Smokestack Brewery Tour: A Must Do For Every Craft Beer Drinker!

Last night I was part of a test run of a new tour at Boulevard Brewery. This new tour is still in the works and they are getting a feel for what they are going to do with it, but they are looking to start offering this tour to the public in the coming weeks, maybe even as early as two weeks from now. However just as a disclaimer, the details I share with you may change by the time you go for your Smokestack tour.

Boulevard has a free tour that last year alone gave more than 50,000 people the opportunity to get a sneak peek behind the scenes look into brewery operations, history, and to everyone's delight a sample of their craft. It is great for people new to and experienced in craft beer.

Within the past few years Boulevard developed a second tour, called the Unfiltered tour. This tour was a lot more in depth information and had more access to different parts of the brewery. The Unfiltered tour is only offered on Sundays and is limited to 20 spots per tour. This is by design to make sure the tour guide can interact more each individual guest. The limit also allows for each person to taste a wide range of smokestack and special beers. When I went last summer, we started off with trying the Nelson, which is going to be in a new series of beers coming out in the near future from what I hear. During the tour we got to go beneath the bottling lines and see parts of the brewery I had never seen before and we also went in the hop cooler and got to try a few hops and see all the variety of hops used in the process. Because I went during the summer part of the tour took us to see one of the best views of Kansas City. One drawback of this tour is that they go on sale once a month and usually sell out within minutes, so you would have to be camped out on their website. However that tour is definitely worth it, especially if you like beer and the brewing process.

So these two tours bring me back to the tour I went on last night. Both previously mentioned tours have a specific goal and purpose in mind. They are designed to teach people about the brewery, history, and process geared towards humanizing the people who make the great beer we enjoy. Boulevard felt there was under served market for tours at the brewery. Lets suppose you either have gone on the other tours and you have been there, done that, got the t-shirt (literally, I have a couple). How does the brewery reach out to people who are experienced with not only drinking beer, but also know about the brewing process? What can the brewery offer people who maybe have been home brewing for years? What can the brewery offer a beer nerd? How about the opportunity to have a friendly, in depth, detailed conversation about Boulevard, brewing, equipment, ingredients and especially the beer? When I showed up yesterday afternoon in the Tasting Room at Boulevard there were five other people going on the tour (I think they intended for 10 to 15 on a tour). Each person had a flight of four Smokestack beers. The flight included Sixth Glass Quad, Dark Truth Stout, Long Strange Tripel, and Double Wide IPA. There was a plate of strawberries and a plate of chocolates. The tour guides introduced themselves as well as a brewer on hand to get even more technical about the process of making the beer in front of us. We walked through each beer discussing the qualities of the beer we were drinking. We also experimented with flavors combinations between food and beer as well as how the beer order changed the flavor of the beer. For example, strawberries and Long Strange Tripel go very well together. The guides were very knowledgeable but were also aware that they had things to learn about beer (as we all do), at which point the deferred to the brewer who was nice enough to stay after his responsibility in the brew house was done and answer all of our questions. He really demonstrated his passion for beer and shared that passion with us. The experience of this tour really could change based on guest participation or interaction with the brewery staff. The guides and brewer really made it apparent that they wanted to answer any question we had. If there are brewery secrets, we weren't aware we uncovered them, because every question was answered.

After awhile drinking and talking about beer, we took a different tour than the normal route taken by the free tour and I got to see parts of the brewery I had never seen before. Despite the numerous tours I have been on at Boulevard, I have never gotten the chance to see their equipment running. Not only were they transferring batches between tanks but I got to see a batch of Sixth Glass being made. IT WAS AWESOME! The aroma in the room just hit me and it was beautiful. Oh! I forgot to mention we had a beer in our hands as we toured. For the most part this is intended as of right now to be Tank 7, but you might be surprised what asking nicely will do for you. I am now officially on Team Radler and also got to taste their Tasting Room ESB. The two tastes was because C is nice enough to let me try hers.

This tour gave a chance for the guides to really flex their mighty knowledge about the brewery, beer, and brewing. You could tell they really enjoyed the event almost as much as we did. When the tour brought us back to the tasting room, we got to crack open a couple bottles of Imperial Stout and ask questions to our hearts content or just past 5 pm, whichever came first. There also may or may not of been a high recognizable person still working hard having a discussion there in the tasting room with another gentleman. John McDonald was there and he is a super nice guy, despite me going all fan boy on him and asking for a picture with him. For a guy that most likely never has to work another day in his life he is dedicated and still working after 5 on a Wednesday afternoon.

For the perks of this tour, you get what equates to 3 or 4 beers, a lesson on food pairings, an almost intimate discussion about Boulevard, beer, and the brewing process, and you get to see a side of Boulevard you don't to see unless you work there. Boulevard has given the potential to allow 240 people a month to experience the tour. Even though this tour will regularly be scheduled for Monday through Thursday afternoons from 3:15 to 5 pm, I feel it is more than worth the effort and nominal expense to get to know more about the catalyst for the craft beer movement in the Kansas City Area. For more information and how to register for the tour go to Boulevard's website.