Sunday, March 29, 2009

KC Breweries, Old, New, Hopeful

I've been meaning to get to this post for a while, but I've really been slacking. A quick note, you should really try the Sam Adams Imperial Series. Just don't drink 6 or 7 at once like I did. There's been a lot of change in breweries with the economy sinking. Late last year Power Plant Brewery in Parkville shut down "indefinitely", according to the sign on their door. Economy, service, and a political mess ended that brewery but I am hopeful that it will open again. With Parkville's exciting Microbrewfest (coming May 2nd) you'd think they'd get a lot of business.

River Market Brewery was another casualty. To me it's not a huge surprise. With the new Power & Light district dominating the downtown cash flow, RMB became an okay lunch spot, if that. The beer was decent, the service not so great. Still it's sad to see another original bite the dust.

So did Flying Monkey close down? I heard rumors that Flying Monkey Brewery in Olathe shut down, but haven't confirmed that. I saw that up in Ontario recently a brewery just changed its name to Flying Monkeys Brewery. Hmm...

On a brighter side of the topic we've got two hopeful breweries in DCB and DBC both in KC area.

Doodle Brewing Company in Liberty is underway with a building site. Nick Vaughn from KC's 75th st brewery has a good resume of brewery experience and knowledge. Nick is taking a leap with his kids college money to construct his dream. KC should really help Matt once he gets his operation in full force.


Dead Canary Brewery has kept us awaiting some good news for a while, but has plans in the West Bottoms to create a fun nano-brewery that contains a dodgeball league. Also they did a better job on the new logo.

5 comments:

Chimpotle said...

Flying Monkey did close. I believe they sold the actual beers to Weston Brewing Co to continue their production.

Anonymous said...

The Power Plant sold off all the equipment so I doubt a re-open is in their future. Also, Nick is the Doodle dude's name.

KC Hop Head said...

That sucks about Power Plant. Yeah I don't know where I got Matt from. Sorry Nick.

Anonymous said...

so can you still get flying monkey beers anywhere? Any info you could get on Flying Monkey would be appreciated. They had awesome saturday afternoon tours, and even though the beer wasn't great it was getting better, and they had just hired a younger guy who knew a ton about beer. I hope they are not done for good. -- CS

KC Hop Head said...

Just to add on Flying Monkey. This is what Warren said:

"They are contract brewing out of Weston. Robert still owns Country Roads Distributing and is working with Shawn O'Malley up at Weston. So it will still have the Flying Monkey name. I thought they closed too, but Shawn set me straight."

Sounds like you can still get some. And Flying Monkey will be seperately representing themselves at Parkville's Microbrewery Festival.