Man, this site is getting updated almost as much as Pulp Heroes. But I’m looking to the horizon, and even though that thing is like at eye-level and shit, things are looking up. Once I quit my first second job I think that I’ll make more frequent visits to my web presences.

This weekend was packed full of events, some good, some bad, and some really really bad.

We’ll start with a quick statement about the dangers of volunteering. If, based on my two volunteer experiences, you were to ask me what the purpose of volunteering was, I’d probably say it was to inflict as much pain on an individual as possible while not compensating them in the least. My first volunteer work was at a cat shelter, Cozy Cat was the name if my memory serves me correctly, and I remember it being so much fun. I cleaned up cat poop, chased cats around trying to capture them and put them back in their cages, and to top it all off I was mauled by a big mean old bastard of a cat for getting to close to its banana hammock. I hope that cat is dead now. This weekend at the Kansas City Marathon I found out how things turn out when you’re an extra volunteer. You get exiled to the kind of place you imagine when one is threatened to be stationed in Siberia. You get a chair to sit in, but that’s more to designate it as a position than for sitting, because if you don’t keep moving you’ll freeze to death. You get lots of people yelling at you because “You people are idiots for blocking the streets and not telling anybody” and you have a ditzy underslept girl show up and apologize for leaving you there so long, promising she’ll find a replacement, rushing away to appoint said replacement, only to never be seen again. Then when things are looking hairy you abandon your post early to go drink beer instead.

That leads me to Beer Fest.

This was the inaugural year of the Kansas City Beer Fest, a much needed beer culture infusion in a city where the haute couture was natty light. Perhaps I’m a bit too harsh. Kansas City is also home to the Boulevard Brewery, where brewmeisters aren’t afraid to put their brewing paddles on the line and make some experimental brews in addition to their more traditional craft brew fair.That’s a whole lotta brew. There’s also Free State in Lawrence whose beer is very drinkable, and the 75th St Brewery has a robust roster of in-house potables. But overall the number of brewhouses in the area pales in comparison to say, Portland, where every other building is a brewery teeming with delicious alcoholic nectars, and they even have a thing called Nitrous which the good barkeeps of Kansas City meet with a look of befuddlement when questioned as to whether or not they have anything “on nitrous”. Suffice it to say, KC isn’t the place to be if you’re a hardcore beer enthusiast.

That being said, the first Kansas City Beer Fest went off without a hitch. 20 bones got you in the “door” which was a table on the top level of the Legends Mall parking garage. That 20 got you a ticket, which you then immediately gave to the good folks at the table behind the entrance table in exchange for a fancy little beer chalice. A GLASS beer chalice. The kind of glass that breaks when you get drunk and drop it on concrete in your uncoordinated stupor. You could then shell out 5 clams for another glass, which was a brilliant scheme if you ask me. But I digress.

After getting your official Kansas City Beer Fest drinkin’ cup, you were let loose into the mob of sheep, surrounded by beer-slinging border collies. Find a table, step right up, get a sample, drink, rinse, repeat. Some people were there to simply taste the beer, and for those folks buckets were provided to pour their cups into once they were finished sampling a particular brew, as to keep them from getting too hammered. As for the rest of the beer-swilling populous we were quite content to use those built in buckets that mother nature was kind enough to bless us with.

As it happens with these kinds of events, some beers were good, some were not so good, and others will remain a mystery since there was no way to try all of them. You can take a look at the full list of potables by clicking on the top image, if you feel so inclined. My favorites of the fest included Pranqster Golden Ale, Mackeson XXX Stout, and O’Dell IPA. I’d write a more in-depth review of these but I haven’t the proper beer vocabulary to do them justice, so you can follow those links and trust the pros. I’ll say that Pranqster was a really well-balanced Belgian Ale, the XXX Stout stained my cup orange, and O’Dell IPA is my new go to beer when I’m looking for an IPA to guzzle.

All in all is was a great event, well attended, and I’ll be dumbfounded if they don’t do it again.