Boulevard Brewing Company

Boulevard began in 1988 with the 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 in a 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. With capacity reaching an estimated 600,000 barrels from an expansion project completed in 2006, the brewery is now one of the largest craft brewers in the Midwest. In the U.S., Boulevard Beer is available in 41 states. Internationally, it can be found in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In 2013, many of the brewery's beers were certified kosher by the Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City. In 2020 the Boulevard introduced the "Quirk" line of hard seltzers. 2021 sexism and harassment scandal In January 2021, a female reddit user reported leaving the brewery in 2020 because of harassment, and a "sexist work environment", detailing numerous examples of prejudice against women. The post was shared widely, gained media attention, and less than one week later Boulevard's president Jeff Krum resigned, along with two other high-level employees. The brewery's founder, John McDonald, returned to run the company to "make things right" shortly after. An outside company was hired to conduct an investigation, which "affirmed [that] instances of harassment and problematic behavior had occurred." ==Brewery expansion==

Boulevard underwent expansions in 1999 and 2005. In March 2006, Boulevard broke ground on a $20 million expansion project that increases brewing production capacity by an estimated 60,000 barrels/year. The new brewing and packaging building was constructed adjacent to the existing plant. Designed by 360 Architecture, the new addition is 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 needed to be raised about 35 feet. Boulevard offers daily tours where visitors may sample their brews. ==References==