{In our efforts to spotlight each Columbus-area brewery, we’re sending Doug Oldham to visit every brewery’s tap room. In the coming months, he will attempt to regale you with his experiences. Doug’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the CCBA.}

If I could make a movie about Hoof Hearted Brewing, it would start with a flashback. The expository subtitle would say, “GRANDVIEW HIGH GRAVITY HULLABALOO, FEBRUARY 1, 2014.” A relatively new and unknown brewery called Hoof Hearted brings three beers to the event, including a brand new triple IPA called Dragonsaddle. Although Dragonsaddle is incredibly well received by nearly everyone who tries it, Hoof Hearted still doesn’t draw the crowd that some of the better known breweries do, and much of a Dragonsaddle keg remains at the end of the night. An hour or more after guests have left, the Hoof Hearted guys and a few hard-working volunteers have stuck around drinking pint after pint of the hefty hop bomb, leaving many with hazy-at-best memories of how the night ended. It is the first time in Hoof Hearted’s story that we hear co-owner Trevor Williams shout what would later become a familiar refrain: “Where are my pants?”

Star wipe, fast forward to late summer 2015. Laura and I are heading to Morrow County (did you know that was a place?) to check out Hoof Hearted’s new tap room. The guys are canning King of Ohio IPA winner Musk of the Minotaur for only the second time ever. So many people came to the brewery for the first canning that barely any made it into distribution, so I was determined to go get my share before it ran out. To sweeten the deal, the guys were releasing an extremely limited run of bottles of their new tart saison, Crossing Swords.

The tap room was scheduled to open at noon, and Laura and I arrived around 11:50. Even though we were early, there were already roughly 15 cars parked along the gravel drive, and a line of thirsty customers eagerly awaited admission outside the door. Trevor and one of his co-owners, Ryan Bichon, looked at the quickly-assembling crowd the same way a kid in an ‘80s movie does when her parents are out of town and she invites just a couple friends over, only to have the whole school show up for a kegger – a look that says, “oh shit, what have I gotten myself into?” At the stroke of noon, customers ten to twenty deep in line pressed into the brewery, buying bottles of Crossing Swords and full cases of Musk or Roller Blabe, the previous week’s canning effort.