KC Bier has been brewing since 2014, but it’s okay if you’ve never heard of them. They’re not making the kind of flashy beers that tend to excite the can-stacking geeks on social media, and their footprint is small—just the Kansas City area, plus bits of Missouri and Kansas. That’s it.
Yet just after the New Year, the Kansas City Bier Company—that’s their full name, which nobody uses—made an announcement: It had produced 15,500 barrels of beer in 2019. That was an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. By Brewers Association standards, that makes it a “regional brewery” (even if it’s just a local one). Those numbers also put it among the top three percent of breweries nationwide by volume.
How did KC Bier get there? In short, by making very drinkable beers—the kind where you want to drink more than one or two (hence, volume)—and by concentrating efforts on their local market.