Each Wednesday, submit your burning Boulevard beer questions on Twitter, tagging @Boulevard_Beer and #WWKW. I'll sift through the questions and select my favorites to answer in a blog post that will be shared here each Thursday morning. Everything is fair game! Go!

- Jeremy Danner, Ambassador Brewer

While there are definitely a ton of aggressively sour beers out there right now, I wouldn't say that tart beers have completely disappeared. Recognizing that beer drinkers still want to enjoy beers that are tart (lightly acidic) versus full on sour (puckering, bracingly acidic), we offer a couple of tiers of tart/sour beers. I would say that both Love Child and Changeling blends fall into the more acidic realm, but I'd also mention that I don't feel that they're necessarily suuuuuuper sour while beers like Tequila Barrel Lime Gose, Hibiscus Gose and Berliner Weisse cover off on our tart, more approachable sour offerings.

I feel like this excerpt from a piece I wrote for Craft by Under My Host does a good job of summarizing my thoughts:

"The same arms race that was once occurring with IPAs and bitterness is now occurring with sour beers. I recall a beer drinker at GABF asking me which of our beers was the most sour. I obviously understand that sourness is his thing and don’t judge him for that because his request is a by-product of the pH battle taking place, but I can assure you, I’d never walk into a restaurant and ask for the saltiest dish. If we want the sour beer family  to grow and expand to folks who might normally select a craft beer, let alone a sour beer, its very important to continue to brew the styles that should be approachable and serve as gateways fairly true to their intent. If you want to give me a belly ache with your gueuze, bring it on, but as for the gose, I’d prefer a beer that’s comfortable to drink."

All told, we'll distribute right around 45 beers in 2018. Obviously every beer doesn't make it to every market we're in, but that's what folks in the Greater Kansas City Area will see from us. This doesn't include all of the test beers or one-off batches that go on tap in the Beer Hall or our Brewhouse One Series beers that are sold exclusively in the Tours & Rec Center Gift Shop. Roll all of those in and I'd guess we're in the 70ish range. It's crazy, but it's fun!

Can I have two answers to this? Hey, Whatcha Wanna Know? Wednesday is my thing and I make (most of) the rules so I'll say that I can. My first choice has to be Pale Ale. We have a saying around the brewery: "Pale Ale loves cow." The layers of caramel malt used to brew Pale Ale match up perfectly with the caramelization that occurs when grilling meat. I'm a ribeye fan myself and I feel that the balanced bitterness and Cascade hop flavor serves to cut through the richness of the marbling while staying crisp enough to refresh the palate. If I'm going fancy, I'm reaching for a bottle of Whiskey Barrel Stout, especially if a whiskey marinade on the steak is a choice. Obviously there's a greater malt presence with the stout and you get notes of chocolate and espresso to enhance the pairing that's already happening with the caramel malts. Instead of hop bitterness and flavor, the barrel character serves to punctuate the beer and marries up with the carbonation to prevent Whiskey Barrel Stout from presenting as cloying or heavy. As I often end my thoughts on pairings, though, the absolute best beer and steak pairing is the beer in your glass and the steak on your plate.

Honestly, we don't have to do much to our water before we use it for brewing. We use the municipal supply which is fed by the Missouri River. We do filter the water to remove any solids, carbon filter it to remove chlorine/chloramines and then pass it through a UV filter to disinfect it. Apart from using lactic acid to adjust pH as Kansas City water can come in around 9+, we make slight adjustments beer to beer with calcium sulfate and that's pretty much it. We're quite lucky to have great tasting tap water in Kansas City. The old saying is, "If the water tastes good, brew with it."

Here lately, I'm digging beers that feature blends of super fruity/citrusy hops like Galaxy, El Dorado, Citra, Calypso and Mosaic. Amarillo will always hold a special place in my heart because I love the massive grapefruit/citrus notes it contributes to Tank 7. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I get super geeked out about beers that showcase Saaz. There's something special about a crisp, clean beer that pops with bright spicy, earthy, herbal Saaz hops. I LOVE it.

My love for Saison Brett is well known, but it's been a big week and I'm not looking to start a Twitter fight. Bob's '47 is the best beer in the world today. Tomorrow, I might fight you that it's Saison Brett. We cool?

Want to discuss any of the above in more detail or have follow up questions or comments? Hit me up on Twitter: @Jeremy_Danner