Boulevard Brewing Company

Boulevard Brewing Company

Location	Kansas City, Missouri
Coordinates	39°04′54″N 94°35′49″W / 39.08165°N 94.59688°W / 39.08165; -94.59688Coordinates: 39°04′54″N 94°35′49″W / 39.08165°N 94.59688°W / 39.08165; -94.59688
Opened	1989
Barrels per year	185,000 US barrels (2013)[1]
Revenue	US$32.0M (FY 2011)
Owner(s)	Duvel Moortgat Brewery
Employees	125[2]
Active beers
Name Type KC Pils Pilsner Pale Ale Pale ale Unfiltered Wheat Beer American wheat beer 80-Acre Hoppy Wheat Beer American-Style Hoppy Wheat Ale Bully! Porter Porter Dry Stout Stout Single-Wide I.P.A. India Pale Ale Amber Ale Amber Ale Pop-up Session I.P.A. India Pale Ale
Seasonal beers
Name Type Irish Ale Irish ale Boss Tom's Golden Bock Maibock Zōn Belgian witbier Bob's '47 Oktoberfest Nutcracker Ale Winter Warmer
Other beers
Smokestack Series Name Type Tank 7 Saison The Sixth Glass Quadrupel Double-Wide I.P.A. India Pale Ale Long Strange Tripel Tripel Dark Truth Stout Stout Saison-Brett Saison Bourbon Barrel Quad Quadrupel Imperial Stout American Double/Imperial Stout Harvest Dance Wheatwine Coffee Ale Flavored Ale Rye-on-Rye Rye Ale Grainstorm Black Rye IPA Black Rye IPA Reverb Imperial Pilsner Imperial Pilsner Reboot White I.P.A. White India Pale Ale

Boulevard Brewing Company is a regional brewery located in Kansas City, Missouri. The Brewers Association currently ranks Boulevard as the 12th largest craft brewery, and the 19th largest active brewery in the United States based on 2012 sales volume.^[3] After the sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev in 2008, Boulevard was the largest independent American brewery in the state of Missouri. Boulevard is now no longer independent; it was acquired by Duvel Moortgat Brewery on October 18, 2013. Boulevard's beers are available in select markets across the country.^[4]

In 2013, Boulevard was acquired by Duvel Moortgat Brewery.^[5] Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but industry publication Beer Business Daily estimated the sale price exceeds $100 million.^[6]

History

Boulevard began in 1988 when founder John McDonald started construction of the brewery in a turn-of-the-century brick building on Kansas City’s historic Southwest Boulevard. A vintage Bavarian brewhouse was installed with used equipment from a closed brewery in Bavaria, Germany, and the first batches of beer were produced in the fall of 1989. Based on the historic example set by the local and regional breweries that were once common throughout the United States prior to Prohibition, the brewery has a focus on providing locally-brewed beer for the Kansas City region. The brewery's first half-barrel of Boulevard Pale Ale was delivered personally by McDonald in his pickup truck to Ponak's Mexican Kitchen, located nearby. In 1990, Boulevard Wheat was added to the product line. Wheat and Pale Ale remain the company’s strongest sellers.^[7]

Introduced in late 2007, the "Smokestack Series" joined Boulevard's family of beers with year-round, seasonal, and limited edition lines of artisanal selections packaged mostly in 750 ml bottles, while some are also available in 12 oz. bottles and on draft. These bold, complex varieties were inspired by Belgian Trappist beer, and share several characteristics including their higher alcohol content. Year-round Smokestack beers include Double-Wide I.P.A, Long Strange Tripel, The Sixth Glass quadrupel, Dark Truth Stout, and Tank 7, a farmhouse ale. Additional Smokestack beers have been released, including some limited release and some that are available year round.

In mid-2009, the company introduced Boulevard Pilsner to its core brand family. The brew is a nod to the full-bodied pilsners of Kansas City's historic breweries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the spring of 2013, Boulevard Pilsner was rebranded to KC Pils, and now has a charity component, giving back 10% of Kansas City sales to Kansas City charities. ^[8]

The brewery is now the largest craft brewer in the Midwest, with capacity reaching an estimated 600,000 barrels from an expansion project completed in 2006. Boulevard's beer is available throughout Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Indiana, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Massachusetts, District of Columbia and parts of Illinois, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, Utah, Texas, and Maryland.

In 2013, many of the brewery's beers were certified kosher by the Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City.

Brewery Expansion

Boulevard underwent expansions in 1999 and 2003. In March 2005, Boulevard broke ground on a $20 million expansion project that increases brewing production capacity by an estimated 600,000 barrels/year. The new brewing and packaging building was constructed adjacent to the existing plant.

Designed by 360 Architecture, the new addition is 68,500 square feet (6,360 m²) and includes a two-story state-of-the-art brewhouse and a kegging/bottling facility with a skylit atrium. The third floor, in addition to housing Boulevard Brewery offices, has two large hospitality rooms, with a terrace overlooking downtown Kansas City. A glass skywalk links both pedestrian circulation and beer piping between the old and new brewhouses.

The completed expansion facilitates the brewing of Boulevard's Unfiltered Wheat Beer and Pale Ale beers, which together comprise more than 60 percent of Boulevard's sales. Unfiltered Wheat Beer is the best-selling beer of its style in the Midwest.

In Fall 2011 Boulevard began a $3 million expansion of its original brew house at 25th Street and Southwest Boulevard in Kansas City. The expansion required Boulevard to remove six 105-barrel fermenters in order to replace them with eight new 300-barrel fermentation tanks from the Paul Mueller Company of Springfield, Missouri. The expansion allowed the brewery to produce an additional 35,000 barrels of beer a year, increasing capacity by about 20 percent. In order to accommodate the new tanks, the original brew house at 25th Street and Southwest Boulevard will need to be raised about 35 feet.^[9][10]

Boulevard offers free 45 minute tours daily where visitors may sample their brews. ^[11]

References

External links

• Boulevard Brewing Company