Boulevard Brewing Company is an independent regional craft brewery

Brewery

A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 located in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

. The Brewers Association

Brewers Association

The Brewers Association is an American trade group of over 1,000 brewers, particularly concerned with the promotion of craft beer and homebrewing....

 currently ranks Boulevard as the 10th largest craft brewery, and the 17th largest active brewery in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The sale of Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

 to InBev

InBev

InBev is a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev. The company existed independently for several years - since the merger between Interbrew and AmBev and until the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. InBev has operations in over 30 countries and sales in over 130 countries...

 made Boulevard the largest independent American brewery in the state of Missouri. Boulevard's beers are available in 20 Midwest and Great Plains

Great Plains

The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

 states

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

.

History

Boulevard's story 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, 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

Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

, the brewery has a focus on providing locally-brewed beer for the Kansas City region. The brewery's first half-barrel was delivered personally by McDonald in his pickup truck to Ponak's Mexican Kitchen, located nearby. 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

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

, Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, Washington, Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 and parts of Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, and Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. In 2010, Boulevard sold 149,008 barrels of beer.

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

360 Architecture

360 Architecture is an American architectural practice focused on planning, design and execution. The firm provides services for a range of project types including corporate headquarters and commercial office buildings, sports arenas and ballparks, municipal facilities, single- and multi-family...

, the new addition is 68500 square feet (6,363.9 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 80 percent of Boulevard's sales. Unfiltered Wheat Beer is the best-selling beer of its style in the Midwest.

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 in 750 ml bottles. These bold, complex varieties were inspired by Belgian Trappist beer

Trappist beer

A Trappist beer is a beer brewed by or under control of Trappist monks. There are a total of 174 Trappist monasteries worldwide ; only seven produce Trappist beer and are authorized to label their beers with the Authentic Trappist Product logo that indicates a compliance to the various rules of...

, 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.

Boulevard offers free 45 minute tours from Wednesday to Sunday where visitors may sample their brews.