Brewery Emperial | Kansas City, MO
Beer Trip: Brewery Emperial in Kansas City, Missouri
A beer lover can’t go wrong visiting any of the breweries within the Crossroads District of Kansas City. This trip took us to Brewery Emperial (name inspired by the historic Imperial Brewery in KC!), which we’ve visited several times before, and which was the perfect spot to spend a few hours.
Looks much smaller from the outside!
The impressive covered patio
The Brewery
As far as downtown KC breweries go, in our opinion, Brewery Emperial boasts the best outdoor patio. It’s hardly noticeable from the road, but once inside the front entryway, you’ll find 20+ picnic tables, cornhole boards, and even some kids’ sandbox toys spread about. Part of the area is covered, where it could be utilized year-round. Unfortunately for us, the weather was 40 degrees and snow-covered the day we visited - but we know our 2-year-old would have loved it here on a warmer day!
The outdoor space is enormous and kid-friendly!
The indoor space appears small, but could still likely seat more than 60 people. There are ten high-top, live-edge wooden tables, along with a 12-person bar that runs the entire length of the side wall. Towards the back of the room is the kitchen, exposed to the taproom and allowing the delicious smells to linger in the space. The place is dimly lit and has an antiquey vibe to it, with shelving lining the room housing unique trinkets. Their owl logo can be found throughout the place, each featuring a different style. You could almost make it a game to see how many owls you could find!
Swanky bar area
Plentiful seating
Another view of the outdoor patio
Live edge wooden tables
The Beer
The Half & Half!
Brewery Emperial maintains about a dozen different beers on tap, with four of those being flagship offerings. During our visit, the menu ran the gamut of IPAs, sours, a stout, a brown, a shandy, and a
Belgian witbier, among others. They also had the current year’s Imperial stout called the URSA Major, along with bottles of previous years’ versions. If you’re into barrel-aged brews, it would be fun to try them all side-by-side to taste the subtle differences. One neat thing we don’t see often in the KC metro is beer mixes. They offer a few of these right on the menu, such as the Half & Half featuring their stout and their extra special bitter (ESB), or you can order a Nancy - their pilsner topped with pineapple juice. This brought back many memories of our K-State days!
We only sampled part of the menu since we were driving, but they had a couple worth recommending from this visit. For starters, their ESB, known as Biscuit, is fantastic! We are always fans of this style, and feel like ESBs should be more popular. It’s easy to see how this one’s name was developed, as it tastes exactly like a biscuit with its nice maltiness mixed along with a crisp, bitter aftertaste. The other top choice of the day was the Brown Ale. This brew was more roasty than malty, but provided a subtle yet noticeable sweetness.
Food, Merch, & More
In addition to serving up top-notch beer, Brewery Emperial has a full bar selection with many of the spirits being locally produced. With a full kitchen available, their food options include soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, fish and chips, and even wood-fired chicken. They even serve breakfast on the weekends! We were visiting between meal times, so we elected for the fried green beans as an appetizer - complete with house-made dressing! These hit the spot just right. If there were to be one negative on the place, it would be that the merchandise selection doesn’t have much available, but you’ll still find a couple of shirt selections and various glassware located behind the bar.
Dark greens create a moody vibe
Fried green beans
Merchandise
There are so many beer options within Kansas City, but Brewery Emperial is one that should definitely be on your list. We certainly won’t be waiting as long for our next visit!
Cheers!
Chris & Morgan (& Gretchen)
Our daughter Gretchen’s first brewery at only 8 days old!
