Beercation: Cleveland

Let’s get this out of the way first: my trip to Cleveland was already going to be memorable before I became one of two passengers on my plane home – a story that unexpectedly made international headlines. But this isn’t about me; this is about the Northeast Ohio beer scene. Its oldest craft brewery, Great Lakes, opened in 1988 and paved the way for many more; a relaxing of Ohio’s taproom rules helped the industry expand quickly over the past three years, making all three of Ohio’s largest cities legitimate craft beer destinations.

Like many American cities, Cleveland now boasts a bonafide beer neighborhood: Ohio City. Just to the west of downtown, this area has a strangle-hold on craft beer with four breweries, two noteworthy beer bars, and a lineup of restaurants that have embraced the locally-brewed liquid. If you start anywhere, we’d recommend starting there.

Now, our rundown of Cleveland’s top beer venues.

THE BREWERIES

In Cleveland Heights, The Bottlehouse Brewery & Meadery has been churning out craft beer and mead for three years, with a lineup of offbeat offerings and barrel-aged beers. The brewery acts as a sort of community hub, offering live music, open mics, and trivia nights weekly to draw in crowds of locals. Their Erie Coast IPA and Bourbon-Barrel Aged Blueberry Vanilla Porter were standouts on our visit.

Starting as a three-barrel brew-on-premises business, The Brew Kettle in nearby Strongsville has morphed into a full blown brewery since its inception nearly 20 years ago. Their Smokehouse and Taproom serves up a variety of guest taps and their own brews, including the White Rajah, a West Coast-style IPA that has Northeast Ohio’s hopheads clamoring for more.

Brick and Barrel Brewing is a newcomer, opening in The Flats section of Cleveland just last November. Their taproom opens into their brewery and winery space, where you can check out the shiny equipment as you sip down their Bitter Chief IPA or Chenin Blonde, a Belgian-style blonde ale made with Chenin Blanc grape must.

A relative newcomer, Butcher and the Brewer opened in downtown Cleveland last summer, and it has already gained a reputation for the beers they brew on-premises and their gastropub-style food. The beers have amusing names like the Hasselhefe Hefeweizen, Fall & Oats Belgian Oatmeal Stout, and a holiday offering called Spice Spice Baby. The food lineup includes a raw bar, cheese and charcuterie plates, and locally-sourced meat and fish dishes. Head to the back and downstairs to see the tricked-out brewhouse and fermentation room.

Fat Head’s Brewery is an ideal first stop if you’re coming from their airport. Both its large production brewery and its saloon are both within ten minutes of the airport by car or cab. The saloon started brewing in 2009, and its dramatic rise in popularity spawned the large-scale facility – and now even an offshoot pub in Portland, Oregon. Both Cleveland-area locations pour a lineup of one-offs and year-round offerings, like their Head Hunter IPA, Gudenhoppy Pils, and Battle Axe Baltic Porter. They’re well-known for their big beers, too, like the Sorcerer Belgian Dark Ale and the Hippy Sippy Imperial Stout. The production brewery offers a lineup of toasty sandwiches; the saloon serves up a bevy of bar food along with their beer.

Great Lakes Brewing Company is the cornerstone of Cleveland’s craft beer scene. Celebrating its 27th year, the brewery has grown to distribute across the Eastern US, including on Long Island and the upper Hudson Valley. Their sprawling taphouse, next door to their production brewery in Ohio City, offers several different bars and choices of ambiance. Head downstairs for our favorite, The Cellar, which contains some cozy nooks where you can look up and see the exposed walls and beams of the century-old buildings that Great Lakes is housed in. As for the beer, you can’t go wrong with their Edmund Fitzgerald, their porter named for a ship that sunk in Lake Superior carrying Northeast Ohioans in 1975, or the Burning River Pale Ale, named for, well, you know.

The uniquely-named Indigo Imp Brewery is serving up beers just as unique as its name. The brewery specializes in Real Ales made in their open fermentation tanks. The Blonde Bombshell is their flagship, but they rotate several casks weekly in their taproom, which is open every Friday from noon to 7pm for drinking in and taking out their bottled brews.

In the same Ohio City neighborhood as Great Lakes is a pair of breweries just a block apart. Nano Brew Cleveland is a tiny bike-themed outfit, brewing beer just a barrel at a time while pouring a rotating selection of close to two dozen guest brews, offering a bike tune-up station, and cooking up a burger that Thrillist called one of the nation’s best. Meanwhile, the larger Market Garden Brewery is a great stop after chowing down on local food at the West Side Market next door. They boast two large rooms with long bars pouring their own brews like their award-winning Progress Pilsner and their highly-hopped Citramax IPA. They also serve up a delightful Sunday brunch that came in handy as a hangover cure.

The Platform Beer Co. is part brewery, part taproom, and part brewery incubator – a clever concept in which they impart their own knowledge of developing a brewery and bring a budding commercial brewer on board for 12 weeks to learn the ropes and brew beer that’s poured on the premises. But in addition to helping others brew, they make some tasty beers of their own, like the Cleverly Named Belgian IPA, and Black Eagle, a gratzer – an extinct smoked Polish-style beer that’s now being revived stateside.

Portside Distillery officially opened their tasting room just this weekend, and despite their name, it’s not just spirits they specialize in – they’ve already gained a reputation for their beer. Their 216 is a dry-hopped pale ale named for Cleveland’s area code and can be found throughout it. Their other beers range from Kolsch to a Vanilla Stout and everywhere in between.

It’s a bit out of town, but Willoughby Brewing Company is another stalwart of brewing in Northeast Ohio, churning out a long lineup of rotating brews in their Restaurant and Taproom about 25 mintues from downtown Cleveland. Their most talked-about offering is their Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Porter, which took a gold in last year’s World Beer Cup for Specialty Beer. And yes, it’s very special.

THE BARS

One great thing about the Cleveland beer scene is that at most of the above breweries, guest taps feature a variety of beers from other breweries both locally, nationally, and internationally. But here are some of the other bars that specialize in serving craft beer:

Lakewood’s Buckeye Beer Engine is the namesake behind Buckeye Brewing Company, which brews elsewhere at a production facility in Cleveland. The bar features over two dozen drafts, with at least half a dozen dedicated to its namesake brewery, and a host of tasty bar food options like Hog Wings and a Fried Bologna Sandwich.

Happy Dog is known primarily for its live music and hot dogs, but with 20 beers on tap, it should be known for being a perfect union of all three. It’s a corner joint with a good neighborhood vibe and a big oval wrap-around bar. Get a local brew from Great Lakes or Fat Head’s and use it to wash down Iron Chef Michael Symon’s Favorite – a hot dog slathered in chunky peanut butter, pickle relish, and Sriracha.

Tucked away in the basement in a commercial building with much louder bars, La Cave Du Vin is a low-key beer and wine bar that has an impressive bottle selection that spans four big coolers. Plus, they’ve got a small but powerful tap list that always has something unique, strong, local, or imported. It’s a great place to spend a quieter evening sipping some darn good beer.

McNulty’s Bier Markt has specialized in Belgian beers since it opened ten years ago, and it’s yet another beery destination in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood. They boast 30 rotating draft lines that pour the likes of Corsendonk, Jolly Pumpkin, and Dupont, and they serve stick-to-your-ribs food like Pig Tail Ragout, Ohio-sourced Pork Loin, and Steak Frites.

Melt Bar and Grilled opened its first location in 2006 and has expanded throughout the area. And while the gut-busting food (think grilled cheese, naturally) is the big draw, each location has a well-curated beer list. This is the type of place where you can live a lifestyle of excess… especially if you take the Melt Challenge.

Tremont Taphouse is the highest-regarded beer bar in Cleveland, pouring 48 lines of craft beer representing some of the breweries you won’t find in New York but will find in Ohio, like Deschutes, Upland, and Summit. It also has beers from its aforementioned sister brewery, The Butcher and The Brewer, and an extensive bottle list that features lots of imported gems. The kitchen fires up some tasty treats that take bar food to the next level, like Duck Poutine and Pork Belly Nachos.

TownHall is yet another noteworthy addition to Ohio City’s craft beer scene, serving beer from three dozen tap lines with the likes of Destihl, Evil Twin, and Revolution along with lots of local brews. The food menu features lots of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables, all natural ingredients, and even an extensive vegan menu every Monday. And if you’re out late, their kitchen’s open late, too.

THE MAP

A FEW THINGS TO KNOW