There we were…livestreaming the Great American Beer Festival feed from Denver. It was Saturday, October 12th, a date that we had set for our annual Fall on the Farm long before the Brewer’s Association offered a free booth space to GABF brewery attendees.
In previous years we have attended GABF as a way to support the BA, the national trade association for America’s craft brewers. Then came Covid which shut GABF down. Then it was Andy’s senior year of high school with activities we didn’t want to miss every weekend. In 2023 we were moving Andy to Stanford, and we didn’t even enter beers in the GABF competition.
When 2024 rolled around we didn’t really even think about going to GABF because we were trying to be fiscally responsible…sending a kid to college and accounting for slower beer sales in distribution had us approaching everything in 2024 with caution. Going to GABF isn’t cheap! There’s a cost to send your beer to be poured. Cost for a booth. Travel costs, too. It’s a fun time, but we decided it wasn’t in the cards for Piney River early in 2024.
In August Brian and I entered our beers in the competition. One of those entries was Old Tom Porter. We had recently brewed a fresh batch of porter with plans of pouring it throughout the fall. Over the years Brian had tweaked the recipe, but this batch, it was the “original” Old Tom Porter recipe. The beers were shipped in late August and were judged in Denver the week of GABF.
Because we were holding an event the same day as the GABF awards ceremony, I invited all the brewery staff to come in early. Bloody Marys, bacon, and biscuits and gravy were served. We settled in to watch the ceremony livestream. All of us have been at other beer awards ceremonies. The excitement in the room is palpable as people you know and people you don’t know scream, high five, and chest bump when they win. They run to the line to go on stage and walk across the red carpet to receive their awards. It’s a high. You want to know the people that win. You want to win, too.
Chris Williams from the Brewer’s Association was announcing the award winners. We were almost an hour and a half into the ceremony, and everything we entered had been announced except for the Brown Porter category. I was getting restless thinking about the event coming up, putting things away from breakfast and mentally going over the things I still needed to do.
Before Brown Porter a “brewery of the year” award was given. A break was taken. Finally…Brown Porter was being announced. Did Chris smile a little right before saying, “And the bronze goes to…”?
Brian, Lisa Jordan, Bryan Spence, Brandon Lee and I with pints of Old Tom Porter shortly after winning bronze for brown porter at the 2024 GABF Awards.
Old.
That’s all we heard him say.
Old.
There was screaming.
There was whooping.
High fives. Fist bumps. Hugs.
Quick! Turn on the CO2! We need an Old Tom Porter!!!
Turns out Chris said “Old Tom Porter, Piney River Brewing, Bucyrus, Missouri”, and he even said Bucyrus correctly. (Somebody give him a gold star.) Some people in Denver yelled for us. My phone started buzzing with congratulations texts immediately. If you go to 1:27 in the 2024 GABF Awards Ceremony livestream you can watch it, too. And you can see everything we missed AFTER Chris said “old”.
We celebrated with some fresh Old Tom Porters. Some of us celebrated all day long.
When I look back at the story from our 2013 GABF win for Old Tom Porter, I realize that our first beer win, still closely tied to the days of Brian and I working days and weekends in the brewery. We were coming home from day jobs to can beer. We were going to bed after working in the brewery all night, and getting up just a few hours later to go to our day jobs. Today, our brewery team has grown, and Brian and I are both grateful for that. We’re grateful that we work for ourselves now, too. And we are really grateful to share this award with Brandon Lee and Bryan Spence, the guys that clean, brew, clean, package, clean, and do almost all of the brewing and packaging-related things today.
The Old Tom Porter that was judged came right off the packaging line and into a box of beer headed to Colorado in August. It’s the same batch of beer we poured in our taproom. Our team is brewing Great American Beer Festival award winning beer. Big thanks to them for helping us bring this award, honor, and recognition to the Ozarks! Now that we have a gold and a bronze for Old Tom Porter, Brian’s hoping to get a silver. You know, a set.
Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise we’ll return to Denver in 2025 with a fresh batch of Old Tom Porter to raise a 1-ounce pour with our fans there, too!
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- Winning never gets old!
