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
