I make no bones about it:  I hate pumpkin beer.  That doesn’t mean pumpkin beer deserves abolition, I personally just do not like pumpkin beer.  That aside, I’ve come to realize I am truly a beer savant and felt it my duty to inform the masses that I discovered the world’s greatest pumpkin beer.  Since the denouement of any literary work hardly belongs in the first paragraph (even in such an erudite form as a blog) you’ll have to read on through some context  to discover what beer my discerning tongue has established as world class.

The story begins with me tearing off 3500 square feet of shingles. Roofing. Horrific. But unfortunately, this world demands capital for survival, and having lost my job, regarding capital, I found myself lacking in that department.  So when the opportunity came to make a few shingles doing “handyman work” while I wait to land my dream job, I leaped at the opportunity, even though it meant  (a frequent victim of acrophobia) ascending Babel.

I worked hard.  Nearly 12 hours a day working muscles I didn’t know existed, not drinking an brew at night, and dreading the next day paid off unexpectedly.  The last day at the job, as I was cleaning up in the evening, the homeowner came up to me and said, “Young man, are you married.”

“Yes sir, I replied”

He suddenly placed a $1o0 bill in my hand and said, “I’ve been watching you work…you’re a hard worker, take your wife out to dinner.”

To be honest, I nearly shat myself.  I said thank you and pocketed the small fortune.  At the first instant of receiving the gift, I thought, “Sweet!  I can apply this to my mortgage!”  But after some thinking, I realized that I really should take my sweet wife out to dinner.  With five kids and floss string budget, it has been months since we’ve indulged in some alone time.  So we headed out to downtown Kansas City that coming Friday.

At “The Beer Kitchen” I threw up in mouth a little when I saw that a bottle of Monstre Rouge cost $36 and a 6 ounce pour of Brother Thelonius would run me $7.  Whatever.  This was a special night.  I ordered some forgettable French beer, a Brother Thelonius, and a burger.  My wife did the same.  It was good, and we still had a little bit of that $100 left, and the night was young.  I wanted a bottle of some Jolly Pumkin, but didn’t want to spend $25 on it, knowing that back in Ohio I could pick it up for $10.  So we paid our waiter and headed across the street to the Foundry.

Having never been there, I wasn’t sure what the beer menu would offer.  The place was swarming with tragic hipsters–typically a sign that good beer is around, but I’ve noticed that ever nook cranny of Kansas City seems to be crawling with tragic hipsters.  When I opened the beer menu and saw Jolly Pumpkin tap I think I giggled.  When I saw that a full 6 ounce pour was only $6, I think I slipped into hysterics…until I saw that it was La Parcela, Jolly Pumpkin’s tribute to the wacky weird of Pumpkin Ales.  This is one of the few Jolly Pumpkin beers I’ve not tried.

Talk about a rock and a hard place:  Hate pumpkin beer, love Jolly Pumpkin, In KC, missing home a bit, hipsters tragic mustache at the next table is creepy…yeah, I ordered it.

It was good.  Great.  It surpassed every every other beer in the category.  In fact, the pumpkin flavor was so peripheral, that it didn’t distract from that fact that what I was drinking was actually beer.  The bretty sourness worked so well with the spicy nature of the ale.  There’s no need to write an excessive review of the brew.  The world’s best pumpkin beer was just good, and it not only made some coveted alone time with my wife that much better, it made the hours on the roof, the sunburn, and the blisters on my hands worth it.