If you’ve been to the BARn, you know that Piney River loves to support local charity. Every month, we have a local charity that we support with a portion of our sample tray sales. We’ve been able to help some great charities–The Missouri Smallmouth Alliance, the Texas County Food Pantry, Women in Need in the Ozarks, TCMH Hospice of Care, the Houston Education Foundation, just to name a few. The Charity of the Month at the BARn is chosen by Brian, Andy and I to support a cause that is important to us. We try to stick with charities that support the Ozarks, too.
In January and February, a portion of our sample tray sales is going to Ozark Greenways–an organization in Springfield, MO with a great history and a big vision for trails in Southwest Missouri. Craft beer and trails are like peas and carrots, especially canned craft beer like Piney River!
Supporting local charity with local beer has gone one step further at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Alamo has a program called “Charity on Tap”, and if you’ve been in the bar of your local Alamo, you’ll notice, there’s only one tap with a distinctive handle. That special handle is the charity handle. Much like our sample tray program at the BARn, Alamo donates a portion of every pint sold through the “Charity on Tap” handle.
Before Alamo opened in Springfield, the bar manager contacted us because Alamo wanted to feature local breweries through the charity tap, and they wanted Piney River to participate. Even better, they asked us to choose the charity! We wanted to choose a charity that supported the outdoors, we had friends at Ozark Greenways, and the rest is beer drinking, charity loving history….
Piney River’s Black Walnut Wheat was chosen as the beer for the Charity on Tap program, and it has been poured to support Ozark Greenways for several weeks now. Already, a good number of pints have been sold, but we want to make it the best Charity on Tap ever at Alamo in Springfield! So we got our together with the folks at Alamo and Ozark Greenways to support Charity on Tap with a little extra effort. Next Wednesday (February 28th) we are gathering at The Backlot for some charitable drinking of Black Walnut Wheat.
Join Joleen and Brian from Piney River and the board of directors, staff and members of Ozark Greenways to tip back a pint of Black Walnut Wheat starting about 6 p.m. 
Patrick Mureithi will be there to add some lovely live music. The Backlot has a fantastic menu if you’re hungry. And you could always watch a movie, too.
Even if you can’t join us on Wednesday night in Springfield, please go by the Backlot to enjoy a Black Walnut Wheat and support a local charity that pours the efforts back into creating trails and greenways for everyone in the Ozarks to enjoy. Black Walnut Wheat is the Charity on Tap until March 29th, so please add this to your calendar and do your charitable drinking due diligence.
We love Alamo Drafthouse, so if you have not been there, you should definitely check it out. We think it’s so much fun to watch a movie, eat the best buttered popcorn in a super comfy reclining chair while enjoying a beer that we took our employees to Alamo for our annual “holiday party”. Not a single person in our group had been to Alamo prior to the event, but all of them are planning to go back! It’s very cool to have an business in Springfield that started thinking about how they were going to give back to the community before their doors opened. We’re proud to partner with them!
