Winter in the Ozarks Has Me Like….

So ready for a beach, some palm trees, an Ozarks gravel bar, my Chacos, and green grass everywhere.

Anybody with me?

Maybe I’m just spoiled with the mild winters of most recent years, but it seems like it has been really cold this winter. Cue our beer to chase away your winter blues…

Cerveza Rio.

We shipped Cerveza Rio out to most of our distributors earlier this month, so if you’ve seen this bright yellow label glowing on the beer shelf you have found our answer to winter.  This beer is a Mexican-style lager.  It’s yellow in color, easy drinking and oh, so refreshing.  Limes are optional and not frowned upon if you’re the squeeze a lime in my Mexican lager drinker.

What makes Cerveza Rio a Mexican-style lager?  Thanks for asking.  We use a Mexican lager yeast to ferment this beer just like many of the imported Mexican lager beers available in the US.

Important Consumer Alert!  If you are a Piney River Beer drinker in Southwest Missouri, you have actually had this beer for months, courtesy of the Ozarks own Mexican Villa.  Remember last summer when we released “Flying Ace Lager”?  Flying Ace has been available in six-packs and at Mexican Villa Restaurants since last year.  We were also selling Flying Ace Mexican-style Lager at the BARn tap room where it was extremely popular.

Cerveza Rio is now on tap year-round at the BARn!

Popularity has a price, too; we had locals asking for Flying Ace in local liquor stores.  We also fielded messages regularly about where to buy “the Mexican Villa beer” in places like Jefferson City, Kansas City, and West Plains.  As much as we love the history and story of Mexican Villa, and we know the special place it has in the hearts of folks that live or have lived in the Springfield area, we had to find a way to get this beer out to everyone.

How could we re-brand this Mexican-style lager for our other markets?

I’m pretty sure we were on the river with a cooler full of Flying Ace lager (because it’s that crushable) when we came up with the name Cerveza Rio.  Cerveza = Beer.  Rio = River.  AKA “river beer”.  Cerveza Rio is a great river beer.  Brian and I spent the summer of 2017 drinking it on, at, and in lots of rivers in the Ozarks, which is where you are likely to find us when it’s not just barely above freezing.  Unless, of course, we have the option of a tropical beach with palm trees and white sand; those are not overrated either.

As I write this, the freakin’ meteorologist is calling for more snow or ice or wintery mix, which always implies freak out, go to the store and stock up on milk, toilet paper, beer and keep your butt at home because it could be dangerous out there.  Just this week, our son went to bed sure that he would not have school the next day only to wake up to the sun rising in the East, dry ground, and school.  He’s mad at the meteorologist, too.

Here’s where I get to this week’s public service announcement: go out and stock up on Cerveza Rio and Flying Ace.  It’s available!  And regardless of the weather, you can go in your mind to a place that’s warm and relaxing.

A laid back, sun-drenched day South of the border is especially fun when paired with the soft sand, warm waters, and palm trees of a Mexican beach.  A spot on a riverbank in the Ozarks is just like a day at the beach and tastes just as carefree with a crisp, refreshing Cerveza Rio in your hand.