Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA wins the National IPA Championships! Click here for story.
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I’ve already reported about the planned Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City. But there are at least two other planned breweries in Ohio. One is Neil House Brewery in Columbus, and the other is Lager Head’s in Medina. Neil House is currently a home brew supply shop in Columbus (link to their website is above), and they plan to be brewing by April. Lager Head’s on Abbey Road in Medina is currently a pub & smokehouse specializing in BBQ and good beer (8 taps), with plans to start brewing their own.
Currently they have two beers from Cellar Rats Brewery (Madison) and two from Willoughby Brewing. Their own house beer is Working Man Pale Ale. The current seasonal is Mac’s Irish Red and the next seasonal will be Pride of Geauga Maple Porter. Brewer/owner Michael Nedrow has a Brew-Magic® (1 keg) brewing system; the same type of system that Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head first started his business on. Calagione still uses the system for experimental beers. Known for its ability to make consistent uniform batches of beer, it can also make several batches in a 6-8 hour day. Chardon Brew Works opens at 11 AM each day, except Sunday, when they are open 10 AM – 3 PM for brunch. For more info: Chardon Brew Works, 205 Main St, Chardon, Ohio 440-286-9001 UPDATE! On March 13th, Head Hunter IPA beat Ithaca’s Flower Power to advance to the Final Four!. The final four and finals will be held next Saturday in Atlantic City! Good luck, Fat Head’s! Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA has advanced another round in the 2010 Brewing News National IPA Championship. India Pale Ales (IPAs) from all across the US have entered the competition, 128 in all. The competition is judged like basketball’s NCAA tournament with each beer being judged against one other beer in each round. Several Ohio beers survived the first round. BREW Kettle’s Red Eye PA and Fat Head’s Head Hunter survived the second round and Head Hunter has now made it into the fifth round, the “Elite 8.” Brackets can be found here. Round 5 will be held on March 13, with the Final Four and championship rounds to be held on March 20 in Atlantic City. Best of luck to Matt Cole and Headhunter IPA! We’re rooting for you! Click here for article and Channel 5 news clip. Ratebeer.com just published their “best” lists. Best beer, best beer places, breweries to visit, etc. One of these lists contains the top 100 brewers in the world. Ohio has three on the list! Hoppin Frog rates #24 on the list (see Beacon Journal article), Great Lakes Brewing is #35, and Barley’s (Columbus) is #74. Congratulations! This is an impressive showing when you consider how many brewers there are out there. All on the list are gold medal award winning brewers. RateBeer Best claims to be the largest beer competition in the world, with over 2.47 million reviews of 110,000 beers from over 9680 brewers worldwide. For complete lists see Rate Beer Best 2010
Don’t miss this year’s Ogrefest at the BREW Kettle featuring BTK’s own Jackhammer Barleywine which won first place at the recent (Feb 13) 5th Annual Barleywine competition held at Cole’s in Buffalo, NY. The competition included barleywines from all across the U.S. See Examiner.com article. Congratulations, Jack Kephart! For those who don’t know, Ogrefest is a week long celebration of high gravity beers. 24 taps of constantly rotating BIG beers! I got a phone call from a very excited Matt Cole today. Matt is the brewer at Fat Head’s Saloon and Brewery in North Olmsted. Draft Magazine publishes an annual list of the 25 best beers in the world, and Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA made the list! This is quite an honor, and was the only Ohio brewery to make the list, which was dominated by West Coast and Belgian breweries. Here’s what Draft Magazine had to say about Head Hunter IPA: “A mix of amazement and curiosity rippled across the beer-soaked land when word broke that a brewery in Cleveland bested a plethora of West Coast brewers at this year’s IPA festival at the Bistro, the biggest IPA competition west of the Mississippi. After a pint of this beer, however, you’ll cast all hesitations aside: It lumbers over the tongue with caramelized malt and a hop display that cannot be rivaled. This isn’t your finesse IPA; there isn’t an ounce of subtlety to it. It’s just a punch-you-in-the-mouth brew for those who truly love their hops.” For the complete list of the top 25, click here. Congratulations, Matt! There are two beerfests coming up the last weekend in January. These are on the “events” page but I wanted to make sure you saw them! One in Cincinnati and one in Garrettsville. Time for some Winter Warmers?? Saturday, January 30 – Cincinnati’s Original Beerfest! 7-11 pm. This year it is downtown at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati – over 15,000 square feet of beer! But get your tickets now, as this event sells out every year! Tickets $30 in advance. $40 for VIP ticket and entry at 5 pm! www.cincybeerfest.com Sunday, January 31 – 2nd Annual Frozen Falls Beer Festival at Main Street Grill & Brewery in Garrettsville. There will be three (3) tasting sessions: 11:30-1:30, 2:30-4:30, and 5:30-7:30. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door. Designated drivers are admitted free of charge. Tickets can be purchased in person or by calling 330-527-3663. Participating breweries include Thirsty Dog, Ohio Brewing, Roo Brew, Buckeye Brewing, Cellar Rats, Rust Belt, Rocky River, Rock Bottom Cleveland (sessions 2 & 3), Weasel Boy, Bell’s, Flying Dog, & Troeg’s. If you’ve had your head in the sand (like I have), then maybe you haven’t heard the news. Andy Tveekrem, a former Akronite, who was formerly the brewmaster at Great Lakes Brewing, and more recently at Dogfish Head in Delaware is back in town. I’ve heard the rumors, but I’ve been too busy traveling around the country (for work) to report to you. Members of the local home brew clubs and the microbrew community have been talking for a couple of months. There have been Tveekrem sightings and rumors have been flying, almost since last September when he was seen at the Beer Engine. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported it January 12, and today the Akron Beacon Journal picked up the same article. Tveekrem has teamed up with Sam McNulty, owner of McNulty’s BierMarkt, Bar Cento, and Speakeasy to open a new microbrewery and beer garden called “Market Beer Garden” across the street from McNulty’s Bier Markt. With Great Lakes Brewing around the corner, and McNulty’s good beer bars and now new brewery, is this the start of Cleveland’s own “brewery district”? Just down the hill in the Flats is Rock Bottom Brewery, and across the river is Cleveland Chophouse & Brewery. That will be four breweries and several good beer bars within 1.5 miles of each other. The Cleveland Beer scene keeps getting better! The Plain Dealer article said they plan a June opening. |
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