Best of KC 2023: Black-owned brewery breaks beer barriers
Vine Street Brewing. // Courtesy Kansas City Area Development Council)
This month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can browse the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some of our current favorite things about Kansas City in 2023. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout November.
Co-founded by Kemet Coleman, Elliot Ivory, and Woodie Bonds Jr., Vine Street Brewing Company is the first Black-owned brewery in Missouri. They attracted national fanfare with their grand opening in the historic 18th & Vine district back in June, meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris prior to the event.
Located within the former Street Department public works building, the brewery features historic limestone architecture covered in graffiti and large arched windows with local artwork. In addition to the upstairs brewery, there’s a downstairs space called The Groove Room—an outdoor beer garden and green space to host events. The building also houses the Warren Harvey Art Gallery and The Prospect KC, both Black-owned businesses.
Coleman worked for Boulevard Brewing Company and was inspired to start his own when he learned that African women were the first to brew beer. He met Bonds while working at Boulevard. Bonds was a homebrewer at the time and founded KC’s first hip-hop beer festival, Hip Hops Hooray. Ivory was a project manager at Honeywell and had been brewing under the name Wiz Brewing. He joined the project later, meeting Coleman through Bonds, whom he had met at a micro beer festival in KC. The three of them came together to bring their vision to fruition.
True to their own roots and the jazz roots of the neighborhood, they’ve made music a major focus of the events, hosting concerts and listening parties in the downstairs and outdoor spaces. They do Thirst Fridays, which include live music, art, food, and board games. Many of the beer names are also music-inspired, including their debut beer, The Jazzman Black Lager. Another beer, the Black is Beautiful Vol. 2 IPA, was released in collaboration with the National Black Brewers Association (NB2A) and coincided with the release of Coleman’s new EP, Black is Beautiful 2.
The owners of Vine Street Brewing hope they will inspire other Black brewers and that Black-owned breweries will come to be a much larger part of the beer scene.
Vine Street Brewing Co. is located at 2010 Vine St. Building 2A, Kansas City, MO 64108.
