Beer School with Boulevard

Last night I attended Beer School at Barley's Brewhaus in Overland Park. Jeremy one of the brewers and Owner John McDonald were the speakers. Like all of these events they provided a lot of information about both the beers and the brewery. They even brought nice, well detailed information sheets about some of the beers. I suppose I should take it as a compliment that Jeremy (who attends beer school regularly) told me that he was trying to give me some detailed beer geek information so I did not have to ask too many questions. But enough about that, what about the beers?


The first up was their newest beer Boulevard Amber. I have to admit that I am not a great fan of the standard American Amber Ale, I think most of them are too malt focused and tend to end up cloying and sweet. That being said, I did like this beer. The malt and hops are much more balanced that most examples and there was a bit of hops at the end the cleared the palate so it was ready for another drink. They did mention that this beer was similar to the seasonal Irish Ale, but I have not had one of those recently enough to tell you for sure. What I can tell you is that I like this much better than Fat Tire,


After that we had the ZŌN. This is a Belgian Wit beer, the same style as the famous Celis White. What I really like about ZŌN is that it is a nice crisp example of this style. The flavor and aroma citrus does come out from the coriander and the orange peel, but it does not over power the flavor of the beer. So many examples of this style, both commercially and homebrewed either have very little of the spicy character, or it is so far over the top that you can't taste anything else. It takes a restrained hand to make this type of beer well, and Boulevard's is one of the best.

Then the started in with the Smokestack Series. The first up was Long Strange Triple, which is oddly enough a Belgian style triple. I like this beer, it is well made and is just what one looks for in a triple. It is not anything that will knock your socks off, but it is competently made which puts it ahead of some other beers on the market. I have to confess that triple is not the first thing I reach for when I want a beer. I am more of a fan of smaller beers that I can have more of for the same amount of buzz. If you like big Belgian beers and have not tried this one you are missing something and should grab a bottle next time you are at the store.

Next up was the beer I had been waiting for Dark Truth Stout, which is not on the website at this time. I have three bottles of this that I have been holding onto so I really wanted to try it. The beer has a nice roasted barley / coffee flavor, a few hints of chocolate - but not much. I lost track of how many specialty grains they said were in it, ten or eleven, it could be more. There was some flavors of dark stone fruit and port from a little oxidation which were very nice. I am not quite sure if it would be a dry stout or an American stout. I know it does not fall in the other BJCP stout sub-styles, well perhaps oatmeal stout because I remember they said there were oats in the grist. If all you drink is Guinness, you need to buy a bottle of this and taste the real thing.

The final offering of the night was Double Wide IPA. This is an imperialized version of the Single Wide IPA, which I actually like better. The Double Wide seems a bit cloying to me, where the Single Wide is just a good clean beer. I think IPA's should be thirst quenching on a hot summer day, and the big imperial interpretations are just not that kind of beers. Compared to some of the other really big IPA's Double Wide is rather restrained in hopping so it is a nice choice for those that are working their way up to being a hop-head.