Tales of ales from the heart of Ohio to the ends of the Earth
Craft brewers have benefited from the eat/drink/buy local movement as much as anyone. There’s something that feels right about having a pint of beer in the place where it was made, sometimes even served to you by the person who brewed it. While frequenting local breweries undeniably helps support the local economy, it doesn't boost... Continue Reading →
This past Sunday marked another successful finish to one of Ohio’s longest running beer traditions, the Barley’s Homebrew Competition. The contest dates back to last century, the summer of 1996 to be specific. At that time I was still in graduate school in Oregon, drinking the likes of Rogue, Deschutes and Widmer. In those days... Continue Reading →
In the crowded landscape of craft brewing some aspect of your business should differentiate you from the competition. Maybe it’s your location, or your branding, but ideally the beer itself can stand out from the crowd. With over 200 breweries in Ohio that task is easier said than done, but breweries such as Zaftig (high-gravity... Continue Reading →
It’s a brisk Saturday afternoon in early March and I’m wandering through the rows of a nondescript industrial park in Whitehall, just south of the Columbus Airport. This is not the result of an out of control Friday night bender at the Actual taproom either, I’m searching for the 2 Tones Brewing production facility, with... Continue Reading →
How can you have a craft beer week without a collaboration beer? Admittedly it's not against the law, but it would like the All Star Game without a home run derby, like the state fair without butter sculptures, like Lucy without a sky of diamonds. Since the 3rd annual Columbus Craft Beer Week is less than three weeks... Continue Reading →
Last night Land Grant Brewing held their first session of what they call Land Grant University, a series of educational sessions on the key ingredients in beer. The inaugural session was devoted to yeast, future sessions will focus on hops, malts and water. Attendance was capped at 50 participants and there was a full house... Continue Reading →
Last month while attending an event at Barley's Brewcadia, Mary MacDonald, Executive Director of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association (OCBA), asked if I would be interested in a media pass to attend the Ohio Craft Brewer’s Conference in Cincinnati. I think we can all agree it’s a rather liberal interpretation of the term “media” to include... Continue Reading →
For the past two years I’ve made a list of my favorite Central Ohio beers of the past year. Before this January slips away entirely it’s time for my 2016 list. To be eligible a beer should be new (or at least new to me), newly packaged, flying under the radar, or have made waves in... Continue Reading →
I know the holidays can be a hectic, for some downright stressful, time of the year. There are parties to attend, gifts to buy, carols to sing, and stockings to stuff. While acknowledging those demands on your time, you need to do whatever it takes to clear your calendar for this coming Saturday (Dec. 17),... Continue Reading →
It’s a beautiful fall day and I’m driving southeast to visit one of Ohio’s up and coming breweries, Little Fish Brewing in Athens. Over the course of the ninety minute drive the flat landscape and urban sprawl of Ohio’s largest city give way to the rolling western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Downtown Athens has a... Continue Reading →
The 2nd annual King of Ohio contest is now in the books. For those not familiar with this contest it started two years ago when a group of Ohio beer bloggers teamed up to sponsor a contest designed to pick the best Ohio-brewed IPA. The eventual winner, Hoof Hearted’s Musk of the Minotaur, was an unknown... Continue Reading →
Soccer leagues throughout most of the world practice the concept of promotion and relegation. At the end of each season the teams that finish at the top of a given division are promoted to the next higher division, while those that finish at the bottom are relegated to make room for the newcomers. Anticipating more revenue,... Continue Reading →
Back in July Tom Aguero, the man behind the Brewminds blog (formerly Queen City Drinks) contacted Rick Armon, Ohio's beer writer laureate and the man responsible for the most up-to-date and informative beer blog in the state, The Beer Blog - Ohio, and yours truly to see if we were interested in participating in the Six-Pack Project — an idea developed several years... Continue Reading →
To finish my three part series on American IPAs (better late than never) we return to where it all started—to the bold, flavorful hop varieties born and bred in the USA. Within the IPA genre it’s a big tent approach when it comes to the malt bill—East Coast, West Coast, Session IPA, Double IPA, Rye... Continue Reading →
The 2nd Annual Columbus Craft Beer Week begins today. I’ve spent hours perusing the list of events in a vain attempt to put together the ultimate itinerary for the obsessed craft beer fanatic, but there are just too many enticing events to distill the week down to a definitive short list. That doesn’t stop me from making... Continue Reading →
In the first post of this series I discussed how American IPAs went through a period where hop aroma, flavor, and bitterness levels progressively increased, culminating in double and triple IPAs that boasted triple digit IBU levels. In recent years the most sought after American IPAs have slowly but surely become less bitter and more aromatic. ... Continue Reading →
Sitting in the sleek Hoof Hearted Brewpub drinking a DIPA cloudier than a German Hefeweizen, fruitier than a grapefruit/mango smoothie, it’s hard to fathom how this beer could have evolved from the English-style IPAs of my youth. In a single generation American IPAs have morphed into something that would be unrecognizable to the founders of CAMRA,... Continue Reading →
Beer is made by yeast, full stop. Given its pivotal role brewers are generally pretty picky about what type of yeast they let into their fermentation tanks. Scientists have classified over 1500 different species of yeast, but the vast majority of beers are made by just two species—Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ale yeast) and Saccharomyces pastorianus (lager yeast).... Continue Reading →
This past week I turned 50 years old. Not content to spend the rest of my days frequenting restaurants where they give AARP discounts, I decided to do something I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while—undertake a crawl of all six downtown Columbus breweries. The plan was to first work our way... Continue Reading →
Last week Land Grant released the latest beer in their series of seasonal can releases, a Baltic porter entitled Jacqueline Deep Search. When news of the release reached me several questions immediately came to mind. Just how is a Baltic Porter different from any other porter? What’s with the strikethrough in the name? When ordering this... Continue Reading →
Pat's Pints 