Think KC is ready to be a beer bar kind of town?

• TBL Photography
• Are you ready to belly up to the bar?

A proper beer pairing used to mean that you had enough ice in the cooler, but local restaurants and brewpubs have started over the past two years to take the art of partnering beer with food more seriously. You’ve got three local brewpubs cranking out their own beer (four if you count Free State in Lawrence) and plenty more on the horizon (Wilderness Brewing, Martin City Brewing Co. the next likely options on the horizon). Still, it seems like we’ve got aways to go before we’re St. Louis. World Series victory aside, The New York Times did a recent write-up on the proliferation of smaller breweries attempting to fill the former domestic shoes of Anheuser-Busch.

With a slate of start-up brewers in the area, do you think we’re ready to be a beer-bar town with little pockets of neighborhood breweries?