February 17, 2015

Big News For Beer Kitchen





In 2010 James Westphal and Mark Kelpe had huge dreams of an esoteric beer bar with great American Gastropub style food when they created Beer Kitchen. The vision included 8 draft beers, roughly 40 bottles, flat top grill burgers, and a brunch that would soon be something great!

Fast forward to 2015, Beer Kitchen has become a Kansas City staple for weekend brunch, some of the best burgers in town, and a bottle beer list that now includes more than 70 beers. One thing that hasn’t changed was the number of draft beers. How can a beer forward bar call themselves “Beer Kitchen” when they only have 8 taps? 

Here’s a little insight into our logistical storage problems. Westport was built between 1833 and 1858 which lends to a lot of history, but the old buildings aren’t great for storage. For the last 4 years, we’ve stored food and kegs in the same small cooler in the kitchen creating storage problems for our food and draft beer. In 2013, Beer Kitchen’s landlord, started putting together a plan to reorganize some of the space and we were able to find enough space in our cramped basement to install a beer cooler. 

This week, we will debut our 16 taps. We’ve doubled! A place that calls themselves Beer Kitchen will now have a more appropriate amount of draft beer! 

The first lineup of 16 drafts will look like this:
Dieu du Ciel Herbe a Detourne
Oskar Blues Old Chub
Julian Cider, Cherry Bomb
Bell’s Two Hearted
Boulevard The Calling
Duvel Single
Kulmbacher Pilsner
Deschutes Obsidian Nitro
Odell Fernet Porter
Prairie Birra
Mother’s Spring Batch
UrbanChestnut Winged Nut
Weihnstephaner Hefeweissbier
Mikkeller Spatenelderflower
Torn Label Monk & Honey
SouthernTier Old Man Winter

We expect to have all of our drafts available Thursday afternoon ready for your enjoyment!

-RandylDanner, Director of Beer