In the 1950s, it was a tour bus that took people on trips around the region.
Now, it is taking craft beer fans on a tour of breweries from the East Coast to Alaska.
On Saturday night, Primitive Olde Crow and Winery, just off Hwy. 7 east of Clinton, unveiled its latest addition to its brick-oven pizza restaurant, a 1950s-era tour bus converted to hold beer kegs. Known simply as “The Bus,” the event drew people who filled the room, eating pizzas, drinking craft beer, talking, laughing, and listening to music by Rider Smith.
“This place was hopping,” said Bambi Ash, who works behind the bar.
Primitive Olde Crow was created five years ago by Lora Anstine and Max Jeys. On a 50-acre site, Jeys built an event barn and the Primitive Olde Crow and Winery. The Primitive Olde Crow houses a brick-oven pizza restaurant and wine-tasting bar plus a retail side that sells fudge, ice cream, gourmet coffee, specialty jams and sauces, antiques and country decor, and houses a clothing boutique.
Max collects antiques and old cars. One of his projects was converting a 1967 Ford van into a beer dispensary with 13 taps. The tour bus was the next project on his list.
Jeys said he got a tremendous amount of help in the fabrication process from friends Will and Janae Meins.
“We had to pull the bus from the frame, cut out the floors, cut the rear portion of the bus off and reapply once in the building,” Jeys said.
They also had to fabricate support posts, and anchor the bus to the floor, he said.
“We had it out back for a while,” Ash recalled of the bus. “They sand-blasted it, painted it, and cut a hole in the wall and backed it in.”
Then they installed a refrigerator unit, turning the interior of the vehicle into a beer cooler. A door on the side of the bus in back gives servers access to the cooler so the kegs can be changed, Ash said. Painted a metallic gray, its rounded lines are reminiscent of an Airstream trailer.
The Bus now has 14 craft beer and ales on tap, plus two hard ciders and a seltzer. Five are from Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City. There’s a dark German-style dunked from KC Bier Company, and Piney Creek Black Walnut, a dark wheat beer from Piney Creek Brewing Company in Bucyrus, Mo.
From farther afield are Odell Brewing’s 90 Shilling, the flagship ale of a Fort Collins, Co., brewery and Voodoo Ranger, a modern take on an IPA from New Belgium, the Fort Collins brewery known for Fat Tire.
A cool, crisp Alaska Amber hails from a craft brewery in Juneau. Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA, from Bend, Ore., is made with fruity hops, while Kona Big Wave, from a craft brewery on the Big Island, rides in on a taste of tropical hops.
Breckenridge Vanilla Porter is from a brewery in Colorado. There’s also a Belgian-style white wheat beer from Blue Moon of Colorado, and Boston Lager from Sam Adams, the brewery that popularized craft beer.
Boulevard’s popular Tank 7 and a hearty Irish red ale are two choices from the Kansas City brewery.
The bus in the wall also works as an art installation, accenting Primitive Olde Crow’s retro ambiance, part Old West boardwalk, part Old World rathskeller.
Jeys plans to add more beer taps on the other side of the bus, Ash said, and in the cab of the bus on the outside of the building. He’s also working on the winery’s new event space, upstairs off the back of the Primitive Olde Crow building.
Primitive Olde Crow and Winery is located just off Hwy. 7 South, on the east edge of Clinton, at 32 SE Hwy., Clinton, MO 64735. The pizza kitchen, wine-tasting bar and beer bus are open Monday through Thursday, 10:30 to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 10:30 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Check the Primitive Olde Crow and Winery Facebook for announcements of special events and live music on weekends.
