Perhaps I should label this as part one of part one? We already have a theoretical roadtrip lined up in the eventual future. Eh whatevs… we’re talking Midwest Road Trip 2020!

The lead-up to this road trip was as weird as 2020 so I guess it was fitting. Perhaps it was the uncertainty of the future, which is currently always question, but we hadn’t planned our trip. We just knew we were going. The initial route was Scratch Brewing, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Des Moine, and back home. Five days before departing, we check the weather and there is snow in the forecast. This was an unconventional trip but we didn’t want it to be THAT unconventional. So a quick look at google maps we made a quick adjustment to go south. Dallas had 86 degree weather in the forecast and that sounded magnificent.

The new route became Scratch Brewing, St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Little Rock.

I restarted my search for brewery stops on blackisbeautiful.beer I wanted to support the breweries that supported the Black community. While all breweries didn’t fit this qualification, I had to make the effort.

Scratch Brewing makes the list of official locations for a few reasons. I was introduced at a bottle share and once I found out it was just 3 hours away, had a beautiful location, and does uniquely amazing beer, it was placed on my short list. It is STILL on my short list because I cannot wait to go back. Their beer is BOMB. According to their site, it has been named one of the top four breweries for foraged beer by Outside Magazine, and one of the most beautiful places to drink beer in the world by All About Beer Magazine. Foraging is searching widely for food or provisions which Scratch does on their own land. The result is beers like Sunflower Bitter dry-hopped with Cascade #6, which is made with Scratch-grown sunflowers and hickory leaves or Wet Hopped Farmhouse Ale, which is made with Scratch-grown chinook and cascade hops.. We took home a bottle of Basil IPA and Chanterelle Biere de Garde and I look forward to blogging about those.

St. Louis will really be short and sweet. It was on the list because Scratch Brewing is close and it was a good city to stay the night, before embarking on the rest of our journey. Here we were more concerned with the fried rice but we did stumble across Schlafly’s brewpub. Stumbled because… it was a fallback, due to proximity, after we realized Side Project was closed. Schlafly’s was subpar. Not bad but nothing to write about. 

We got on the road headed to Kansas City fairly early because we had plans to stop at wineries along the way. My wife loves hitting breweries but wine is still her thing, so we wanted to make sure we checked out the Missouri Wine Trail. I would absolutely recommend for the experience but not all wine is equal. We had some good and bad wine on that trail but it was fun nonetheless! We even found Bias Winery AND Brewery. The beer tasted like a homebrew project and the wine on the same level but it was a fun compromise. We wrapped up the day at East Forty Brewing Co. just outside of KC. The location was in a small town center and was empty. I’m sure covid played a role in this but it gave my wife and I the space to ourselves. Here we had a flight of a few of their brews; Saison, Right Track IPA, Two Track, and Pumpkin beer. The standout was the Two Track. It was a fun beer that had pineapple and guava notes with a medium body and malt that provided a sweetness on the finish. I had a pumpkin beer here that wasn’t too bad but I’ll save that for my pumpkin beer blog post. 

After a long day of exploring we were happy to make it to KC. We grabbed some BBQ from a black owned restaurant, Jazzy B’s, which was awesome and made one final stop at Mike’s Wine and Spirits before reaching our friend’s house. I grabbed a local mixed 6 and at checkout started chatting it up about the Black is Beautiful beer. I packed a few for trades and given our convo, I shared one with them one from a local Nashville brewery. In return, they hooked the kid up with two local brews, one of which they collabed on. It was a nice ending to a great day. 

We still have a good portion of the ride to go but we’re gonna break here. Tomorrow we wake up in KC with plans of exploration and of course more beer. Be sure to follow the blog to see what’s next!