There’s no place like Moe’s (Click Here for the posting)

New York, NY- I have made several trips to Manhattan and though a little late to the craft beer party it is a hot-spot. Pubs like the Blind Tiger, Rattle & Hum and many others that are equally good serve up beer with a bit of the pretentious attitude you would expect from NYC. (I think they think they are the only town that serves the stuff).

On one of my trips I had the pleasure of joining John Holl, a fellow beer writer as we attendedNorth Carolina tourism event complete with beers from the “Tar Heel State” along with one brewer and one President of the NC Brewers Guild. That’s a pretty good showing and many of the North Carolina beers are great.

Sean Lilly Wilson From Fullsteam Brewey at The Raleigh Beer Fest

Raleigh- I went to the Raleigh edition of The W0rld Beer Festival. There were over 120 breweries serving unlimited 2oz samples. It was a bit of a madhouse because the drought decided to end with prejudice that evening.  The next World Beer Festival will be held in Richmond sometime in June. Get there!

Chicago – Not only is Chicago the best big city in the USA, it’s a great beer-town. I always have a great visit to the Map Room. On this last visit I had the chance to visit Pete Crowley’s (formerly of Rock Bottom Chicago) new place called Haymarket Pub and Grill. Pete is a very solid brewer and it shows in the Haymarket beers. I really like Haymarket’s method of pricing and serving beers. They will sell you a 4oz serving all the way up to a growler. The pricing is based on the ounce, so you are not penalized by drinking the smaller serving. This allows more exploration of the wide range of beers offered.

Up The Elk River, WV- I will confess that sometimes after a bike ride I will stop along the way home to have an iced cold PBR in an Iced mug at The Elk River Bar & Grill out on Pennsylvania avenue just past the Charleston limit. They are nice folks with a patio overlooking the river and zero chance of ever becoming a craft beer bar though they serve their customers well. I had to take a photo of this!

Addendum: If you read the comments it would become obvious that I forgot to mention a great trip I took to Pittsburgh with the commenter Rob Absten as navigator and co-pilot. This trip alone is worthy of an entire blog posting so stay tuned…

Mountaineer Brewing is closing its doors. The last batch of beer has been brewed… Details are sketchy and I will update you as this story unfolds.

Hopefully Mountaineer’s owner Gary Brooks is looking for a buyer for the seemingly successful brewery.

I know, I know… I have to get back to doing some actual blogging… But for now you have the Podcast to keep you company!
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Now don’t ya go be drinkin any of that green beer!

Link Here:
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Click your beer glasses together and keep repeating “There’s no place like Moe’s” and if Glenda the good witch has your back, you’ll soon be transported to the postage stamp sized town of Beaver Kansas, home to exactly one legal drinking establishment with a working nano-brewery called Moe’s Place. Yep, just take a look at the photo we shall call Exhibit-A; as you can see, Moe’s isn’t all too easy on the eyes from the outside. I guess you could say it’s kind of pilsner-colored metal building sitting on a dusty farm-town road-  and you’d be right! It’s what’s inside Moe’s that counts.

Moe’s is the neighborhood bar, the town tap and also a celebration of a Kansas prodigal son coming home to pursue his dream of owning and operating a brew-pub. Meet Len Moeder or “Moe” as he is called. Len and his wife were living life in Southern California when Len caught the home brewing bug. He looked at the possibility of turning that hobby into a brewpub business in California but the high costs and bureaucracy started the Moeder’s thinking about alternatives.  Len’s wife said “Let’s go back to Kansas” so they headed East back 2004.

Soon after moving back to Kansas, the local bar in Beaver became available so the Moeder’s bought it. They installed a “More Beer” 20 Gallon brewing system and have been brewing continuously since then. Len says he has eighty 5-gallon Corny kegs and he tries to keep sixty of them full at all times; brewing each Monday and Tuesday when Moe’s place is closed. When the bar is open, Len and his wife do all of the cooking and bartending. Moe’s place breaks the recent beer journalism hype that the “Nano-brewery” is a new concept and Moe’s also proves that the concept works in some places.

I visited Moe’s on a Wednesday night for a quick couple of pints and had a nice chat with Len about his brewing venture. He was nice enough to tell me to stop by or call even when they were closed and he would gladly hook me up with a beer. The Moeder’s live right in town and their house is unmistakable if you know what hop trellises look like. Moe hopes to use next year’s hop crop in one of his beers.

During my short visit I tasted a wonderful IPA and a Java Stout that Len said he worked with over the years to find just the right coffee bean. It was pretty yummy. I counted seven beers on tap, rivaling the selection of the large brewpub chains!  Moe’s also sells growlers at a reasonable price.

The crowd was definitely one representative of the local farming community and spanned all ages. Most were drinking Moe’s guest beer which I think is Coors. Moe told me that most of the locals lean toward the American lagers but every now and then imbibe of his tasty brews. The “sort of nearby” bigger towns of Salina and Russell provide a steady stream of “beer curious”, keeping his brew-house cranking. Beaver is barely mappable; my small subdivision is larger than the whole town, so imagine beer tourism in such a small place. I can’t wait to go back… Clicking my beer glasses…..

The title of the blog just sort of came to me… But though it’s a bit pretentiously poetic, it just about sums it up for me all too often.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Kansas City on business. I was on my way to find a beer at the local Flying Saucer beer bar when I stumbled upon a Gordon-Biersch brewpub. I have always found Gordon-Biersch pubs to brew excellent examples of classic German beer styles, so I went in with high expectations.

I bellied up and ordered a Schwarzbier (a roasty black lager). The bartender pours it and hands me a beer that I would have thought was cold-coffee in a glass. It was a headless, lifeless and most probably a well-brewed schwarzbier. Sure, I know things can happen, maybe the glass wasn’t properly rinsed; a one-off! It was evident this was not the case as I watched either the ignorant or untrained bartender doing the sanitizer dunk and immediately filling those sanitizer-wet beer glasses, killing all possibility for the beer to form a head or to even let go of a few bubbles!

The real-rub came when I mentioned the issue to a waitress that happened to stand next to me at the bar to watch the basketball game that apparently was holding everybody’s attention. It was her dismissive response that made me want to pick up the phone and call Dan Gordon myself to report this location! She said “what’s the difference it’s just beer”… OMG! This is Gordon-Biersch, not some corner bar in Chapmanville, WV! Is it really too much to ask for a good beer to be poured into a properly conditioned glass? The visual appeal and the aromatic benefits are proven over and over again with all sorts of food and drink and craft-beer is no exception!

This is an important issue facing Craft Beer. The “bar” (excuse the pun) has been set so low for beer by the incessant “stupification” of beer via commercials depicting dogs fetching a Bud-Light out of the fridge for his master… No need to drone on here.

It’s not uncommon today for the typical corner bar to have a couple of decent craft beers in the cooler. Beer wholesalers however are not finishing the job by at least offering a few serving tips; making an attempt to raise the bar, but then again, even to most of them, it’s just beer…

I know… It only seems like yesterday when our last episode was published but right now I am riding a wave of energy and am enjoying messing around with my recording equipment. I hope to have another episode ready in time for St. Patrick’s Day!

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I once was one of those people… “Hey why don’t they put a bike lane on MacCorkle Ave?” or “Hey why don’t they do…Whatever?” As I have grown older I realize that if you want things done, you really need to become a “They”!

I am certainly not Mr. Civic Duty or Mr. Community Volunteer, but I do a few things. One thing I really want to do is to organize and run a proper beer festival for the Charleston region.

I helped the Friends of Clay Center (though I am not a member) to organize the first two their under-attended Oktoberfests that were held at the Power Park. It was a bit frustrating to watch what could have been a great festival fade away from a lack of promotion and unfortunate weather on a few occasions. I have also done my fair share of evangelizing craft beer through tastings and classes. Oh, and then there was the failed attempt to graft a beer event onto Festivall called “Fest of Ale”, and that flopped! I guess I can be called a “Beer-lanthropist” which has no Latin meaning whatsoever…

My thoughts go in two directions. My first thoughts were to forget about trying to pack another weekend event into a very busy fall season; trying to compete or avoid WVU or Marshall Football weekends. Why not a spring beer fest? The other idea and I am talking myself out of it even now as I write, is to have a fall Oktoberfest. (I just made the argument why we shouldn’t have our fest in autumn, but they are so damn fun!) Maybe step one for me is to focus on one or the other. I will enlist your ideas not only to resolve when, but how and what!

I think Magic Island could be a great place for this event. Imagine a large beer tent along with a roped-off outdoor biergarten area. Live music would set the ambiance for either a spring or fall festival. Traditional (quality) food would be served and we finally have enough craft beer available to make this a delicious event!

I am looking for committee volunteers… Let’s do it!