Writing this blog post is risky because all those people that love Piney River beer, or who want to love Piney River beer in Kansas City & St. Louis are going to be aggravated that this blog post is not about them and their city. So, we’ll just cut to the chase about that—yes, we want to have our beer in KC and St. Louis, but it’s not happening yet.
What is happening, probably about the last week of June, is the Missouri Mule India Pale Ale and McKinney Eddy Amber Ale are going to find their way on to shelves in the Columbia and Jefferson City area. That’s all thanks to N.H. Scheppers Distributing.
Back in April we attended a beer festival in Columbia, and a whole new group of Missouri residents kept four of us busy pouring our beer all day long until all but a few cans of IPA and Amber Ale were left. (For the record, the Black Walnut Wheat keg emptied first, followed not too long after by the Old Tom Porter keg.) Apparently the people in Columbia are very thirsty…very thirsty for craft beer.
Brian and I and our friends, Logan and Shanna, that helped us pour that Saturday were inundated with, “You need to get this on tap at (insert Columbia restaurant here)” or “You’ve got to talk to (insert Jeff City bar here) about getting this beer”. We didn’t even have a distributor in the area to make any of that happen!
However, at one point during the day, Paul Wissman, the craft beer manager for NH Scheppers was bending my ear about their company while Joe Priesmeyer, the owner of NH Scheppers was bending Brian’s ear. Wow.
So, we did a little homework. We talked to some additional distributors in the Columbia/Jeff City area. We talked to some bar and restaurant owners and employees.
We are very happy to announce to you and to those really thirsty folks up in the central part of our great state, that Piney River Brewing products are being handled by NH Scheppers Distributing.
Scheppers is a family-owned company. Their flagship products are from AB/In-Bev, but they are very proactive about pursuing craft beer for their portfolio of products because they believe in it. Now, Scheppers believes in Piney River Brewing, and we plan to provide them with lots of locally handcrafted beer for their thirsty customers.
Just for the record, here’s the McKinney Eddy Amber Ale and Missouri Mule India Pale Ale canned just this week for a little journey North on Hwy 63.
For those of you that can’t wait for Piney River beer to be in your neck of the woods, as soon as we know it’s available, we’ll post the news here. Meanwhile, ask your local retailer to get some Piney River beer in their store or restaurant.
Cheers!
