By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University

Image: Luke and Jennifer Mahin. Image courtesy Ron Wilson

Kansas program and the Kansas Craft Brewers Guild. “Kansas Tourism has done a great job of highlighting us,” Mahin said.

The brewers have experimented with different styles, such as light beers and sour beers.  They’ve even made a cherry kolache flavor to honor the Czech heritage in the region.

A friend with a vineyard provided grapes for a beer and wine flavor mix that they aged in wooden barrels. “It’s a darker, richer beer that has kind of a chocolate covered raisin vibe,” Mahin said.

They named it Grape Expectations.

“We figured we would submit it for competition because the judges usually give good feedback,” Mahin said.

Then they received word that their beer was ranked number nine among international competition for the best 100 beers of 2024. That’s remarkable for a craft beer maker in a rural community such as tiny — but mighty — Courtland, population 294 people. Now, that’s rural.

“I love being creative and communicating something of value to other people,” Mahin said. “There’s more to rural Kansas than people think.”

“In the end, beer is a medium to share our rural culture with others. It gives us license to do a lot of fun things.”

For more information, go to www.irrigationales.com.

We commend Luke and Jennifer Mahin, Bill Mahin, and all those involved with Irrigation Ales for making a difference with creative beer-making. They’ve been able to achieve Grape Expectations.

Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at https://www.huckboydinstitute.org/kansas-profiles. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.huckboydinstitute.org.