shiner ruby redbird

It has been hot in New York City. Granted, it's not as hot here as it was in Austin when I was there (or even when I was in the Midwest), but when you live in a city where everything stinks (the garbage, the sweaty people who press up against you in the subway), 90 degrees and high humidity can be a real bummer.

One of the bottle caps I got when I arrived in St Louis was Shiner's Ruby Redbird, which looks like an amazing beer: it's made with grapefruit and ginger. That sounds incredibly refreshing on a hot summer day. So it makes sense that the bottle cap advertises "the perfect summer beer."

I would not put this bottle cap on par with Shiner's Goat (or sheep, or whatever animal it is!) but it is a rather nice crown.

I'll have to see if I can find Shiner Ruby Redbird in my neighborhood. So far I haven't been able to find any. If you know where I can get these beers in the NYC area, let me know! I'll even take it on tap!

shock top

Shock Top Beer is one of those beers that I just wish I liked more. The label is pretty cool, it's a belgian wheat beer, it hails from the midwest (and what can be bad about that?) and it has potential to be a cool bottle cap. I even did another tour of the Budweiser Brewery Tour this trip!

Yet, Shock Top could be "shock-ier".  As you can see, it just says "Shock Top" and has a little sun burst. Why doesn't it have the cool orange slice with the sun glasses? That would definitely be a hall of fame contender!

Shock Top, I implore you. Make your Orange-man mascot your bottle cap design.

new belgium brewing

Having six people who are all very supportive of an obsession with bottle caps comes in handy -- mostly in bars.

During the Midwest extravaganza, we spent an evening at D'Arcy's Pint in Springfield, IL: home of the horseshoe. If you're not from central Illinois, you might not be aware of this culinary delight. In so many words, a horseshoe consists of meat on texas toast covered in french fries and smothered in cheese sauce. The first third of a horseshoe is pure bliss; the next two-thirds...well, let's just say that you'll feel it the next morning. Needless to say, a horseshoe is best eaten with a bottled beer. 

One of the fun discoveries at D'Arcy's was New Belgium Brewing's Fat Tire. Unfortunately, according to their Libation Location, it is unavailable in the NY Tri-state area (which is probably why I haven't heard of it yet!)  

The best part of finding New Belgium, besides the fun bike on the bottle cap, is its tie-in with the Tour de Donut (mentioned earlier in this blog) -- the 32 mile bike race where you can eat as many donuts as you can at two pit stops to knock 5 minutes (per donut) off your time! Apparently, a competitive eater from Kansas City participated this year and ate 40 donuts and still finished the race. Michael and I ate 38 fewer donuts than that between us, and that was enough for us. You gotta love the food out there in the Midwest.

schlafly

I can't blog about my trip to the Midwest without mentioning Schlafly.

Unfortunately, due to delays in our flight from NYC to STL, we were unable to fit everything into our time in St. Louis, and the Schlafly brewery tour/restaurant had to be scrapped from our itinerary. (Sorry! We'll come next time, I promise!)

But I was given a Schlafly bottle cap upon my landing by my gracious hosts.

I feel like I'll have a better idea of what to say after I actually have a chance to visit the brewery, so just enjoy their lovely bottle cap. And Schlafly, Michael and I participated in the Tour de Donut this year in Staunton -- a small town in Illinois outside of St. Louis -- and we saw a few folks on your bike team! How did you guys do?

boulevard brewery

Thank goodness plans can change. During our sojourn to Kansas City last week, my travel companions and I did not always plan ahead. We really wanted to go on the Boulevard Brewing Co.'s brewery tour, but we didn't realize until the day of that we needed reservations! We figured that we would wing it and see if we could finagle our way onto the tour. When we got to the brewery, it didn't look good. The tour was booked up (months in advance, apparently) but they took our name and asked us to wait around.  Luckily, there were some last minute no-shows, and on we were! The part that got me the most excited? The way they keep track of the free samples is by using bottle caps as tokens. Guess who pocketed the extra bottle caps? Yours truly. And luckily, since I was traveling with a large group, we were each able to taste each other's beers, so we didn't have to use all of the bottle caps for the samples. So thank you, Boulevard, for fitting us into your tour, and also providing some free bottle caps for my blog! Bonus points for you!!

Once we realized how good the brewery was, we started seeing the beer on tap and in bottles in restaurants across across the city (including in Oklahoma Joe's -- possibly the best BBQ in town. And it's housed in a gas station, no less) as well as in St. Louis when we returned to home base.

Currently, Boulevard has three types of bottle caps.

If I had to pick a favorite, I think the smokestack (with image) bottle cap would be the top.  It looks (vaguely) like the brewery, it has the name Boulevard on it, and it also mentions Kansas City -- and for a microbrew, that's key. You want to know where your microbrew comes from!

My favorite of all of the ones we tasted was definitely The Sixth Glass. We actually tried this brew the night before our travels to the brewery when we were eating BBQ (can you sense a theme) at Jack Stack (it was right across the street from our hotel -- there was no driving around looking for pulled pork on the first evening in town). The Sixth Glass has about twice the alcohol rate of a normal beer (more than 10 percent) and is also richer in flavor. You can sense figs and dates in the brew and there's very little bitter aftertaste. Even one of my travel companions, who hates the bitter taste of most beer, found The Sixth Glass to be surprisingly palatable. Actually, it seems that most of the beers that Boulevard brews are rich in flavor: we tried a stout at the brewery that was amazingly light and had the unmistakable taste of coffee.

Boulevard -- and downtown Kansas City.

They make beer in those pipes! 

Just a few of our many taste-tested beers...and a few bottle caps to boot.

P.S. To all you traders out there: if you need any Boulevard crowns, I have some extras.  Email me at laurenwalles (at) gmail (dot) com if you want to trade.

lost trail

Last week was my biannual trip to the Midwest. The pit stops? St Louis, MO; Springfield, IL; Columbia, MO; and Kansas City (KS and MO). Mostly it was visiting family. But there was, of course, an ulterior motive. Finding bottle caps! The trip started off well: the traveling companions I met at the airport had a few for me and as soon as I arrived in St Louis, there were a few more!  But those will be discussed at a later date.

The first crown I want to highlight this week is Lost Trail Soda. Lost Trail was purchased at a supermarket in Kansas City (Kansas! Not Missouri!) after a trip to the wonderful independent bookstore Rainy Day Books. I was able to get Root Beer, Sarsaparilla, Cream Soda, and Strawberry & Cream in a 4-pack. All of the bottle caps were the same, but since I was there, and buying an "authentic" Kansas soda, I figured I would try as many flavors as I could. This was the only root beer that I could find that is made and bottled in Kansas, but if anyone knows of any others, tell me about them in the comments section.

The bottle cap is fun -- a cowboy on a horse yelling "Yahoo!" all one color. It's a playful idea, although I wish they would have pulled a Stevens Point/Henry Weinhard and given the cowboy a few additional things to say. Yee-haw? Howdy? Giddiup? The possibilities are endless. Lost Trail, if you need more ideas, let me know.

I'm happy to report that all of the flavors (save the Strawberry & Cream -- WAY too sweet) were quite delicious and were made with cane sugar (not HFCS). The cream soda in particular was excellent: smooth and flavorful. I'd definitely buy them again if given the opportunity!

ny times

Still traveling this week (but have lots of bottle caps to blog about!) In the meantime, check out this article at the NY Times about the comeback of soda fountains.