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Should Kansas City ever fall victim to a natural disaster, one of the safest places you could be is in one of the tank rooms at the Boulevard Brewing Company. And it is not because Mother Nature has an affinity for Pale Ale. It's because the tank rooms were built for strength (there is a lot of valuable beer pulsing through there), enough to withstand an earthquake and a tornado at the same time. This is just one of the fun facts you learn on the tour of the Boulevard Brewery.

Did I mention the tour is free and also includes beer samples?

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Boulevard Brewery

Kansas City's hometown brewery.

I first took the Boulevard tour nearly 10 years ago. While it was a good tour then, it is even more impressive now. Since my last visit, the company has undergone a huge expansion with the building of a new brewhouse, a beautiful facility that includes a state-of-the-art German brewing machines, offices, and a great event space. With the expansion, Boulevard can produce 700,000 barrels of a beer a year, and it is currently the eighth-largest craft brewery — and 16th-largest brewery — in the United States. In fact, much ado has been made recently of the fact that with sale of Anheuser-Busch to Belgian conglomerate, InBev, Boulevard is now the largest independent brewery in Missouri. But Boulevard doesn’t need to compete with Budweiser, especially not here. Boulevard is Kansas City’s hometown brew.

Founded in 1989 by John McDonald, the brewery is located on Southwest Boulevard, just a couple blocks west of I-35, making it a visible landmark from the highway, near downtown. Tours are offered Wednesday through Sunday, but they fill up quickly (we booked our Saturday tour about two months in advance). The tour begins and ends at the gift shop (like any good tour should) and our volunteer guide was an informative and fearless leader on our beer journey. There are several short videos throughout the tour, which do a really nice job of further explaining the various processes that eventually turn malt, hops, yeast, and water into that grocery store six-pack or cold glass of Unfiltered Wheat at your favorite watering hole.

We toured the old brewhouse first, which is where Boulevard’s seasonal beers and Smokestack Series are made. We saw the beer barrel room, those tank rooms where fermentation occurs, and we learned about filtration and packaging. We walked a couple of steps to the new brewhouse, where Boulevard’s popular year-round beers like the Pale Ale, Unfiltered Wheat, and Stout are made. The new three-story building is immaculate, full of natural light, and built with sustainable materials. It also houses the keg room (50 percent of Boulevard’s beer is sold in kegs, the other 50 percent in bottles). The third floor features a fabulous event space for company parties, wedding receptions, and banquets, with an outdoor beer garden patio that offers great views of downtown Kansas City. From inside the party rooms, you can also look down on the bottling line, where beer can be bottled at 500 bottles per minute. Boulevard uses a special technique called “bottling conditioning” to ensure better tasting, longer lasting beer.

Of course, the pièce de résistance of the tour is the sampling, which takes place in the pub-like atmosphere of The Tasting Room, the final stop on the tour. You’re given four bottle cap tokens to use for sampling generous pours of different Boulevard beers, and it’s a great way to get a taste of some of the various flavors Boulevard has to offer. So what else is new with our #1 true Missouri brew? In addition to new aluminum bottles that make Boulevard stadium and arena-friendly, the company is also venturing into wine making. If it’s stamped with the iconic Boulevard logo and reliable quality, count us willing to give it a taste-test.

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