Looking for KC’s coldest beer, one (sometimes) frosty mug at a time
We are not scientists. We fear numbers. Unavoidably, however, once we set out to find a truly cold beer — thereby answering a serious and quantifiable summer need — a metric was required, a system, a tool.
Hello, $8.95 Taylor digital instant-read pocket thermometer.
Each volunteer outfitted with one such device, and with zero further guidance beyond a tipsy “Go where you think you’ll taste the Rockies, maybe,” we left the building.
A couple of weeks and an oxhoft of carby pint pulls later, we can tell you a couple of things with near-laboratory certainty.
First, we’re all moving to Idaho. The Boise Weekly, from which we stole this idea, has been dip-testing brews for more than a decade, and that august paper keeps finding sub-32-degree beers by the dozen. Last year, its winning glass was a frigid 27.1 degrees. (All temperatures in this story are Fahrenheit; we are not Canadian.) We thought we’d find a place around here where the suds did more than just flirt with beer’s freezing point (about 27 degrees). We were wrong.
Second, and more important, we know that the cross-section of local, nonchain establishments sampled in the pages that follow misses a few bars. More than a few. Probably someone’s favorite, and that someone’s going to have a word with us in the comments section at pitch.com. (A pre-emptive confession: Beer-dampened and all scienced out, we succumbed to the siren call of the cocktail when we got to some of our favorite spots. Keep a stein on ice, Port Fonda. Next time, Harry’s.)
By all means, tell us where the beer is colder than the beer we drank. We somehow found room in our sad waterbed bellies for this many, so give us a little time and we’ll go out again.
Meanwhile, here’s to cold-ish beer, organized from warmest to chilliest. We’d toast, but we don’t want to touch the glass and warm our drink.
O’Dowd’s Little Dublin – 46.1 degrees
4742 Pennsylvania
8:05 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Guinness
The rooftop patio, with its Plaza views, is the draw at O’Dowd’s when the weather’s nice. But even near dusk, sometimes the sun is a little too … sunny? So we sat at the downstairs bar and ordered what you’re supposed to here: a Guinness. Was it especially cold? No. But the presentation was perfect, and it tasted crisp, and that’s all that matters with a Guinness. At 8:15, the lights dimmed. At 8:30, they dimmed just a smidge more, in advance of the party people. We eyed the Bushmills and Powers bottles, rigged upside-down, taplike, behind the bar. We resisted, settled up. Outside it was dark. Our battle with daylight was won.
The Peanut on Main – 44.7 degrees
5000 Main
Noon Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
We’d never seen the Peanut looking so clean as when we stopped by this Tuesday afternoon, the bar’s first customers. The tables, freshly wiped down, shone. The air smelled of sprayed cleaning products. Two baseball games competed for our attention: White Sox vs. Twins and Astros vs. Tigers. Twins-Sox, a matchup with more division implications, was awarded the audio. A split order was executed: a half-dozen wings and a BLT. Also, some beers. Also, some tequila shots. We indulged a daydream: many more beers, many more tequila shots, another four hours watching baseball. Instead, we ate, settled up, walked out the back door and past the kitchen. Out back, the cook was smoking in the shade. He nodded, took a last drag of his cigarette. Then we all went back to work.
Quinton’s Waldo Bar – 43.9 degrees
7438 Wornall
5:45 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
This outpost of Lawrence’s well-known Mass Street bar and restaurant looks and feels like its older brother to the west. For some reason, the beer isn’t terribly cold, but the throngs of customers who congregate here to watch a game don’t seem too concerned.
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The Foundry – 43.7 degrees
424 Westport Road
9 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Artie (mix of McCoy’s Brown Ale and McCoy’s Raspberry Wheat)
The Foundry’s patio, in the center of Westport, is a high-demand spot when the weather’s fine. We waited a few minutes for a table, ordered our beers, and said nothing to each other for roughly 20 minutes. The people-watching was sufficient. Young women at an adjacent table sipped at various colored straws poking from a massive fishbowl. We consulted our menu: Their concoction was full of vodka, coconut rum, pineapple juice, Sierra Mist and homemade sour. It cost them $26. A most summery beverage and likely quite cold, though we did not verify.
The Majestic – 43.4 degrees
931 Broadway
5:45 p.m. Thursday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
One of the best happy-hour deals in town can be found at an unlikely establishment: the Majestic, the old-school, sorta fancy jazz steakhouse downtown on Broadway. (It runs from 2 to 6 p.m. weekdays.) We had a pair of lamb sliders (with goat cheese and roasted red peppers, and a side of the Majestic’s unique wedge fries) and a Boulevard, and the total with tax was about $10. Majestic, indeed! Around 6, diners began to filter in, and a jazz duo, Paul Shinn and Joe Lisinicchia, quietly started a set for the upstairs crowd. We waited until the end of a Duke Ellington song and made our way to the door, full and happy.
Westport Café & Bar – 43.4 degrees
419 Westport Road
7 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Kronenbourg 1664
We’re comfortable in our boorish American ways, but it’s still nice to pretend we’re in Paris once in a while. It didn’t feel very Continental slogging through Rockfest traffic to get here on this Saturday, but a certain European ease finally arrived when we settled in at a table near the window. The Pimm’s Cup at Westport Café looks more like a flower than a cup of booze, and the Kronenbourg is très refreshing. Suddenly everyone seemed so pretty and effortless: the servers, the 50-something couple at the next table, the guy with the paperback at the bar. We wanted to hug them all and say: Je t’aime! Because it was true, and because we don’t know how to say anything else in French.
Fitz’s Blarney Stone – 42.8 degrees
3801 Broadway
4:15 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Blarney Brew
When we set off for Fitz’s, a bartender at another, more upstanding midtown establishment told us, “Oh. Good luck.” But it isn’t luck that you need at this hardscrabble corner bar. No, you just need a pair of ears, the better to overhear Fitz’s regulars gab about life. “Pam came in crying today. … You could be on fire and not give a shit. … They chopped off his leg, but he’s still drinking and shit.” The price of admission: $1.75 pints of Blarney Brew.
Mike’s Tavern – 42.3 degrees
5424 Troost
6:15 p.m. Monday
Beer: Troost Light
Tonight, we’re on the verge of summer. It’s breezy and 73 degrees and sunny. UMKC students, fresh off their finals, wander through the open front door at Mike’s and crowd around long tables, order pints and talk about freedom. The beer comes like the weather, just short of too warm: 42.3 degrees. Tomorrow, the high will be 91. The air conditioner will be on full blast. The door will be closed.
The Black & Gold Tavern – 42.2 degrees
3740 Broadway
4 p.m. Monday
Beer: Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy
When you go to the Black & Gold, it doesn’t hurt to first brush up on Mizzou sports. If business is light, co-owner and Mizzou optimist Adam Cartwright is ready to break down the Tigers’ future in the SEC for you. He knows all the reports on every football recruit. The space is cheerier than it was when occupied by the former News Room. In fact, Cartwright says some News Room regulars are turned off by the new cleanliness. We like it better now, though — there’s a lot to learn before football season.
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Gilhouly’s – 42.2 degrees
1721 West 39th Street
4:45 p.m. Monday
Beer: Boulevard Wheat (with a lemon)
It’s a good day to keep the blinds closed at this dive. The Moore tornado just smeared a chunk of Oklahoma across the prairie, and there’s a lot of grim news on the way. But in an act of pure denial, the bar’s TVs are tuned to ESPN and an old Western. Ray Manzarek’s death gets more recognition at Gilhouly’s just now. A block of Doors songs plays on the jukebox. When you’re strange, no one remembers your name floats through the bar.
Fred P. Ott’s Bar & Grill – 42.1 degrees
4770 J.C. Nichols Parkway
4:30 p.m. Monday
Beer: Boulevard Pilsner
Before the witching hour, anyway, Fred P. Ott’s is sometimes an overlooked Plaza drinking spot. Working against it, for instance, is its obscure entrance. Inside, the weird, jigsaw setup keeps the small rooms separated by staircases. Then again, that can make the place feel oddly intimate, as on a humid Monday afternoon when a couple of friends of the bartenders’ are watching Oklahoma tornado coverage and nursing cool beers.
Granfalloon – 42.0 degrees
608 Ward Parkway
3 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Wheat
The relatively new makeover to this longtime Plaza bar has delivered a major aesthetic upgrade over the older, grungier vintage. But we have to wonder: Are they still paying for it? A $6 Boulevard Wheat near happy hour? Of course, you’re also paying for a seat at a show, this being one of the Plaza’s better windows onto the pedestrian traffic along Ward Parkway. Maybe just nurse this one good beer for a while.
Michael Forbes Bar & Grill – 42.0 degrees
128 West 63rd Street
2 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Hoegaarden
This new-ish Brookside establishment makes our cut for its distinct bar area, well separated from the dining room that replaced the old Sharp’s 63rd Street Grill last year. The bar is a meeting place for a regular and conspicuously eclectic group of regulars from the Brookside and Waldo areas, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights. On a warm spring Saturday afternoon, a row of streetside patio furniture offers an easy vantage for the general gawking that comes with daytime drinking, for watching the Brookside Barkery’s sidewalk pet adoption, and for the consumption of some not terribly cold craft brews.
Lucky Brewgrille – 41.1 degrees
5401 Johnson Drive, Mission
6:25 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard Boss Tom
At this still-bright hour, every man isn’t a Wildcat inside this K-State hangout — every man is a dad. But past family-piled booths, the bar itself is scarcely attended, the better to whip out a digital thermometer within sight of a puzzled-looking diner (who turns out to be the significant other of the bartender, no less puzzled). A game flashes on one overhead monitor, just out of easy view. A police procedural unspools, muted, on another screen, and many quiet minutes go by before it becomes clear that we’re dealing with a non–Law & Order product. That’s our cue.
Fric & Frac – 40.7 degrees
1700 West 39th Street
1 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon
A late lunch at Fric & Frac offers a chance to sit in the deserted game room. The cool space, lighted mostly by neon beer signs, has a blue pool table, a trio of pinball machines and bright vinyl tablecloths. When it’s empty, it feels like a clubhouse. Our lunch beers come in jumbo juice glasses rather than traditional pint glasses. There’s a counter where people with laptops are using Google Fiber for work or for play. Order two beers at once, though. The service is decidedly dial-up.
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Mike Kelly’s Westsider – 40.6 degrees
1515 Westport Road
5:30 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Mother’s Brewing Co.’s Three Blind Mice Brown Beer
A Jew, an Asian-American and a woman walk into Mike Kelly’s Westsider. And they’re all promptly the punch lines of blue jokes. Four regulars sit at the bar, cracking wise like it’s 1957, while the beer and the red wine flow and jokes predating our PC culture (that maybe caused our PC culture) bounce off the walls. Steaks arrive from the kitchen. One guy says he had a $34 strip recently at a Plaza restaurant. “It wasn’t as good as the steak here.” See? Another punch line.
Duke’s on Grand – 40.6 degrees
1501 Grand
6:15 p.m. Thursday
Beer: Mirror Pond Pale Ale
The cute brunette bartender who sometimes wears purple pants — “Purple Pants,” as she’s known to those of us who cut out of work early on Thursdays for Duke’s $2 drafts (any draft, all day) — carried a sidewalk chalkboard outside and set it up near the door. Five out-of-place gutter punks at a hightop ordered three beers among them and exited quickly. On the flat-screen TVs: hockey playoffs. The garage-style front windows opened out onto Grand, giving way to a view of the jazz murals in the Power & Light District and, above them, atop the Hotel President, the letters PRESIDENT, spelled out like downtown KC’s version of the Hollywood sign.
The Riot Room – 40.2 degrees
4048 Broadway
9:45 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA
Beer culture has reached even scuzzy music venues, at least in the case of Westport’s Riot Room, which now offers some 50 beers on tap. Sometimes the breadth of the selection intimidates more than it encourages. When we visited recently to see Ra Ra Riot, a bartender with a gauge piercing pointed at us. We froze up, then pointed at the coolest-looking tap: a Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA. A very excited young woman pushed her way toward the stage, spilling perhaps a fifth of the contents of her beverage on our shirts. It was muggy in the room, and the spill made it appear as though we had some strange disease that causes you to sweat from an unusual part of your back. We watched the show from a bench near the merch table, keeping our back hidden from view.
The Other Place – 40.2 degrees
7324 West 80th Street
Overland Park
10:25 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Coors Light
Picture a medium-divey bar that’s roomy enough to fit most of the people you went to high school with. Now picture most of the people you went to high school with in that bar. They dress rather as you recall, though time has been a little cruel to physical proportions. Karaoke tracks, pulsing from speakers in the back and waiting for a singer, threaten something crueler still. Would you drink at the bar you have just mentally conjured? And if you had to, wouldn’t you just buy a Coors Light and take a polite sip (and its temperature) and then get the fuck out of there?
Dave’s Stagecoach Inn – 40.1 degrees
316 Westport Road
6 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard Wheat
Behind the bar, T-shirts for sale (on the front: “Dave’s Stagecoach Inn”; on the back: “Drowning your sorrows in beer for 60 years”) hung and swayed in a breeze that swept in through the front door. The descending sun cast an orange hue through the windows. Bad music — angry butt-rock, Daughtry maybe — blasted from the Internet jukebox. The old jukebox, with its mix CDs and Tom Waits and Replacements songs, has been gone more than two years now, though the pang of its absence persists. A Pale Ale was ordered, a Wheat received. We drank it quietly, watched Harry Potter 6 on mute, stared at Keno grids. Somebody new commandeered the jukebox, and out came a Buzzcocks song. You can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can.
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The Well – 40.1 degrees
7421 Broadway
4:30 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
Now that the long winter has ended and an almost equally cold spring has dissipated, competition is hot again for rooftop tables at the Well. The upstairs patio at this Waldo bar often provides a stunning view of the Main Street–line MAX buses as they idle and the drivers take well-deserved breaks. If you don’t mind talking over the sound of bus engines, this a good place to start some day drinking before migrating to Waldo’s other watering holes.
Bobby Baker’s Lounge – 38.8 degrees
7418 Wornall
5:15 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
Watch your step when leaving this Waldo bar, especially if you’re on a walker. An old man leaving this long, narrow bar on a Saturday afternoon had himself a mishap, taking a spill and knocking his head. A helpful bartender got the downed fellow to his car before returning to his watch over this popular lounge. In the low light here, a small crowd can make the place seem packed, especially when dart throwers in the back are taking up most of the wiggle room.
Burg and Barrel – 38.8 degrees
7042 West 76th Street
Overland Park
8:35 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Odell IPA
The menu is simple, the tight beer list assembled with caution but with obvious intelligence. (Burg and Barrel opened this past spring.) Really, there should be more people here than the handful now dotting the wide space. But the people who are here when we arrive are young and happy, and they stay even after we’ve eaten and drunk, and they look like people we’ll see again whenever we go back. Which we will, because when you ask the server whether there’s anything new on tap, something not on the printed list, the right answer is “Yes.” Even better: “Yes — we have two new beers.”
Sully’s – 38.4 degrees
5436 Johnson Drive, Mission
6:50 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Free State Brinkley’s Maibock
The refrigerator behind the bar isn’t as white as it used to be. But it still keeps glassware — in this case, two sizes of Mason jar — cold enough that you can carry a beer across the room in your hot hand without damaging the goods. Not spilling any of your yellow nectar while busting an accidental move to Duran Duran’s “Rio,” part of an improbably solid block of ’80s pop playing at an improbably humane volume … well, that’s just this much harder to do.
Blanc Burgers + Bottles (Plaza) – 38.3 degrees
4701 Jefferson
3:45 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
Get here before quitting time, and this Plaza bar and restaurant can be a pretty empty place. The largely windowless, tucked-away interior and stark white floors, walls and tabletops somehow amplify the lonely feeling. It’s quiet, too. The bar is stocked with a decent selection of beers, all of which feel colder than they are if you’re sitting at the icy, whitewashed bar.
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Twin City Tavern – 38.1 degrees
1815 Westport Road
10 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Fat Tire
There’s a special every day at this cozy brick drinking outpost on the state border. But Saturday night’s offering — bottomless boiled or breaded shrimp for $18 — is probably the most popular. Three middle-aged couples are on dates in the wooden booths, scarfing their refilled plates. The bartender is kind. “Want to go again?” she asks, rather than “Have you eaten your loneliness yet?” There’s no shame here.
Swagger – 38.1 degrees
8431 Wornall
2:30 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Ever heard Bad Religion over the sound system at a local bar? Neither had we until visiting Swagger early on a Saturday afternoon. A jovial, loud-talking bartender with a mohawk gets pumped up at the opening chords of “Atomic Garden” and is incredulous when a visitor admits not having seen the SoCal punks putting on a show in Lawrence not long ago. The selection of beer here is among Waldo’s most extensive, and the bartender is more than willing to explain various brews, sometimes in more detail than is actually useful.
Walsh’s Corner Cocktails – 37.9 degrees
304 West 85th Street
Time: 2 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Natural Light
Walsh’s Corner Cocktails sits, as its name suggests, at the corner of a stealth-bomber-shaped strip mall at 85th Street and Wornall. The window on the door is the only entrance that daylight finds into the dim tavern. A squared-off bar is set off from an empty dining room where one could easily grab a meal for less than $10. A limited selection of draft beers here comes in pilsner-style, hourglass-shaped glasses. An older crowd watches golf and, mysteriously enough, out-of-market Major League Soccer on television.
The Keyhole – 37.9 degrees
5902 Woodson, Mission
7:45 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
Our notes say it was a pale ale, but even Boulevard’s least-challenging brew tastes bewilderingly upscale in this holiest of holes in the wall. (A Kansas-blue-law remnant, the members-only Keyhole operates in constant, infectious celebration of its own low barrier to entry.) Surely it was a Miller Lite. How can it be hard to remember at a place with so few taps? Easy: Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” was battering the air at the moment it was our turn to order, with a table of regulars behind us swatting at the music with their own shouted-along version of the chorus. The lone bartender — pretty, attentive, bright-faced — was unfazed, of course. She made patient eye contact, and this hectic-looking little room suddenly felt like an efficiently run shot-and-a-beer oasis.
Charlie Hooper’s Brookside Bar & Grille – 37.6 degrees
12 West 63rd Street
5 p.m. Monday
Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
This odd-smelling Brookside institution usually has a large crowd that cuts from old neighborhood regulars, businesspeople and the occasional group of Rockhurst or University of Missouri–Kansas City students. On this particular Monday, even a cheap deal on burgers during happy hour hasn’t filled the place. That only makes it more inviting.
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The Point – 37.1 degrees
917 West 44th Street
4:30 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
The Point is a consistent standby for Westport and Plaza residents looking to avoid the bustle of those entertainment districts. Nestled in a nondescript building, where a somewhat new renovation has shaped up the appeal, the place offers half-dollar wings on Tuesdays. It’s a fine inducement to some slow, pre-happy-hour drinking. Fox News on one of the TVs, however, is kind of a drag.
Beer Kitchen – 37.1 degrees
435 Westport Road
5:05 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Empyrean Brewing Co.’s Carpe Brewem
For upscale after-work brews and appetizers, Beer Kitchen is a prime Westport spot. But a tanned Aaron Eckhart look-alike, with shaggy sand-colored hair, is here to work. He’s in a Cheetos-orange performance polo, telling his companions (a paunchy couple in office attire) to order whatever they want. He gesticulates while they sip and eat. What is he pushing? Speedboat insurance? A barge of reflective rainbow-lens sunglasses? Obscure bottled beers and disco fries and entrées come in waves, eating into the salesman’s margins.
Governor Stumpy’s – 36.9 degrees
321 East Gregory
7:30 p.m. Monday
Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
A neon sign in front of Governor Stumpy’s reads, “cold beer.” That’s true as far as it goes. The brews on tap here sit in the middle of the temperature spectrum, neither so cold that the beer lacks flavor nor distractingly warm. This often overlooked staple of Waldo’s casual-dining community has one of the better patios in town — it’s covered and out of direct sunlight on bright days. It’s an excellent place to watch a storm roll in on a volatile spring afternoon.
The Brooksider Sports Bar & Grill – 36.9 degrees
6330 Brookside Plaza
6:30 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
Does a beer arrive colder if the customer receives it in a chilled glass? Almost certainly, which may put some of the temperature readings here at a disadvantage. Normally the province of outdoor concert festivals and backyard beer parties, the Brooksider serves its beer in plastic cups on its patio — a fine idea, given that it’s one of this neighborhood’s more popular destinations for drinkers with dogs in tow. A slightly less chilly beer seems a reasonable offset against the risk of glass shards stuck in paws.
Flo’s Polk-A-Dot Lounge – 36.5 degrees
8934 Wornall
3:15 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Budweiser
Flo’s is a good place to go if you’re drinking on the sly. The inconspicuous strip-mall bar is dark enough inside that you barely register your closest neighbor. The friendly bartenders can see you just fine, though, and they know their regulars. One visitor asks if the bartender knows her dad, and the bartender offers a fond reminiscence. Stick around long enough and you can camouflage yourself in barbecue smell; the Stack BBQ is next door, and its smoker odor practically glows in Flo’s darkness.
Tomfooleries – 36.4 degrees
612 West 47th Street
4:10 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pilsner
Only a few drinkers are here just before happy hour on a Tuesday, one of them a woman nursing a martini and discussing relationship issues with the bartender, who seems to mostly agree with what her customer has to say. The men sitting nearby concentrate on their smartphones, pretending not to listen but not doing a good job disguising their interest.
The Beacon – 36.0 degrees
5031 Main
5 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
The successor to Jack Gage has been amassing a reputation as a late-night weekend hot spot. But that’s not so much the case when the place opens right at happy hour on a weekday. Maybe the Plaza business crowd hasn’t yet made its way out of work on this day, but the Beacon turns out to be a quiet place to indulge a little late-afternoon drinking south of the Plaza.
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Kelso’s – 35.8 degrees
300 Armour Road
8 p.m. Monday
Beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon
As we sipped a $2 PBR at this Northland bar — both PBR and Miller Lite drafts are $2 during Royals games — we had a bizarre premonition. What if the Rookie (that is, small) pepperoni-and-green-pepper pizza we’d ordered came out so burnt (just the way we like it) that we got a discount on it? These are the types of premonitions we have; we lead sad lives. Then the pizza arrived, and it was a Veteran (large). And it was burnt! And the pregnant bartender apologized and asked if it was OK and said she’d just charge us for a Rookie. Then a crack of the bat: Miguel Tejada hit his first home run of the season. Then Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” pumped out of the jukebox. OK, that last part is a lie, but the rest is true.
Waldo Pizza Taproom – 35.7 degrees
7433 Wornall
6:30 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Mirror Pond Pale Ale
This adjunct to the Waldo institution isn’t always what you expect from a place called a taproom. Rather than beer-bellied middle-aged men sitting around a saloon illuminated by neon signs and sipping craft brews, the Waldo Pizza Taproom is often populated by families with children and tables full of friends. There’s a little bar toward the back, where helpful bartenders walk the uninitiated through a beer lineup that has long been one of the metro’s most far-ranging and eclectic.
Bier Station – 35.5 degrees
120 East Gregory
7 p.m. Monday
Beer: Free State Stormchaser IPA
A purveyor of craft beers, some of which are to be enjoyed at less-than-frigid temperatures, Bier Station doles out a notably frosty India Pale Ale. At this Armour Hills bar, the diversity of the beer taps is outdone only by the selection in the drink-it-here-or-take-it-home refrigerator of bottled beers. All those beers, coupled with a stack of board games in the corner, usually makes a stop here last longer than planned.
Volleyball Beach – 35.5 degrees
13105 Holmes
8 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Beach Beer
“I saw you put a thermometer in your beer. What’s going on?” the bar manager says. Chill out, dude! On a packed Tuesday, young people in shorts and tank tops order pitchers and mudslides like it’s spring break. The vibe: They’re gonna be diggin’ and spikin’ all fuckin’ night! Maybe we were meant to stay with the beach party in Martin City. As we pull out of the gigantic lot to return to Westport, the GPS claims: “No routes found.” Cowabunga.
The Bulldog – 34.8 degrees
1715 Main
5:45 p.m. Friday
Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
The Bulldog is about a 12-second walk from us here at The Pitch, so we consider ourselves something of an authority on the bar. We’ve imbibed there at literally every hour of the day it’s open, but the best time to soak up the place is between 5 and 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, for two-for-ones. Order just about anything, and they hand you two of them. Naturally, you drink them fast because you don’t want them to get warm. And soon, you are drunk. Look around, and you’ll find you’re in great company: lawyers, strippers from Bazooka’s having a pre- or post-shift drink, journalists, office drones, shady hustlers. A server with a severe haircut and knee-high socks asks if you want another round. It’s not 8 yet, is it? Then, yes, we will have another round.
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Tower Tavern – 34.6 degrees
401 East 31st Street
7:15 p.m. Thursday
Beer: Bud Light
We like hanging in bars at odd hours. Usually that means early in the afternoon, when we can get away with it. But there’s another strange time of day at a bar: after happy hour and before the evening crowd settles in. We recently found ourselves at Tower Tavern during this lull. The tables inside were mostly empty. The waitstaff huddled near the server station, still a little flushed from the rush. One idly worked a crossword puzzle; another occupied herself with some kind of iPhone game. Occasionally, they would dart off and check on a table. A boisterous middle-aged fellow wandered in from the back patio. He wanted a shot. That seemed like a bright idea. We ordered a shot of Tullamore Dew. “Shot?” one server asked the other. She nodded. The bartender nodded. Everybody had a shot.
Patrick’s Bar and – 34.3 degrees
No Grill
8251 Wornall
3:45 p.m. Saturday
Beer: Budweiser
This dive, nestled in one of Wornall Road’s many strip malls in Waldo, serves its beer in glasses that have been sitting in a tub of ice. That seems to help push down the Fahrenheit on the draft beers. This watering hole has its regulars who seem to love the probably frozen pizzas heating up in small convection ovens hidden behind the bar.
D.B. Cooper’s – 34.1 degrees
1804 West 39th Street
5:15 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Bud Light
The PBR tap is broken but that doesn’t trouble the group of five gray-haired guys in golf attire at the bar, who instead sip whiskey and Bud Light draws. The bartender snaps a photo of them. The Martin Lawrence joint National Security is playing, muted, on the TV. The pals try to harmonize with “King of the Road” as it spins out of the jukebox. During a sing-along with “Piano Man,” the most senior member of the party tells the bartender, “Hey, get me a jar. I’m going to take my teeth out.”
MiniBar – 33.8 degrees
3810 Broadway
8:15 p.m. Wednesday
Beer: Kronenbourg 1664
The lit-up arrow sign outside MiniBar promises: “Cocktails, adventure.” And it definitely serves the former. For the latter, there’s just a Star Trek: The Next Generation rerun playing on the overhead TV. The place is empty. “Nobody comes until 10 p.m.,” bartender and longtime RecordBar booze slinger Clarence Draper says. A single patron wanders in a few minutes later. “What are you up to?” Clarence asks her. “Just working on my whiskey tolerance,” she says.
Buzzard Beach – 32.7 degrees
4110 Pennsylvania
4:50 p.m. Tuesday
Beer: Boulevard Pilsner
Somewhere along the line, Buzzard Beach gave itself the honorific “dive bar,” which is like the friend who insists on choosing his own nickname. It only ensures that nobody’s going to use it. The place has certain dive elements — what is that unholy stank? — but the beer is actually too cold for a dive bar. More important, Buzzard’s sunny deck is too inviting for the place to be a lowlife magnet. Ask the guy in the Hawaiian shirt sipping a rye and reading a paperback or the guys in their 20s making birthday-party plans (“No girls, just guys!”). This is no dive. It’s just comfortable.
Chappell’s Sports Bar & Museum – 31.7 degrees
323 Armour Road
8:45 p.m. Monday
Beer: Bud Light
“Bud Light draft,” we said. “Twenty-five ounce?” the bartender replied. Oh, why not. It came in a big, frosty mug. We sat at the bar, in a padded swivel chair, and watched the Royals game. We eyed the old football helmets attached to the ceiling. We admired the old football cleats dangling by their shoelaces near the TV. We read the placards underneath the vintage baseball jerseys behind the bar. We especially admired the black-and-orange vintage Houston Colt 45s hat. “In what world is that not a double play?” a younger gentleman asked from his booth, addressing no one in particular.
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Kelly’s Westport Inn – 30.1 degrees
500 Westport Road
9:30 p.m. Sunday
Beer: Bud Light
The regular Sunday-night crowd at Kelly’s is the kind you might expect to patronize the oldest tavern in the city: men in their 60s, white-bearded, bellied up to the bar. Also, a handful of guys with idiosyncratic drinking habits who look just a notch above homeless and just a notch below sane. And the bartenders’ friends. And a Joe’s Pizza employee. In other words, a good mix for casual drinking, and a far cry from the roaring fratmosphere of weekend nights at Kelly’s. Among the topics discussed: why the oldest building in Kansas City is in Westport, not down by the river somewhere. There was a good answer, which we forget.
