Vine Street Brewing, Missouri’s first Black-owned brewery, is set to open this March with an official grand opening event in April. The highly anticipated brewery has been a long time in the making with owners Woodie Bonds Jr. and Elliott Ivory beginning as home brewers and collaborating with twenty different breweries across the metro. As they have been transitioning to a commercial scale brewery in the Jazz District, they are excited to offer a taproom that celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the eighteenth and Vine Jazz District (2000 Vine Street, Building 2A, KCMO).
A range of high-quality and innovative craft beers will be offered with particular excitement about their debut beer, Jazzman. “It’s a crisp and flavorful black lager that will make its debut at the restaurants, bars, and self-pour stations at the new KC airport,” says the third owner Kemet Coleman. “It represents the foundation of our brewing style and the unique flavor profile we strive to achieve.”
Other beers the brewery is excited to offer are the Paper Bag Thin, a light-bodied beer with sweet caramel and corn flavor, the Belgian Dubbel Dubs, with notes of toffee and dark fruit, and the Midnight Mississippi, a stout with a strong malt character including notes of coffee and chocolate.
While the brewery won’t be offering food, Chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant’s food concept, The Spot, is a fellow tenant in the building, helping to provide a food and beverage experience for Vine Street customers.
Due to the rich cultural heritage of Vine Street Brewery’s location, the taproom is designed to “reflect this cultural heritage with a screen wall separating the beer hall made of gigantic wooden piano keys with the ability to look down upon the brewhouse from the upstairs beer hall,” says Coleman.
The brewery will feature artwork from Warren Harvey and Jessie Green on the tabletops, feature a beer garden, and offer brewery tours.
“Our one-hundred-fifty-year-old stone building is a nod to the past, but with modern amenities like two levels of beer fun, an outdoor beer garden, a street café, and amazing event spaces, we’re definitely living in the present,” says Coleman.
