New Missouri micro brand stirs state pride

Modern Brewery Age, August 25, 2003

A bevy of Missouri's top politicians lined up behind a lectern packed with beer bottles Thursday to endorse a new brand of beer made by a farmer-owned microbrewery in Sedalia, MO.

The politicians, some expressing an eagerness to try the brew, praised it as an example of "value-added agriculture"--where farmers use their grain to make a higher-cost product instead of just selling it to others.

Pony Express Brewing Co., based in the western Missouri town of Garden City, has been distributing its beer since about the beginning of June.

The political promotion Thursday at the Missouri State Fair was sponsored by the Missouri Soybean Association, a part owner in the business because the beer contains a blend of about 6 percent soybeans--an atypical beer ingredient.

Lined up to promote the beer were five of the state's top Republicans--U.S. Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, Secretary of State Matt Blunt and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder. Blunt is the presumed Republican nominee for governor in 2004 and Kinder said Thursday that he is running for lieutenant governor next year.

Also boasting of the beer was Democratic Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell.

The State Fair is a traditional showcase for Missouri agriculture--with everything from Angus cattle to zucchini. And everyone from politicians to agricultural producers has been praising the virtues of value-added products as the best way to ensure agriculture remains profitable in the future.

Nearly every politician who took a turn at the State Fair microphone used the phrase "value-added agriculture."

"It's lighting the candle for agriculture instead of just cursing the darkness, which we do sometimes justifiably," Talent said. "It is the absolute future for agriculture."

Then Talent made a plug for the beer: "I think I'll have a professional obligation to sample it."

The Soybean Association's desire to pass out free beer was frowned upon by State Fair administrators, said Dale Ludwig, executive director of the association and one of 152 Missouri farmers invested in Pony Express beer. Instead, the beer was being sold by some of the fair's vendors.

Although the beer's soybeans come from Missouri, farmers said the traditional barley and hops come from elsewhere--at least for now. The brewing itself also occurs elsewhere for now, because the farmer-investors bought out an existing brewery in Olathe, Kan.

But the farmers said that was little different than the arrangement used by Missouri's best-known beer producer--Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis, which brews some beer at its St. Louis home but also produces beer around the world and gets ingredients from all over.