Craft Beer for Your Next Float Trip

It was just about 3 years ago that one of our friends asked, “Are you insane?” when she heard we were starting a brewery in a barn on our farm.

We said, “No, we’re not insane, we’re having the time of our lives!”

And it’s true, this industry is a fun one. There’s great camaraderie among the folks that make beer and sell beer. It’s very rewarding to pour your heart and soul into a vision of crafting high quality beer that celebrates the Ozarks and to people snapping up your products as soon as they hit the shelves. (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!)

But it has been a little insane lately.

Piney River products seem to be selling better than ever in the areas where we distribute our beer. Plus, we introduced a new beer this spring…Float Trip Ale. We added two new fermentation vessels to help us better manage the demand for Piney River beer, but we probably should have added four…or six…and more brewers…especially since we introduced Float Trip Ale.

We can our beer because we wanted to provide a beer in the Ozarks that could be enjoyed in those great places that make the Ozarks…the Ozarks. Even better is a canned craft beer that’s named after something that we all would rather be doing.

People have been sending us photos all summer of their Float Trip Ale in their tube, their canoe, their kayak. It’s awesome. I like to say that Float Trip Ale is what you drink when you’re on a float trip or would rather be on a float trip.

The first pallet of Float Trip Ale didn’t even end up on a float trip. It ended up on the Katy Trail for the big Pedaler’s Jamboree on Memorial Day weekend. Turns out that bicyclists love craft beer, AND they need beer that’s portable in nature, too.

Our friends at Dawt Mill in Ozark County have Float Trip Ale in their General Store and they have it on draft at The Gravel Bar. There’s so much Float Trip Ale goin’ on float trips at Dawt Mill that some people think Float Trip Ale is Dawt Mill’s house beer.

We have found as a small craft brewery in the Ozarks that many people that try our beer are new to the craft beer scene. They want to drink local beer, but they can’t jump in with an IPA or stout. That’s okay because we didn’t start out drinking IPA or stout either.

We have found that with our Black Walnut Wheat a full-flavored but easy drinking beer will win wanna-be craft beer drinkers over every time. Why not make something else that’s easy drinking…the kind of beer you would want to drink all day while floating down the river?

And Float Trip Ale was born.

A float trip is the quintessential Ozark experience. A canoe, kayak, raft or tube and a pristine spring-fed Missouri stream creates a lasting memory of our wild and beautiful outdoors. Our hand-crafted blonde ale is the perfect accompaniment to your day on the river or to simply bring back float trip memories.

Stay tuned…the Float Trip Ale story isn’t over. There’s something about Float Trip Ale that makes it distinctly different from the other beers we’ve canned.