I Wish That it Would Rain

So Valentines Day. Its here. Having worked at a chocolate store and now working at a liquor store I can assure you that this is very much a commercial holiday of epic proportions. Before I go to work and answer a million and one questions about Boulevard Chocolate ale, I wanted to acknowledge my Valentine.

First and Foremost, I want to make sure that Miss Jessica Manco knows that I love her very deeply. I would have never guessed that on April 3rd, 2009 selling a piece at the Leedy Voulkous would be by far the second most important thing that happened that evening. Early in the night, I locked eyes with a beautiful woman wearing a black shirt with varsity style lettering across it and a leopard print skirt. It’s one of those moments you hear people talk about, but never really believe you will experience. It seems like Santa Claus or Creationism; something that would be awful nice if it were real, but it just isn’t. But it happened. I can still see it in my mind almost three full years later. I remember plain as day what she was wearing and can still see her face from that day in mind. I can tell you that the first time I saw her was in the Third Eye parking lot and I was facing west and slightly south when we locked eyes, sun setting slowly behind her smile. Then, as I continued to chat with friends of mine who had made it out, I locked eyes with her once more being on almost the opposite side from her than before. She was beautiful. Still is.

I knew of her work, and that she was also in this show. It was a little intimidating. So beautiful, so immensely talented. I had to talk to her. It’s funny now thinking back on how unmemorable I had to have been. I thought I was going for it, and doing it respectfully, but it really must have not even seemed like I was hitting on her. When some of my friends were leaving to go to the West Bottoms, I stayed. I was trying to figure out how to not make an ass of myself and get my interest across. I even “called in backup” so to speak, getting my roommate and another friend or two down to the after party at the gallery, thinking that perhaps if I had some friends in a room filled otherwise with strangers I could perform better socially.

At one point she went to leave, and I scurried after and her friend Candace. In what turned out to be a successful hail mary, I exchanged numbers with her under the guise of guest teaching under her at Paseo. After guest teaching for almost a month on my days off for free, we essentially began dating on May 5th. Valentine as a word comes from the root valens, which means worthy, strong, and powerful. These words apply to a definition of Jessica, but do not complete it. Jessica is joie de vivre personified, infecting each atmosphere she enters with her beautiful smile and carefree spirit. She helps me be less doom and gloom with her presence alone, because her happiness makes sadness impossible. I love you very much Jessica and am incredibly thankful that you are in my life.
Jessica introduced me to Dwele and this song seems pretty appropriate….

Also, if you live in Kansas City, there are Valentines out there for you.

Wiley and I collaborated on some panels while he was here last.

He kind of laid them out with his “love” and I added a super quick version of one of my christmas card flowers.

For those of you on reddit mapping the skulls, these would be perhaps more challenging.

It technically “graffiti” I guess, but the intent wasn’t harm, just to inject the human hand into city life in a positive way.

Call me a pussy, but it’s hard for me to justify doing damaging illegal graffiti in Kansas City anymore.

But i still have the impulse to create and compete with all of the advertisements out there.

Essentially it’s just an expression of love.

If you want one of these, just take it. They are for you in a way.

It was a lot of hard work.

But love isn’t easy.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Kansas City.

I have a friend, Matt “Loo” Ruzich, who is a Boulevard Brewer. He has a annual chili cooking competition that he holds at the Boulevard tasting room and giftshop. I usually miss the event because it’s held on a Saturday and i usually close that night. This year, my shifts got changed last minute. So i had planned on not being able to go but ended up last minute scrambling for an idea and supplies.

I decided to go for a bbq styled chili. The base was pork shoulder or what’s called a boston butt, the cut of meat that is used for pulled pork. I smoked it for as long as possible then cut it and added it to some italian sausage. Chris helped me pull together a traditional chili base. Corn, white kidney beans, black beans, fresh garlic, canned tomatoes and a fresh one. My base would have been way off without his help, so BIG thanks to Chris.

So after it sat all night, I came in slightly confident, mostly confident that I couldn’t have done better. The contest was divided into meat and veggie categories. Meat had about 8 to 10 entries. A lot were hybrid ideas like mine, only they had gone further by not adding tomatoes. I liked the entry called Chili Chili the second best, but I still voted for mine because I really did think it was the best.
And so did everyone else apparently. So I won the chili cookoff with my entry “BBQ BULLY APORKALYPSE.”

As far as beer drinking goes, I jumped at the chance to have what I can’t normally. I drank quite a few Double Pale Ales, an unreleased Boulevard beer. I liked it. It was, as the name implies, a double version of the original pale. Nice tropical fruit in the hops towards the middle. A brewer on hand explained to me that the version I had been enjoying was oxidized by not being completely hermetically sealed throughout the process. It effected the aftertaste, which I noticed as he pointed it out. I look forward to hopefully having this fresh one day, although there seems to be no plans on releasing it. Next was a couple pints of the Dry Stout, which has been discontinued in bottles. If you like Guinness and you have a chance to get a pint, don’t pass it up. It is a nice simple irish styled dry stout with a slightly fuller body that Guinness. I also tried what was called Nelson. It was a light session beer that had some muscat juice added (white wine). It tasted Kolschy to me. Not a huge fan. I tried to get some information on Collaboration #3, but all I got was it was going to be with a mid sized east coast brewery. The best drink of the evening was given to me by another brewer: a 2008 Boulevard Imperial Stout. It was by far the longest aged imperial stout I’ve ever had, seemed a bit hot and boozy. But what had happened to the beer I remember as being so large so roasted, was remarkable. It had all come together in a beautiful marriage of ingredients. Really hard to explain, but it seemed smaller in mouth feel with all the same great flavors I knew in the beer when it had just been released. i also had a taste of a Lost Abbey beer for the first time. Super badass hoppy saison.

The unreleased Boulevard line of Wines.

All in all, it was a super great time that i am very thankful to have been a part of. Big thanks to Loo and all the other Brewers who were there for sharing some awesome beer!

A couple pictures from the Valiant Hearts show at Mattie Rhodes. I really enjoyed these works in particular from these rural Costa Rican artists.

I really like the old BBC footage, I would love to see that special in it’s entirety…..
The scatting or whatever you wana call it at the end is amazing….

A new wrinkle in the life of the liquor store clerk in Kansas City is the release of Boulevard Chocolate Ale. The tickle-me-elmo of beers, the chocolate ale has become the most sought after beer this city has ever seen. It’s marketability lies in its uniqueness and roots in Kansas City. First and foremost, the beer is a collaboration with local chocolatier Christopher Elbow. Elbow has been successful in his own right around town, with chocolate shops and ice creameries. Elbow himself and his own audience have to be responsible for part of the demand. What makes the beer unique is it is by far the thinnest styled beer to hold that much chocolate flavor, and consequently speaks to a crossover demographic….. you’re normal domestic beer drinkers. Chocolate in beer is usually done in stouts and porters, letting large malts and more often than not portions of chocolate malt combine and hold chocolate. These tend to overwhelm the uninitiated looking for a casual chocolate fix without the effort of drinking such a viscous beer. The Boulevard Chocolate ale is made with pale malt and tons of cacao nibs essentially. It’s a pale ale with cacao in place of hops to a certain extent. Personally? I far prefer Southern Tier Brewery’s sweet stout line called the “Blackwater Series.” Their Choklat Stout is more my flavor, but I can see the appeal in the Boulevard product especially since we’re talking people with vastly different palettes than me.

This picture was taken outside the Main street Berbiglia in the afternoon. People had started following the delivery truck around by this point. If you look close in this picture and the next you can see the people lined up across the front of the store.

Drinking this year’s batch of bottles, I immediately noticed the enhanced sweetness. Last year there had been a substantial difference between the bottled version and the draft version, so this year they sweetened the bottled version in an attempt to find a middle ground.

I liked last year better. More subtle, more integrated…. this year it was slick and sweet with a mouthfeel that I find awkward. Call me old fashioned, but this should be based in a porter or stout in my mind. The strength of last year was a chocolate pilsner taste, subdued chocolate noticeable low toned hops and yeast meeting. This? It’s all chocolate, low malt, hidden hop.

I enjoyed attempting to make a Black and tan with this Schlafly Irish Style Extra Stout. I failed at making the black and tan, but the resulting beer cocktail was great tasting without being “proper”.
All in all, Chocolate ale is a thing that happens now; people who don’t drink craft beer going fucking nuts for a Boulevard offering once a year and I probably won’t buy any next year despite working at a liquor store…
Boulevard makes other beers much more worthy of this hype, but this beer will probably always be impossible to get, and consequently sought after by all. Happy hunting and don’t be afraid to try something else when this is sold out at you’re local store…..

I’ll start doing some alcohol reviews previews and oped’s here from now on.
Preview for next week:

Did I just drink the future of the worlds largest brewery? Maybe……