Because the Duff Tour is in Springfield

We had to tear ourselves away from the World War I Museum on Saturday because we had a date with Boulevard. We had a 3:00 reservation for the Boulevard Brewery tour. You have to call ahead for the tour because it is a small operation, but we had an in because a mother of one of the Pi Kapps works in their offices. Another case of it's not what you know, but who you know. And I'll take advantage of it!

 

Another great thing about the brewery is that all the tour guides are volunteers. They get paid in beer. They get a certain number of cases per month (it may just be one) and a keg or two a year. With that, they are required to work once a month or once every other month. Consequently, you know they want to be there and they make the tour pretty fun.

 

As we were a tad early for our tour, we checked in, got our tasting tokens for later, and perused the gift shop, noting what delightful items we would like to purchase for ourselves and others on our way out the door. The funniest part, possibly of the whole experience, was the wine that they sold in their gift shop. "Wine?" you might ask. "I thought this was a brewery?" Well, let me tell you a story.

 

The brewery opened and they wanted to do tours and have tastings. And then they built an event center and wanted to sell their product through the event center. Well, according to state law they couldn't do that, but as a winery they could. So, they had to start producing wine. Boulevard produces a small amount of wine and sells it in their gift shop (and I'm not sure where else). We picked up a bottle for Amy, Alec's sister, as a small thank-you for taking care of our animals for the weekend. After taking care of Daphne, she probably needed it!

 

After reading about the wine and laughing, we got started on our tour. We learned about hops and fermentation and all sorts of beer-y types of things. And we went into the barrel room. This is the room where they age their specialty beers in bourbon and whiskey barrels. It smelled AWESOME in there. And what did we spy with our little eyes? Barrels from Four Roses Distillery, the distillery Alec and Travis visited when Alec went out to Lexington in April 2010. And then the "It's a Small World" music began playing in our heads. Darn you, Disney...

 

We traveled on with our guides through the rest of the brewery, got a lovely view of downtown KC from the event center, had our Laverne and Shirley moment while looking at the bottling room (unfortunately the machine was off and they weren't bottling, schlamiel and schlamozle), and headed over to the tasting room. Yum. While not everything was fabulous, there were some winners. I'm a fan of the Irish Stout and have the t-shirt to prove it. The unfiltered wheat and the amber were tasty as well. Alec, who doesn't like IPAs, liked the Double Wide IPA. And we all liked the Toby beer sign on the wall. After laughing about the sign and taking photos of it, we purchased many things of great importance in the gift shop, including a t-shirt with a camper trailer on it that reminds me of the one that was perpetually parked across the street from my old house.

 

After we drank enough sample-sized beers to be satisfied, Jay and Jinal drove us to Grinders, a sandwich-y place to eat featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. And it was tasty. Then it was back to the apartment so Alec and Jinal could fall asleep during the first half of the OU game. Then we watched some Dexter.

 

Next installment: Will they make it back to the World War I Museum? Will the wind prevent then from getting to the top of Liberty Monument? All this and more in the exciting conclusion of "Kansas City, There We Went!"