So, your pup can’t drink beer—but he can enjoy treats made from what’s left over
There are many things you can do with spent grain (the barley, oats, rye, and wheat that’s left over after brewing beer). For starters, you can feed it to livestock or incorporate it into bread, cookies, or other baked treats for humans or their pets. One local business is working with Greenport Harbor Brewing Company to do just that, creating delicious doggy treats out of beer brewing leftovers.
“We’re excited to repurpose a waste product and to collaborate with another local business,” said Kim Loper, owner of Harbor Pet and Life is Grruff Bakery in Greenport.
The Grrowlers Dog Bones also incorporate chicken livers and eggs and retail for $9.99 for an 8-ounce bag. They’re available at the bakery in Greenport as well as at the brewery in Peconic. The two businesses are also collaborating on a Yappy Hour event on Friday, February 10 at the Peconic brewery. Folks are encouraged to bring their dogs to sample the Grrowler bones. Dogs dressed in pink or red will receive a Valentine’s Day cookie and a chance to win a raffle prize.
Kim has been baking dog treats for more than 30 years.
“Dogs give you unconditional love, I just wanted to do something special for them,” she said. She made them for her own dogs, for friends and to give away as Christmas presents. When her family’s nursery business in Center Moriches closed, she and her partners turned the nursery into a bakery and Life is Grruff was born in 2010. They sold wholesale as well as at farmer’s markets from Montauk to Great Neck. They bought Harbor Pet, an existing retail and grooming business on Front Street in Greenport, in 2014, and moved to their current location on south Main Street in 2015. The new space has room for the bakery, as well as daytime and overnight boarding. “The bakery on premises has definitely helped business,” said Kim, ” It smells good in here, and people want to take some of that home with them.”
Kim approached the owners of the brewery last year with her spent grain bone idea, and Grrowlers launched in September, just in time for the Maritime festival. “It’s already become one of our top five sellers,” she said. They used the local business community to help refine test batches, giving out samples at stores and restaurants in the neighborhood like First and South, the White Weathered Barn and One Love surf shop. From a 5 gallon bucket of spent grain, Kim can make 36 bags of bones. She plans to create a six-pack of seasonal, changing flavors, including pumpkin and ginger, in the future. She may also make specific batches from spent grain from particular beers.
The collaboration with the brewery will also continue with more monthly yappy hours and a fundraiser in May featuring a dog dock diving event, where proceeds will go to benefit the North Fork Animal Welfare League and the local American legion hall. Kim also plans to offer dog CPR, first aid and training classes at Harbor Pet. And Life is Grruff is now baking cakes for dogs, made with peanut butter, carob, rice flour, beet juice, and yogurt icing. Maybe this Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to treat that someone special in your life