It’s taken a while, but finally we can say that we’re trying to quench the thirst for craft beer in Southeast Missouri!
Last Friday Bluff City Beer in Cape Girardeau sent a big old’ truck to Piney River to pick up a plethora of Piney Pints.
And the people of Southeast Missouri rejoice!
Let me take you back…a long way back. Brian and I have good friends in SEMO. They have wanted our beer since day #1. Then, Rodney Edwards at Grellner Sales (our first distributor) suggested we talk to his friends, the Bess family, in Cape when we were ready to expand our distribution. Meanwhile, our friends in SEMO were showing up at the brewery and bootlegging growlers and cases of Piney Pints back to their friends who were becoming Piney River fans. Piney River was expanding its reach, but so far no SEMO.
What you may not know is that if Brian didn’t live with me here in the heart of the Ozarks, he would probably live in SEMO. Why? Duck hunting. I will not pass up a wild duck breast and those rice fields are pretty, but I need trees and hills. So Brian dreams of skies filled with ducks and drives a little ways East to find it. And since we started the brewery Brian’s been pretty passionate about getting Piney Pints in all the blinds in SEMO.
Last May it was our great privilege to host Kathy Holloway and her husband, Keith, and David Bess from Bluff City Beer at the brewery. We talked hunting, fishing, raising boys (Kathy & Keith have two boys) and, of course, beer. Talking with them was like talking with friends. And as a small, family owned business, once again we had that great feeling about doing business with another longtime family owned business.
We wanted to get Piney Pints to SEMO last year, but then we had this little beer called Float Trip Ale come along, and we couldn’t make enough, but ALL YEAR LONG we were thinking about SEMO.
Finally this spring were were able to include Bluff City in our 2014 planning and brewing. We can’t send draft, but we have sent Piney Pints to the rice fields, duck blinds and Current River canoes and kayaks in SEMO. There is a great and growing love for craft beer in SEMO, and at Piney River we are all about growing the beer palates of our fellow rural Missourians in the Eastern part of our great state.
Drink up SEMO friends! We’ll make more! And raise a glass to the Bess family and Bluff City Beer for their support of locally brewed beer!
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