No Big Secret

Okay, I'm told I can say as many positive things about my latest freelance client as I want.

I'd have taken some snaps of the project I was working on had I known.



And honestly, I've never had anything bad to say about Missouri's 'second largest brewery.' They're a class act all the way and always have been. Probably the closest to a complaint I ever uttered was that they used twist-off bottles that I couldn't re-use for my homebrews back when I was trying to build up a stock of bottles for that purpose. Before I got smart and started kegging my beers, I settled for Sam Adams many times when what I really wanted was a Bully! Porter or a Boulevard Pale.

So anyway, my phone rings and it's Missouri's best brewery with an opportunity for a production artist to mock up beer bottles for some soon-to-be-released libations. This is as close as I might get to being John Scofield when Miles called. The job might appear to lack glamour, but it's Boulevard.

Plus, I'm told, these beers aren't secrets, so I can excitedly share the news with all twelve of my readers: the Smokestack Series they're coming out with, yubba.

I sampled the Belgian Quadrupel (The Sixth Glass) at the brewery (it's been awhile since I had a Westmalle, but if you want over the top Trappist ale, this is the real deal). Their head brewer is from Belgium, which is Mecca, Disney World, payday, the State Fair, demolition derby and Super Bowl all rolled into one (for beer lovers).

The brave souls in charge have given their Belgian genius license to play with some very dangerous yeasts. The quad is amazing: funky, fruity, big and delicious, and if that yeast ever got into their Wheat Beer—the beer that pays the bills—lights out, baby. The Saison in the series uses the even more menacing Brettanomyces, which fits the style but is a bacteria so spooky even homebrewers get edgy thinking about it.

And I came away with a case of the Double Wide IPA, a 'double IPA' that's hard to distinguish from a hop-head's homebrew. This is a beer I would make. In fact, it's a beer I have made, more or less, a few times.

Long Strange Tripel is the fourth beer in the series, and if it's anything like the Tripel Steven made a few years ago in a pilot batch, hold on to your monastic vows.

So here's the news, since it turns out to be less than top secret: Boulevard...new beers...Belgian stuff mainly...comes in champagne bottles...probably be pricey but worth every penny...



You are allowed to show your pleasure (as the saying goes).