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.

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 The Calling double ipa, Long Strange Tripel, The Sixth Glass quadrupel, Dark Truth Stout, Tell-Tale Tart a slightly sour ale, 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.

In 2018, Boulevard teamed with Kansas City native and rapper Tech N9ne to create a new beer. The beer, which is named Bou Lou and is a wheat beer with pineapple and coconut flavors, is named for and inspired by his song "Caribou Lou". It was released on June 18 in Kansas City, Wichita, Denver, and Oklahoma City and on July 9 in St. Louis.

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 US, 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."