BKS Artisan Ales | Kansas City, MO
Beer Trip: BKS Artisan Ales in Kansas City, Missouri
While brewery hopping around Kansas City last spring, we met and befriended another beer-loving couple who happen to live just down the street from BKS Artisan Ales. We had talked about meeting them there for nearly a year and are certainly glad we finally made it happen!
A super cool exterior as you approach BKS in Brookside!
The Brewery
Ample outdoor seating
Located in the Brookside district, BKS is the only brewery in the area. Even though you can’t hit many breweries in one trip in this area, BKS is well worth being its own destination. This place stands out from its surroundings with a cool, brown in color exterior and wooden fencing surrounding their spacious outdoor seating space.
The indoor area has tons of natural light pouring in through their combination of overhead glass garage doors, as well as large windows. This serves them well, as they have tons of live plants throughout the brewery. The building itself is not very wide, but they’ve created somewhat of an ‘alley’ right down the middle with roughly a dozen tables on the sides. This pathway leads right up to the walk-up bar, where we found service to be extremely fast. As we were leaving, we also discovered that BKS is dog-friendly - so we’ll definitely have to return with Barley in the future.
Lots of green behind the bar for St. Patrick’s Day
A packed house!
The Beer
Good beer featuring a man in a kilt
BKS does things different than most, with almost all drafts continually rotating vs. housing consistent flagships. They do bring back seasonal favorites from time to time, but for the most part you will always experience something new. In fact, we learned that people will strategically come in to buy pallets of their newest releases before they miss out. When we stopped in (by chance on St. Patrick’s Day!), their menu consisted almost entirely of IPAs and German style beers; however, they also had an oatmeal stout and an English mild on tap as well. BKS consistently offers about 10 draft options, as well as some additional choices only found in cans.
BKS does a great job with their many IPAs (if you’re a true citrus fan)! Each one of the ones sampled on this visit had an abundance of juiciness, which was perfect as the season was just turning from winter to spring. The Concentrated is the perfect example, having a great haze alongside its citrus flavor. Since IPAs aren’t for everyone, you’ll be pleased to find other delicious offerings like their Rockhill & Locust English mild ale - this was very rich in notes of coffee and chocolate. In fact, this brew won a gold medal at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival!
The kind of haze you love to see!
Delicious and award-winning!
Food, Merch, & More
TONS of to-go beer available
As previously mentioned, people flock here for their rotating beer releases - so it’s obvious that they have plenty of to-go beers here in two coolers located near the bar. There is also a good selection of grab-and-go packaged snacks; however, they don’t offer full meals (so plan accordingly)! The merchandise section here included a selection of shirts, hats, and glassware - many of their featured merchandise items were green in color as a part of the St. Paddy’s spirit.
Lots of green merch front & center
Grab & go snacks to choose from
