6 minute read
BREWING IN THE BURG
Alumni Tap Into the Community With Music, Microbrews
The three UCM alumni starting a brewery in the historical mule barn in downtown Warrensburg have big shoes — and a big space — to fill. The town’s first brewery opened in 1865 near where West Pine Street becomes Northwest Division Road. German immigrant Philip Gross established the brewery and used the caves around what is now Cave Hollow Park to store, ferment and age the lager.
Philip was forced to rebuild the brewery after it was set on fire in 1873 by temperance activists. But just a few years later, business was booming again. In 1876, the local paper raved about the beer being “as fine as any on the market” and praised its “indisputable medicinal qualities.”
That same year, the brewery started a delivery service around town at the rate of $1.25 per dozen bottles.
Philip sold the brewery in 1879 to Franz Murche, who operated it for nearly three decades before closing in 1908.
Music to Your Beers
Fast-forward 110 years to 2018, when Amy (Wardell) Weldon, ’04, ’07, and Warrensburg native Erin (Gregg) Barrier, ’05, ’12, bought their husbands homebrewing kits for Christmas.
Andy Weldon, ’13, ’16, and Cody Barrier, ’05, ’09, ’21, started experimenting separately, then together with fellow UCM Music alumnus Dillon Jarrett, ’05, brewing different types of beer in stainless steel kettles over propane burners.
Their setup quickly evolved, and in a year and a half they had transitioned from extracts to all-grain brewing and from bottles to kegs. They joined a local home-brewing club, ZZ Hops out of Lee’s Summit, and later the American Homebrewers Association. It didn’t take long for them to start winning awards at local beer festivals, including “First Place Beer” for their French Toast Stout and “Best Brewery” at the 2019 Festival of the Lost Township in Raytown, Missouri. They came up with the name 7 Degrees Brewing, after the number of academic degrees the three friends collectively held at the time. All but two of those degrees — Andy’s bachelor’s and Dillon’s master’s — are from the University of Central Missouri.
Dillon, Cody, Amy and Erin met as members of the Marching Mules while earning their undergraduate degrees in Music Education at UCM. Amy went on to earn a Master of Arts in Music while working as the UCM Band graduate assistant, a role Cody took over when Amy graduated and became a band director in the Lafayette County C-1 School District. Amy met Andy when he came to UCM to pursue his master’s in 2008.
All five friends have strong ties to both the university and the Warrensburg community.
“Warrensburg became my home during college and is a place I feel connected to,” says Cody, who serves as the beginning band director in the Fort Osage School District.
When we were first starting this adventure of putting a brewery in Warrensburg, my driving force was connecting to the community, doing something that the community will appreciate and that they will support.
As student members of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, Cody and Dillon remember going to the mule barn to get their Greek letters made. By then, the Cassingham & Son Hardware Store had become a True Value Hardware, but the former name still remained on the brick exterior.
Professor Eric Honour, now chair of UCM’s School of Visual and Performing Arts, was one of the fraternity’s sponsors at the time. He had been his Phi Mu Alpha chapter’s president as an undergraduate and remained involved in graduate school. As UCM’s Epsilon Gamma chapter approached its 35th anniversary in 2005, Eric decided to celebrate by making microbrews representing the fraternity’s colors: black (a German bock), gold (an American wheat) and red (an Irish amber).
“I particularly like making my own recipes because I like imagining the beer that I would like to drink and then sorting through all the different ingredients to put into it,” Eric says. “It kind of scratches the same itch for me that composing does. So much of my work is at the center of sound and technology that there’s a certain amount of spillover into using technology for other things.”
Eric uses “geeky software” to help him predict how a beer with certain ingredients will taste — similar to a composing software that lets you choose the right instruments at the right time. UCM Music was one of the first three National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)-accredited institutions to allow students to declare a laptop as their instrument. The university also has one of the largest Music Technology programs in the country, which Eric helped launch in 2000. The alumni at Mule Barn Brewing plan to tap into their former professor’s expertise when designing a stage in the brewery’s lower taproom and setting up the sound system.
Andy was band director at Holden High School and previously Leeton High before making the career shift to fulltime brewing, becoming head brewer at East Forty Brewing in Blue Springs. He envisions bringing in brass quartets, jazz bands, salsa bands and other small ensembles to give students another performance opportunity while at the same time entertaining patrons.
“UCM Music students and faculty are always looking for creative ways to connect with and perform for the Warrensburg community,” says Corey Seapy, UCM Bands director and conductor of the Warrensburg Community Band, of which Andy, Cody and their wives are members.
We’re thrilled that some of our most industrious music alumni are committed to providing a great space for craft beer and live music in one of the most iconic buildings in town. We look forward to enhancing the atmosphere through music and collaborating on special events as soon as Mule Barn Brewing is up and running!
While ’90s alternative rock is their go-to “brewing music,” the brewers enjoy listening to a variety of genres. In addition to student ensembles, they plan to invite all styles of musical groups from across the region to perform at the brewery. It’s the same with their beer; while they each have their own tastes, it’s important to them to provide a variety so each patron can find something they enjoy.
“We’re fortunate that we have such an eclectic, wide range of styles that we like making and like drinking,” says Dillon, who teaches middle and high school band in the Raymore-Peculiar School District. “I think that we will find a good balance between having a little bit of everything, but finding what the community loves too.”
