BKS is My Neighborhood Brewery

Welcome to the neighborhood, BKS Artisan Ales.

The first residential-area brewery in Kansas City will open for regular hours starting in December. And – lucky me! – their door is 856 ft from my front door. Lucky you, Brian and Mary Rooney are friendly folks and make tasty beer.

Brian is a homebrewer who began years ago on a Mr Beer kit. Which isn’t any way to make beer. Mediocre batches on poorly designed equipment was not a deterrent, it all just added to the challenge. Determination lead to what Brian described as “five years of obsession.” The brewing obsession with styles, methods, ingredients and competition culminated in an all-electric, one-barrel system occupying half of their Brookside basement. Maybe it was time to go pro.

The BKS Artisan Ales brew house, while housed in a much more spacious spot than a basement, is a tiny 3-bbl all-electric set up. The challenge many new brewers face in scaling and equipment when moving from homebrewing has not been the same for Brian. The e

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