Long time blog readers will know that we get butterflies about new beers. We may get double butterflies (butterflies and moths?) when the new beer incorporates a local ingredient. One of the best things about being a small, independent craft brewery is the opportunity to work with local ingredients from time to time–Ted Berger’s basil, Licking MO Honey from Todd & Kristy Fudge, the Date Lady in Springfield. Our latest local ingredient comes from Inland Cape Rice in Southeast Missouri.
Brian & Andy in 2018 after a successful hunt.
A little background…Brian has been a duck hunter since he came to Missouri. Brian has spent MANY cold winter mornings at Duck Creek, Otter Slough, and some private hunting locations on the other side of Crowley’s Ridge, in Missouri’s flat lands, East from Bucyrus. In Southeast Missouri a lot of the duck hunting takes place in flooded rice fields (after the rice has been harvested).
A few facts…Missouri is part of the “rice belt” in the US. In 2024, 214,000 acres of rice were harvested in Missouri–all of it in Southeast Missouri, where the growing conditions are just right. All that rice has over a $25 million value to our state’s rice farmers, and it is sold domestically and internationally for human consumption.
Inland Cape Rice was started by a first generation farmer, and several years ago, Sam & Meagan Schneider took over the company’s reins. (Check out this story about the Schneider’s business.) In the midst of Covid, they built a new mill and grew operations to include different varieties of rice. When they were growing their business, Sam, a fan of Piney River beer, sent us a package of freshly harvested and milled Missouri rice. We ate the rice (delicious!), and we kept that rice in the back of our mind as something that we might be able to incorporate into a beer someday.
On one of our trips to visit Andy at Stanford we ate seafood paella at a small restaurant in Half Moon Bay, and we paired the paella with a local beer made with rice. Again, delicious, and a perfect complement to the spice of the paella! Fast forward to last summer when we were thinking about seasonal beers for 2025 (yes, we have to start planning them that far in advance). Our brewery has really enjoyed making lager beers in recent years, and Brian and I decided that we would make a rice lager as part of our 2025 beer line up.
From that point, we had to not only develop a recipe and brew a beer that we like, but we also had to come up with a name and a label design for the beer. This is where the little hourglass symbol follows a eureka moment…thinking, doing, thinking, discussing, thinking…you get the idea. Brian reached out to the Schneiders because we felt like any rice lager we made had to include a fresh, local rice. They were thrilled to be able to work with us. Brian also wanted to call the beer “SEMO” to pay homage to a part of our state where he has spent countless hours pursuing duck hunting dreams.
If you are not familiar with the way rice grows, it’s planted in the spring and comes up bright green in flooded fields of dark brown soil–a stunning sight. The rice is kept very wet during the growing process, and it’s not until harvest that the fields are allowed to drain to help dry the plant before harvest. The plants are harvested with a combine, and the rice/grain is separated from the plant. The rice is dried and then milled to remove the hull before packaging for human consumption. The stubble on the fields is burned, and the process starts all over the next spring.
SEMO is 4% ABV, a crisp and very crushable lager brewed with Missouri rice
Rice is not an uncommon ingredient in beer. Japanese beers have been made with rice for centuries. Bud Light is made with rice, too. Our new spring seasonal, SEMO, also has characteristics of the rice it’s brewed with–crisp, light, slightly floral. Guess what? It’s DELICIOUS!
Our label features a green field of rice with the shadows of the ducks to come after harvest (thanks Brooke at Grindstone Design). The label also features a bit of lyric from John Mellencamp’s song “Rain on the Scarecrow”, a song written about the hard times faced by many American farmers in the 1980’s. This land fed a nation, This land made me proud. Still true today about our fellow farmers in Missouri and across the country.
We can’t wait for all of Missouri to enjoy a SEMO. We’re holding a SEMO release party at the BARn this weekend, and we’re even going to have some packages of Inland Cape Rice available for sale, and the Schneider’s are planning to join us on Saturday.
I know you’re thinking, rice is rice. It can’t taste different. This Inland Cape rice is fresh, and it DOES taste different. I can’t wait for you to try the rice as well as the rice lager….DELICIOUS!
