Tag Archives: Kansas City

Riverside Red X (Kansas City) (Review)

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Having grown up in the Northland area of Kansas City I am ashamed that I have never visited the Riverside Red X, until this weekend. Just as their website claims, your shopping experience will be an adventure! This store is just plain cool. It is part high end liquor store, part Kmart like store and part antique shop. The place is huge with tons of random things ranging from a walk in humidor to an interesting museum section and of course an extensive alcohol section. The beer section, while disorganized, is very impressive with brands ranging from Nebraska Brewing Company to Brouwerji De Molen and everything in between.

 

 

 

 

 

Red X also has an extensive wine and spirits selection.The staff was extremely friendly as were the prices. I have simply been missing out, Red X is truly a unique place and worth a visit. Even if you do not need booze or trinkets (but who does not need such things?)! To conclude my point, just look at the cow pictured below (which I assume came from the Kansas City Cow Parade).

Swagger in Martin City (Review)

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I just returned from a short trip back to my home town of Kansas City. Thanks to very fortunate timing I was able to visit one of the best beer bars one will find anywhere Swagger. My friends and I visited Swagger’s newly opened Martin City location. Swagger’s reputation for an excellent beer bar had long proceeded my visit and I am happy to say it lived up to those expectations. The new Swagger had about 75-80 excellent taps. While I did not see anything extremely rare like sours or a whole lot of unique special releases the taps were all very high quality and included a few surprises such as Harviestoun Old Engine Oil and Weihenstephaner products which I have not previously seen on draft. I also found enjoyed how the labeled products like Budweiser as “American Adjunct Lagers” (which is completely accurate, I have just never seen it put fourth on a menu like that). I also noticed every beer our party ordered came out in an appropriate often matching glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swagger is also in the process of adding a whiskey bar with high end whiskey on tap! On top of the excellent beer and upcoming whiskey the food was excellent as well. I ordered the “Dead Texan” which is a large burger with an bacon, an egg, fresh jalapenos and uses two grilled cheese sandwiches for a bun. It was a gluttonous masterpiece!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swagger is not cheap but I feel it provided an excellent level of quality for the money. The music they were playing when we were there was pretty strange, however I can certainly get over that. Still, I absolutely love the place and consider it a must visit for any beer conscious traveler to Kansas City. Next time I am trying the Tempura Burger!

A Quik Post Before I Drink Some World Class Stuff

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Sadly, I am only in my hometown of Kansas City for one more evening, luckily it will be an evening with some world class beers.

In another area of interest, I found this on Twitter Brewing Up. I am always excited to hear news about the success of craft beer. In 2011 the beer industry as a whole shrunk a little bit (2.0% which is actually not a little bit at all considering the size of the beer industry). The good news is the craft beer aspect of that industry 16.4%! To everyone working in the industry and everyone who enjoys good beer, congratulations and keep up the great work!

Kansas City

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I am stoked to finally be back in Kansas City! So much so, that after working till midnight then driving three hours to Platte City (a suburb of Kansas City, in the north, near Weston which is home to McCormick Distillery and the Weston Brewing Company), I am wide awake! I will have some excellent beers to drink. I hope to either hit up Swagger or All Stars while I am here and since all of my friends in town are Flying Saucer junkies, I am sure I will end up there as well. Beer-wise, I am especially excited to drink what I am calling the “Three Crazy Russians” (I know the name needs some work) which are the 2010 Big Sky Ivan the Terrible, North Coast Old Rasputin XIV and a Cigar City Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout in one setting! I will certainly inform you all how that went!

The Kansas City Chiefs!

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—Originally Posted on http://beerandboardgames.blogspot.com 10/31/2011—

The Kansas City Chiefs just became the second team in history to lose the first three games of the season and then win the next four. With a few more home games coming up, things are looking good. I have not been a fan of Todd Haley since day one, but if somehow he can keep this up, all will be forgiven. Sadly though, I have seen this before, it always seems to come crashing down the second a Kansas City sports team does well enough to give us fans a shimmer of hope. Furthermore, with the exception of the Raiders game, the wins were not pretty, but 5 field goals or 10 touchdowns a win is a win and tonight’s was fantastic! Also, speaking of the Raiders, I am particularly sad to see Al Davis go, the circus he created in Oakland was always a source of humor and comfort, in that, no matter how bad the Chiefs were, we were still not as big a joke as the Raiders organization.

While I am off on a major tangent, I might as well as share a link about Kansas City. Kansas City is the home to Boulevard Brewery and the Weston Brewing Company, as well as several good brewpubs and other breweries nearby such as Free State in Lawrence Kansas. If you are reading this from outside of Missouri and have not tried Boulevard, their Smokestack series beers are generally a safe bet, the Collaboration Number 2 (White IPA, collaboration with Deschutes, may be hard to find now), Saison Brett and Bourbon Barrel Quad are some of the most prominent brews. Kansas City is a fantastic city and the only city in America to make Top Destinations 2012 at Frommer’s. http://www.frommers.com/micro/2011/top-destinations-2012/ The article is interesting, but still barely scratches the surface of Kansas City’s charm.