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The I-70 Series: Schlafly vs. Boulevard

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McDonald admits Lunar is "an acquired taste." (Brown ales are the twelfth-most-popular beer on supermarket shelves.) He says he made the beer he wanted to drink, not something that would do well among social drinkers. "Some people don't like it. It's not a beer that you are just going to drink because it's there. It's something that takes a little getting used to."

Boulevard sales rep David Colgan bounces into ODowds Little Dublin, in the swank Country Club Plaza shopping district, with a hint of Pale Ale on his breath. He has just finished lunch at another watering hole, where he drank a beer strictly for business. The average businessman wants to drink beer at lunch, he explains. If I order a beer, maybe it will make that guy feel more comfortable and hell order one, too. His goal is to create what he calls a cultural experience with the brand. Its a good strategy, but Colgan admits he has gained fifteen pounds in the past year, primarily from drinking beer with lunch.

Still, he envisions himself as a personification of Boulevard. Everything about his look — the baby-blue waffle-cut polo stamped with a subtle Boulevard logo, the thick-rimmed glasses, the carefully spiked plumage of hair — has been cultivated to help him make sales. Colgan exudes the laid-back vibe of a guy on the hunt for the next party. The fact that he was born in Ireland has provided an accent that sounds ideal for a beer salesman. "It's about being around when something happens and taking advantage of it," he says.

Today, though, he's on damage control. The concept of releasing Lunar was "no brand left behind," he says — meaning the introduction of a new variety wasn't supposed to hurt the profit margins of other Boulevard beers. Most bars that stock Boulevard already had at least two tap handles pouring Wheat and Pale Ale. Bars might also assign Boulevard an extra tap for seasonal beers, like the Irish Ale offered around St. Patrick's Day. After Irish Ale's run this year, Boulevard's four sales reps teamed up with nine distributor reps to convince roughly 130 bars to flip Irish Ale taps to Lunar.

The brand has since surpassed expectations, accounting for 8 percent of Boulevard sales in Kansas City, according to Bob Sullivan. That ranks it the third-most-popular beer, but still far behind Pale Ale (27 percent).

And Lunar has yet to prove its value to bar owners. O'Dowd's lubes a lot of social drinkers, so the demand for a highbrow brew is low. What's worse, O'Dowd's put Lunar on tap but pulled Pale Ale, hurting Boulevard's sales.

Colgan asks a blond barkeep for a manager. To pimp Lunar, he keeps a series of positive reviews of the brew in his car, but he has decided to leave them there. After all, one reviewer, Michael Jackson, author of Ultimate Beer and World Guide to Beer, lauded Lunar as: "Distinctive, assertive, fruity, peachy... Shortbread in the middle, tea-like in the finish: very Southern flavors." Jackson claimed it should "be enjoyed over ice (did I say that?) in a Collins glass, with a splash of Sazerac rye whiskey, while lazing on the porch thinking lustful thoughts about the languorous young lady on the swing." Not exactly cheers-worthy to the party crowd.

When manager Brad Schneider appears, Colgan presents him with a shrink-wrapped package of 500 coasters.

"I was hoping we might be able to bring Pale Ale in, perhaps carry it in bottles."

"If we put it back on, we pull Lunar off," Schneider says. "That was the plan, to pull Lunar off anyways."

"Well, don't do that," Colgan gasps. "Keep it on, and we'll see where it goes. We'll keep on representing."

After Colgan leaves, Schneider asks a bartender's opinion of Lunar. "They usually try one and then switch to something else," she says.

It's the same across the city: Tomfooleries never carried Lunar because the managers there thought the demand wouldn't warrant it. The Granfalloon did put the beer on tap at one location, but the bar is about to pull it off.

At the Velvet Dog in Martini Corner, server Katie White puffs on a cigarette during the lull preceding a happy-hour shift. She says the bar pulled a Miller-brand keg to put Lunar on tap. But bartenders pour just a few glasses of Lunar a week. "It's gross," she says. "People miss the High Life."

And Lunar has been all but thrown out of Kauffman Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Royals. Originally available in bottles and drafts at five locations around the ballpark, it is now being sold only in draft from just one stand. "We brought it in as sort of a test case, and it didn't sell as well as we thought," says Gael Doar, director of communications for the stadium's concessions contractor, Centerplate.

Direct competitors of Boulevard have welcomed Lunar for one reason: It hasn't drained sales. "It's not a style of beer that competes with anything we produce," says Scott Poore, the state sales manager for New Belgium.

When Colgan leaves O'Dowd's empty-handed, he utters his business maxim: "You're gonna get fucked. You just have to suck it up."

Jon Poteet, director of marketing for Boulevard's distributor, Central States Beverage Company, says the demand for so-called craft beers is exploding. "There is room for multiple brands, because they are all growing right now."

Poteet says Samuel Adams' sales so far this year have jumped 26 percent in the Kansas City area. Leinenkugel, owned by Miller, leaped 75 percent. Coors' Blue Moon more than doubled its sales in the market, with 113 percent growth in the first six months of 2007, compared with the same time last year.

In its own backyard, Boulevard's market share is still bigger than Sam Adams', Blue Moon's and Leinenkugel's combined. But whereas the others saw double- and triple-digit increases, Boulevard's sales have grown only 11 percent so far this year.

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