The Beer

Once upon a time there was a family in the Ozarks that started a nanobrewery called Piney River Brewing Company.  The family spent time every summer on a fishing trip on Rainy Lake in Northern Minnesota/Canada.  The first year their brewery was in operation, the family found it very difficult to pick “the right time” to leave the brewery for their annual pilgrimage to North Country. However, as the summer of 2011 went along, the family realized that the first week of August would be a good week to make the annual Rainy Lake trip.  They began planning, and as…

Music and beer go hand in hand. Since our stovetop homebrewing days tunes have been a very important part of the beer we've made.  We still have the TV we bought when we were married, but we've upgraded our stereo system more than one time.  The BARn is currently outfitted with an iPod player, but we're already thinking about where and how to pipe the tunes all over the BARn when the time comes.  (This will involve more outdoor speakers.  The cows, the turkeys, the deer all love tunes, too.) Several years ago I read this article in The New…

Piney River Brewing Company was busy with a bunch of new folks at the BARn this past weekend.  We enjoyed meeting all of them and sharing our beer with them. As we have blogged here, you know that we are constantly trying to keep the beer in stock, but when you fill a bunch of growlers in a weekend, sell a few pints and share some samples, a 10-gallon system won't cut it. We started out on Saturday with all five beers on tap.  The first beer to go was Old Tom Porter.  Brian was attempting to fill a growler…

We were at the TCMH Healthcare Foundation’s annual Chili Cook Off last November when I spied a piece of art work I could not live without.  Lanie Frick, a Texas County artist that is known for paintings of farm animals and the Ozarks, donated an oil painting of a mule.  When I saw that painting, I knew I had to have it for the BARn.  Brian got into a heated bidding war with one of the County Commissioners, but I got my mule.  (And we raised a little money for charity, too—bonus!) At the time, I knew that mule would…

Beer development is part science, part luck. As someone that has experienced giving birth to a child, I find similarities between having a child and creating and brewing a new beer. And Jack McAuliffe of the former New Albion Brewing said, "Farmers make wine.  Engineers make beer." Engineering.  Birth.  Science.  Luck.  No matter what you call it, there are times when brewing beer is pure magic. May I introduce our latest: Yes, it's as delicious as it looks. The roasted barley smells good enough to eat before it goes into the mill.  Add a little hot liquor, hops, yeast....Wow! We're…

We got a shout out from our people at the Brewers Association today when they featured Brian and the brewery. http://www.brewersassociation.com/pages/community/a-toast-to/show?title=brian-durham Check it out.  So cool.  Thanks BA. Still having the time of our lives....

When we started the brewery we knew that our wheat and our pale ale would get a thumbs up from the public.  The wheat is smooth and easy drinking.  The pale ale, for those that like a little more hoppy beer, also as one beer reviewer said, "tastes the way beer is supposed to be".  They both go great with all kinds of foods, too. We also had an amber ale that we were fond of.  Our friends were fond of it, too, but our amber ale is "different" because it has more caramel and biscuit flavors at the front.…

When we started this process, we thought we would save our old barn, make a little beer in it, and see what the interest was in beer hand crafted on the Piney.  We had barely cleaned the old hay and manure out of the barn before word started getting out about Piney River Brewing Company, and we kept hearing, "This is what this area needed!" After we got our licenses last year, we poured all of our energy into getting the BARn in shape to brew.  The brewing began in January, and the major construction work stopped.  Yet in between…

Well, here's a Piney River Brewing Company growler. These are half-gallon glass containers that hold beer. According to the Alstrom Brothers at Beer Advocate:  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fresh beer was carried from the local pub to one's home by means of a small-galvanized pail. Rumor has it that when the beer sloshed around the pail, it created a rumbling sound as the CO2 escaped through the lid, thus the term "growler" was coined. Before World War II, city kids used to bring covered buckets of draft beer from a local bar or brewery to workers at…

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today.  We're open.  Yep, you heard it right, we've cracked the door to the BARn just a bit.  We have Bronzeback Pale Ale and Ozark Firefly Wheat on tap.  We've got growlers to fill, so you don't have to be thirsty. Back when we started this Piney River Brewing Company thing we thought that we would use our little Sabco system to test the waters.  We were going to brew some beer, create a really cool tap room with a spectacular view, and maybe, just maybe, drum up a few Piney River Brewing Company fans…