Maple Leaf Festival full of traditions, libations

Piper Pierce has more than a few Maple Leaf Festivals under her belt.
When it comes to planning for the week of family and class reunions, parades and plenty of parties, Piper told me to start early and pace your self.
“You have to start with a big breakfast and a Bloody mary on Saturday morning to do it right,” she said, laughing. “Just remember to eat a good lunch and snack throughout the day.”
If you do it right, she said, you can come out on the winning end of Southwest Missouri’s largest party weekend. Piper, like many Carthage residents, loves hosting a Maple Leaf house party.
For some, the Maple Leaf Festival is a bigger event than Christmas. It holds special significance for Piper. Her daughter Keegan was born during Maple Leaf 28 years ago. I bet that makes it a hard holiday — and birthday — to forget.
“We start with Bloody marys and then go to beer at noon and usually to a signature Maple Leaf drink for the evening party,” she said as I shopped for wine at Annie’s Epicurean Delights, 116 W. Third Street in Carthage, where she works. “It’s an all-day affair.”
Piper suggests picking up a jar of Bloody Buddies — marinated celery and carrots — to jazz up your tomato and vodka cocktails ($8 at Annie’s).
This year, Piper said, she has a special pumpkin spiced drink for the weeklong celebration of fall. After Saturday’s big parade, Annie’s will offer a wine and liquor tasting for those still in search of libations and snacks to enhance their Maple Leaf revelry.
“We have tastings daily, but this is going to be extra special,” Piper said. “There will be new food items and dips to try and a selection of wines and liquors, too.”
This year, Piper will serve her guests a new fall-themed drink.
“It’s pumpkin liquor and Bailey’s Irish Cream. It’s really good,” she said, bragging. “It gets really chilly at night around this time of year. This drink will warm you up.”
When planning a party where some alcohol will be consumed, Piper stresses planning ahead and securing a designated driver to get your guests home safely — and without need of a bondsman — after the long day of activities, and Bloody Marys.
Carthage tradition
Over on the other corner of the Carthage Square, Jim Hodson, owner of Jim’s Bar and Grill, 325 E. Fourth Street, has his crew prepping for a long weekend of bands and brews.
I’ve known Jim and his family for more than a decade and I cut my Maple Leaf party teeth working in his bar.
I remember my first Maple Leaf in Carthage but, I admit, the memories are somewhat fuzzy. Jim’s was the first time I ever saw Hank Rotten and Allen Ross perform their classics “Sleeping with my Butt to the Wall” and “When the Shiite hits the fan.” Jukebox must haves, I say. It was the first place I enjoyed a Natty Light and my first exposure to the Maple Leaf City’s throw-down lifestyle.
“It’s the biggest holiday that’s not really a holiday,”Jim said, joking. “We’ll have a big-ass crowd for sure. This place gets packed.”
Packed is an understatement where Jim’s Bar is concerned. Jim’s joint has always been a hub of Maple Leaf activity with a 30 year tradition of … well, throwing a great party. This year will be no exception.
Day Old Sunshine, featuring former members of Jenkin’s Dirt, will take the stage at 8 p.m. on Friday. After the parade on Saturday, Allen Ross will entertain in the beer garden from 2 until 4 p.m. Later that night, Hadacol, with Carthage boy Sam Platt, is the headliner.
You never know who might show up at Jim’s. It always attracts an eclectic crowd ready to get their Maple Leaf on.
Judges and off-duty law enforcement officers socialize with rockers, artists and scofflaws of all stripes. Regular folks looking for a cheap cheeseburger and a cold beer mingle with the well-heeled of the county. It’s a crazy-fun crowd. I don’t know how it happens, but the miracle of Maple Leaf draws people together.
I asked Jim why he looks forward to Maple Leaf week. He just laughed.
“It’s the week when I make enough money to pay all of my bills and taxes,” he said. “It’s like Christmas for me and the party is bigger than New Year’s Eve.”
That’s big.
‘Bring it on!’
On my recent reconnaissance mission to Carthage I wanted to find out what’s new and hot in Maple Leaf libations.
I stopped in at Savannah’s, 1926 S. Garrison. The restaurant and lounge is owned by Vince Scott, a friend with whom I have knocked back a few brews throughout the years.
Vince opened Savannah’s several years ago and I’ve been meaning to stop in and have a drink: My bad. It was as if we had just talked yesterday. Vince chided me for taking two years to stop in at his new venture and then we caught up and talked Maple Leaf.
Class reunions have Vince’s restaurant booked, but Vinnie’s Lounge is open to the public. Stop in as ask for one of Vince’s signature “Kitty Cocktails.” He contends they will start a new Maple Leaf tradition if you give one a try.
I asked Vince, a Carthage transplant, if he was ready for the Maple Leaf City ’s annual fall festival.
“Bring it on,” he said with a grin.
Drink responsibly, and cheers!

Long Hammer IPA taps into love of bitter beers

I sat down Sunday morning at Buffalo Wild Wings for a reunion, of sorts.
A couple of weeks ago, I spied a new tap handle on the draft rail there and was stoked. Long Hammer India Pale Ale from Redhook Ales, a longtime Seattle craft brewer, had finally made it to Joplin on draft. I decided to get reacquainted with Redhook, a long-lost friend. I asked my bartender at Wild Wings how Long Hammer was going over and she said it was gaining in popularity.
One of the first craft beers for which I ever developed a taste was Long Hammer’s craft cousin, Redhook Extra Special Bitter — ESB for short. I’ve seen ESB around town in bottles for years and I’m finding it more and more on draft during my travels. I often grab a six pack or order a pint when it’s available.

Long Hammer is available on draft in Joplin at Buffalo Wild Wings, Just Us Bar and Grill, Caldone's and Tropicana Bar and Grill.

I called Redhook and set up an interview with Greg Deuhs, resident brew master, and Kim Brusco, a lead brewer at the company’s Woodinville, Wash., brewery. If anyone could help me share the good news about Redhook’s “Liquid Goodness,” as the company promotes it, it would be the guys who make it.
I asked Kim how he thought Redhook’s Long Hammer, a clean and balanced IPA brewed since 1984, is doing around the country where hoppy craft beers are not as well known — or accepted — as they are in the Northwest and Northeast.
“We’re doing well all over the country,” Kim said of their crisp, golden brew. “The thing about Long Hammer, compared to other IPAs, is it’s approachable. It’s clean. It’s 6.5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and 44 (bitterness units), but it’s a very drinkable IPA, compared to the real big overly-hopped IPAs.”
While I haven’t spotted ESB on tap around town, it is available in bottles at many package and grocery stores where craft ales and lagers are sold. Not as bitter as Long Hammer, ESB is a great amber-colored ale. It put Redhook on the map in 1987 and continues to win important beer awards today. When I developed a taste for ESB it wasn’t yet available in bottles. Like many Seattle and Portland brews of the day, it was a keg-only product.
“It’s our oldest brand,” Kim told me. “It’s a drinkable, approachable beer. It’s got a lot of flavor; nothing over the top. It’s typical for an English bitter. It’s not overly hoppy or overly malty. It’s just got some good flavors that meld together real well.”
Getting bitter
Bitterness units, BUs for short, are the way brewers measure the bitterness of beers. Mass-production lagers  such as Budweiser come in between 5 and 25 BUs. English-style bitters, such as Redhook’s ESB, come in at 28 BUs and higher. Hoppier and more bitter ales, such as Redhook’s Big Ballard Imperial IPA, comes in at 73 BUs. Some extreme beers — often called double or triple IPAs — reach more than 100 on the BU scale. Talk about bitter-beer face.
Kim, a self described “hop-head” and fan of the bitterest beers, told me he thinks people are starting to burn out on overly-hopped beers. Hops are the leafy, green botanical added to beers during or after brewing, which gives them a bitter character and sometimes skunky aroma.
“I drink the hoppiest beers,” Kim said. “I still like one from time to time, but really, Long Hammer is my favorite IPA. I can drink a few pints of it and get the hops I want.”
Long Hammer, he said, is dry hopped after the heated brewing process is complete. That, he said, is the secret to Long Hammer’s balanced flavor profile.
“I think because of the way we do it here, it comes though as a floral aroma, opposed to an overly bitter hop flavor,” he said. “Where some people might be turned off by a beer that has a very large addition of hops (during brewing) that gives the beer aroma, it also gives a real hop flavor. That doesn’t exist with Long Hammer because we dry hop it cold.”
Greg Deuhs, who directs brewing at Redhook in Seattle, said he thinks the key to craft beers’ acceptance around the country has been education. That education, in some cases, has been long in coming to the Midwest.
“The great American beer revolution started in the early 1980s and has been slowly progressing through the country,” the brew house veteran said. “What started in certain pockets of the country, like the West Coast and California and parts of the East and Midwest, is now becoming mainstreamed elsewhere in the country. It’s just taking time to get there.”
Affordable luxury
Beer tourism, Greg said, is helping craft beer grow in popularity around the United States.
“People who travel (to the American Northwest) and Europe come back home and the seeds get planted,” he said. “Ten or 15 years ago, Redhook was considered an assertive beer, especially to somebody from the Midwest. They hadn’t ever seen a micro, but now it’s just like other things; like good coffee, there’s more exposure and more people get turned on to it.”
Greg said that the ESB of today is considered by many a mainstream craft beer, where years ago, when it debuted, it was thought to be an extreme beer. Consumers’ tastes have changed, he said.
Craft beers, Greg contends, are an affordable luxury and more people are giving them a try.
David Pryor, a sales manager at Missouri Eagle in Joplin, the area’s Anheuser-Busch distributor, told me craft beers are growing in acceptance around the area.
“There are a lot more people trying the import and craft beer segment,” David said. “Especially this time of year. The fall season lends itself to more flavorful beers — the ales and porters and those types of beers. They are a little higher alcohol, which people enjoy. We’re seeing a lot of people buy a craft six pack and still buy the 12-pack of Bud Light, too. Everybody ought to go have one. You know, something to change it up a little for a special occasion.”
Anytime I buy a six pack of craft beer, it’s a special occasion.

Cheers!