Kansas City residents are proud of their barbecue, their Chiefs football, their national champion soccer team and Boulevard Brewing, a local brewery that has built up quite a local following since its launch in the late 1980s.
"It's our thing. You know, like la cosa nostra, it's our thing," says Char O'Hara, a Kansas City, Mo., resident who, like thousands of other local 20-somethings, grew up with Boulevard.
But soon, it will be a Belgian thing, too. Any day now, Belgian beer maker Duvel is expected to finalize its purchase of the Kansas City brewery.
The deal to buy Boulevard Brewing says a lot about the transformation of the American craft beer industry — and just how much the world now values a product with a firm sense of place.
O'Hara is a little leery about Duvel taking over her brand. "These people came from the outside, and took something that's native to us, and it's kind of a bummer," she says. "It makes the future uncertain."
But John McDonald, Boulevard Brewing's founder, sees things differently. "I think a lot of people were kind of shocked at the news, and I kind of knew that would happen."