Boulevard Brewing Co. is a Kansas City, Mo.-based local brewery that produces seven beers year-round in addition to several seasonal varieties.

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As the major beer companies continue to expand their global reach and focus on marketing strategies for their products at the expense of taste and quality, microbreweries like Boulevard Brewing Co. make their mark as players determined to gain market share based on regional branding. John McDonald, founder of the Kansas City, Mo., brewer, has banked on that old-fashioned business model to fuel the company’s growth since 1989.

“Think about all the brands developed in large breweries in the last 50 to 60 years,” he says. “They’ve all been developed by some marketing company that has nothing to do with the beer.

“Our business is about bringing back the traditional styles of brewing beer, and that’s really what we do,” McDonald adds. “The big guys are becoming more global, so the consumer is looking for things that are more local. And we are the real thing.” Boulevard Brewing started in 1989 as a 35-barrel Bavarian brew house in a turn-of-the-century brick building on Kansas City’s historic Southwest Boulevard. The company has since grown into one of the largest specialty brewers in the Midwest with a distribution foothold in 15 states throughout the Midwest.

Today, Boulevard Brewing operates out of a $25 million building McDonald built three years ago that produces 150,000 barrels of beer annually. The brewery has the capacity to ultimately produce about 700,000 barrels annually, with some fluctuation in that total per style.

The brewery produces seven beers year-round: Pale Ale, Unfiltered Wheat Beer, Lunar Ale, Single-Wide India Pale Ale, Bully! Porter, Dry Stout and Boulevard Pilsner. Boulevard Brewing offers seasonal beers, as well, such as Irish Ale in early spring, Maibock in late spring, ZON in summer, Bob’s ’47 in the fall and Nutcracker Ale during the holidays.

Consistent Growth
For its first 10 years, Boulevard Brewery couldn’t focus on product development because it could barely keep up with the demand, McDonald says. After adding additional capacity, though, the brewery shifted focus to R&D and came up with the Smokestack series, which is an American-style line of Belgian-influenced beers. The company also added a 16-ounce aluminum krauesening and filling line to account for its Unfiltered Wheat product.

McDonald figured while the major brewers continue to focus on global expansion, Boulevard Brewery would attempt to take a chunk from their market share. So far, the plan has worked as Boulevard Pilsner has been a hit in the Kansas City area.

While the company plans to continue expanding toward its full capacity of 700,000 barrel annually, McDonald wants to keep Boulevard Brewery a local and regional favorite. Considering the major brewers produce 400 million barrels annually, Boulevard Brewery is sure to remain off the radar.

“The brewing industry in the U.S. used to be full of breweries between 100,000 and 1 million barrels,” he says. “We don’t do a whole lot on the market or sales side, so we see ourselves as very local. As the big guys are becoming more global, the consumer is looking for things that are more local. We continue to brew our own beer and do it in historical ways, which provides a great alternative to mass-marketed beer.”

Taking Notice
The consumers are beginning to take notice, as well. Boulevard’s Unfiltered Wheat Beer won the gold medal at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival for session/drinkable beer. McDonald says this proves his business model of staying regional is working.

“I’m very optimistic on the specialty regional beer industry,” he says. “The world wants to get bigger but wants to get smaller. People want to drink beer from regional suppliers because a case of beer probably shouldn’t be shipped halfway around the world.”

Bright Future
Even during the recession, the business model seems to work. Although the company has seen a decrease in draft beer, which once accounted for 50 percent of Boulevard Brewing’s sales, packaged sales have more than made up the slack. McDonald believes this is because even in a down economy, people enjoy the escape beer offers.

“Local and regional brewing with local and regional ingredients is a smart business,” he adds. “We’re seeing a rebound in the last two or three months because people are back out drinking beer again.”