In 2014 we celebrated the 3rd Aleiversary at Piney River Brewing Co. with a special release imperial IPA that we called “Mule Team” paying homage to our Missouri Mule IPA and the team of people that it takes to make a packaging microbrewery on a Farm in the Ozarks work.
Craft beer changes led us to stop making Mule Team after the 8th Aleiversary in 2019. The beer is very expensive to make due to the large amount of malt and hops, and by 2019 a lot of breweries had IPAs, imperial IPAs, hazy IPAs, you name it. There wasn’t a lot of excitement for the beer, and because it was expensive to make, we didn’t plan to make it for the 2020 Aleiversary. That was fortuitous because the 9th Aleiversary never happened due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We actually thought the 9th Aleiversary was postponed, but it turned out that it never happened. We didn’t celebrate our anniversary at the Farm again until August 2021, and the idea of an imperial IPA in August heat in the Ozarks wasn’t something that seemed like a good idea.
Then we rolled into a few more Aleiversaries without making Mule Team IPA–11th, 12th, Lucky No. 13. Along the way, a few people asked about Mule Team. They missed it. They wanted to know when we were making it again. “Yeah, we need to do that,” Brian and I would answer, but it was Kevin Clary of Cabool that got our attention…possibly last year at the Lucky No. 13 Aleiversary or sometime around it.
“I’m gonna stop coming to the Aleiversary if you don’t make that beer,” Kevin threatened. That made us laugh.
“Yeah,” a few of his Cabool friends said in agreement. They didn’t threaten to boycott the Aleiversary, but they all seemed to agree that they needed Mule Team IPA for a proper Aleiversary.
That got us thinking…why not ask these Mule Team drinkers to help us brew their beloved beer?
A little background story–there’s a group of folks from Cabool Missouri that strolled into the BARn back in the summer of 2011 claiming to love craft beer. There was no BARn taproom, just a blazing hot loft that we showed them. We described our dream. They believed. They kept coming back to the BARn sitting in “crappy camp chairs” drinking pints poured from our kegorator while we kept “tabs” on a piece of paper with hash marks beside your name for the number of pints consumed. We had a couple of picnic tables, too, and Andy, who was only 6 years old would join them and regale them with tales of life at the brewery in Bucyrus (unbeknownst to his parents who were working inside). Anyway, those Cabool craft beer drinkers helped grow Piney River into what it is today, and on February 28th they came to Brewcyrus to oversee and to provide hands on help in brewing 2025 Mule Team IPA.
Brian gave everyone the lowdown on brewery operations.
Milling specialty malt for the brew.
Brewer Brandon is overseeing the assistant brewers.
Brewer Bryan shows an assistant brewer the boil kettle.
Emptying the mash tun.
Everyone gets to help with the mash.
We did give our brewers a break and fed them lunch. They also had all the beer they could drink with free access to the taps!
Adding hops to the boil kettle.
And finally–Kevin Clary did the honors of hanging the sign on the fermentation vessel after transferring the beer from the boil kettle.
Coming in at 9% ABV with 90 IBUs the 2025 Mule Team Imperial IPA is generously hopped and dry hopped with centennial, citra, amarillo, and mosaic hops. It’s BIG and it has a great hop nose with a West coast-style IPA drinkability. We could say, “if you don’t like it, don’t blame us”, but it’s actually a dang good IPA. If you like IPAs, you’re gonna love 2025 Mule Team IPA.
We will have it on tap and in 4-packs to sell at the BARn beginning this weekend. Some of our distributors have asked for some of this beer, too, so you may be lucky to find it in the wild, too later this month/early in April. If you do get your hands on a can, be sure to read the fine print: “Brewed with longtime assistance from Texas County beer friends”. Because this year we were lucky enough to learn that it actually takes a team for a Mule Team IPA.
Look at this team! Thank you, friends. Cheers to the 14th Aleiversary!
Two people with a dream, an old barn and a love for craft beer and the Ozarks cannot succeed on their own. It takes a team — dedicated employees, partnerships with distributors, support of friends, neighbors and craft beer lovers. Thank you for pulling with us over the years! — Joleen and Brian Durham
