Not Lost Brewing Company

Are you looking for a short road trip? Not Lost Brewing Company is perfect for just that. Located in Ottawa, KS, it's ~40 minute drive from Overland Park.

I'm going to be honest-- I went in with high expectations. Throughout the past week I've been reading the reviews and everyone was raving about the quality and flavor profiles of the beer options. I was cautiously optimistic that this would be a good place to kick off my Barberis & Brews series.

I was not disappointed.

Overall, David and I gave Not Lost a 23/33 (for reference our highest-scoring brewery is a 29), putting it up there with some of our favorite breweries. What did we love about it?
From back: blueberry wheat,
pink guava, pub ale, and regular beer

They have a great range of types of beers. When we visited this past Saturday they had a sour, a cider, IPAs, a lager, wheat beer, and more. With some of the breweries we visit they may have a lot of options but they all taste similarly, this is not the case with Not Lost. Each beer had a unique flavor-- they weren't afraid to take risks. I got two flights of four tasters, my two favorites were the Blueberry Wheat (5.5% ABV) and the Pink Guava Banana Milkshake IPA (8.3%). I'm a sucker for fruit-based wheat beers and juicy IPAs. Both of these beers had amazing flavors and I ended up ordering a full pour of the Blueberry Wheat. A notable mention was the Watermelon Chili Lime Gose (4.9%), not something I'd order a full pour of but was fun to try (and definitely watermelon/chili-y!). Something else that you don't always see is that they had a "Regular Beer" on the menu. David is more of a lager, pilsner, and cream ale sorta guy, and some breweries are more IPA focused. It was nice to have a crisp, simple beer offered amongst the other flavor-packed options.

Another way to win my heart over is to have snacks. They didn't have a full menu from what I could see, but on the day we visited they had pretzels and cheese and nachos. If you serve pretzels with cheese you automatically make me 10x happier so this was great to see.

The final category I want to bring up is the vibe. We went right when they opened at 2 p.m. and were the only ones there for the first hour or so, but I can totally see this being a fun place to go on a night with friends. They had a pretty rustic/farmhouse ~trendy~ vibe with Edison lights, which again, I love. They also used barrels as tables which I thought was neat, too.

Not Lost Brewing Company lived up to the hype that the Google reviews gave it. Ottawa was a cute, little town, with fun local stores. It was a perfect Saturday getaway: a road trip, great beers, and supporting local business.

Check out their Facebook page to keep up-to-date with their weekly brews and events.

Until next time,
Taylor 
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Barberis and Brews

Instagram stories and highlights are a convenient and easy way to share where you're at, but it's more challenging to fully document your experience. To keep track of the breweries we've been to and our thoughts of them we devised a "Tap Tour Rating" of nine factors. After going to a brewery, we discuss and rate the brewery in each category. The higher the score, the better.


Barberis & Brews is here! If you know me and David at all you know that we have a love for beer. It started a little after we started dating, but unfortunately I wasn't 21 yet so I would go to breweries with David and stick to sampling the appetizers (I'm not too upset about it). In July 2019 I finally turned 21 and was able to begin my own beer journey.

It really began my final semester at Drury when David and I participated in the Ozark Tap and Pour Beverage Tour. It was a great way to be introduced to all the local breweries in the Ozarks. Since then I've been hooked on craft beer (you can check out the highlight on my Instagram @thebabyperks to see where we went).

Once I moved to KC we began to explore the brewery scene here. While we haven't participated in any official KC brewery tours, I created another Instagram highlight to track some of the places we've been. 

While we sat in quarantine and I stared blankly at my blog not knowing what to share, I played around with the idea of discussing beer here. Why not? It's my and David's biggest "hobby" so why wouldn't I share? At first I thought about discussing individual beers, and while we've tried a lot of them, I still don't know the ins-and-outs of all the technical elements of beer. Instead, I thought it would be fun to delve into our tap tour rating system so you all can explore breweries, too! In the beginning many of the places I'll be discussing will be previous breweries we've visited, but *hopefully* as things with COVID get better we will be able to road trip to new places outside of Missouri/Kansas. Just know that we are taking all of Kansas and KC's precautions very seriously and if we do go somewhere we always sit outside and socially distance.

I was hoping to release my first brewery review this week but I'm going to take more time to work on that post and get it up next week. I am so excited to have a more creative way to share my brewery experiences with you all. I hope it inspires you to shop local and support the breweries in your community.

Until next time,

Taylor xx


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2020 Take Two

Between now and my last blog post a lot has changed. As I was just coming to grips with post-grad life, COVID happened. Like so many others, what I planned for 2020 was thrown out the window. I was going to take weekend trips with David across the Midwest, explore new breweries, and visit friends and family. As more of 2020 unfolded and it became clear that COVID wasn't budging (in the USA) I finally accepted that I had to accept these changes. Unfortunately, that lead to me being at a loss for the purpose of this blog. I've been writing on here since 2013 and whether it be new recipes I was baking on the weekends in high school, or adventures in college, I always had a clear vision of what I wanted to share. Again, like so many others, operating within "the new normal" of the COVID-world was exhausting and uninspiring-- and lead to confusion on what this platform should be post-grad.

On the bright side, I am slowly breaking out of that funk and getting my creative side going again. I have a project idea that I've been playing around with for a month now that I am finally bringing to life on this blog within the coming weeks. 

Other positives include getting to finally walk in August for graduation, the weather cooling down which means more after-work walks with David, reading in the nearby park, and grabbing some socially-distanced, outdoor beers at local breweries.

While this year has not been what I planned for, I am finally getting around to embracing those changes and sharing, again.


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