Black Friday Libations Tour: Ohio's Last Craft Beer Frontier

You can go miles in 419 area code country between signs of civilization
but even out in the country they'll give you a holiday greeting

This year's family Black Friday Libations Tour would prove different from previous years' versions. During our last three excursions, we explored areas that were all fairly established from a craft beer perspective.  This was not the case this year; in fact, if you were immersed in the developing Columbus area craft beer scene from roughly 2012 to 2014, you’d have a good approximation of where the area we explored, Toledo and the surrounding areas reside at the moment craft beer-wise.

In fact, one can easily argue that this historical home for the 419 area code easily qualifies as the last large region in Ohio that is really ripe for a craft beer boom. And it's not like this area hasn't had a prominent brewing presence: Toledo's prime location next to Lake Erie and the Maumee River allowed pre-Prohibition breweries like the original Buckeye Brewing, Finlay, Maumee, and Huebner-Toledo to thrive.

Having some time to absorb the whole experience, I went with a more nuanced look on this blogpost at the four breweries we visited to try to paint a picture of where the 419 craft beer scene stands now, and where it could go.  Not that we didn't find any great beer during our travels (one of the best beers my wife and I have had this year was drank on this tour), but the scene's best days are most decidedly geared toward the future.

Columbus Pizza-politan Adventures: Ohio Pizza Cage Match! (Pt. 2)

Cincinnati's Dewey's Pizza sports a decent inventory of craft beer,
including seasonal selections from various Ohio breweries

This first of this two part "Ohio Pizza Cage Match" mini-series of blog posts started off by looking at two area locals, both long-time purveyors of the Columbus-style pizza in Donatos and Massey's (for a look at that previous post, please take a look at this link.)

Their opponents, if you will, are the out-of-towners, originating from opposite ends of Interstate 75 on the west side of the state and sporting decidedly different styles of pizza.  While they don't have the combined experience of their Columbus counterparts, they do bring it in terms of enjoyable pies.

Break The Chains of Love: A Look At "Best Of" Lists (Part 2: Ohio in the House)

The Art-Deco style "Guardians of Traffic" totems provide an
eye-catching sight for those on Cleveland's Hope Memorial Bridge.

As noted in my previous post, a news story on Taco Bell being named this country's "Best Mexican Restaurant" gave me a story idea about "Best Of" lists and how often outside-the-area chains appear on these lists.  Part 1 of my series  focused on three local Columbus-based reader polls from some of the major media sources here, where I found a decent amount of chain love, including a couple of head-scratchers that named P.F. Chang's as "Best Asian" and Chipotle as "Best Burrito."

It only seemed natural that Part 2 of the series would stay within the Buckeye State and focus in on Columbus's largest state neighbors. Would we find similar results in cities of similar stature (namely, Cleveland and Cincinnati) or cities of more modest size (Dayton and Toledo)?  As you might have judged from the picture above, we're going to start with a city that has gained quite a bit of prominence in the national scene in Cleveland and work counterclockwise from there.

Worthington: Pizza Capital of Central Ohio?

The downtown Worthington location of Cincinnati-based Dewey's Pizza

"Is Worthington the pizza capital of Central Ohio?"

This rather simple notion that I overheard in casual conversation awhile back seemed to have some merit on my casual remembrance: this smallish Columbus suburb does seem to have a fair number of pizza purveyors within reach of the area's residents. And like that intoxicating smell of melting cheese, tomato sauce and browning dough in the oven, the question grew more alluring in my mind.  Finally, early last November on a day I wasn't doing anything else in particular, I decided to dive in to the topic.

Little did I know that that quest would be almost like answering the bigger, oft-debated questions related to pizza, such as what style of pizza rules supreme, and this quest's eventual result was not anything like I was expecting at the beginning...

Ice Cream Chronicles (Pt. 7): Love Handel's

The store front in Toledo, Ohio

Mrs. 614orty-Niner and I happened to be on the road in Northwest Ohio when we found out it was National Ice Cream Day. Obviously, it seemed seemed to be a shame on a warm summer day to miss out on some frozen goodness just because we were traveling, so we looked for a solution that wouldn't take us too far out of our way. Luckily for us, Handel's was around to save the day.

Handel's was originally established in 1945 in Youngstown in the northeast portion of Ohio. Alice Handel would produce her ice cream using old-fashioned recipes and fruit from her backyard and sell it out of her husband's gas station. Since then, Handel's has grown to thirty-plus stores spread out across six states, with two of those locations within the Columbus metro area.

Their ice cream has received "Best Of" commendations nationally, including prominent media outlets like People Magazine and USA Today. According to the company website, all of their ice cream and yogurt is produced fresh daily at their stores. The stores themselves have maintained a very distinctively-designed ice cream stand motif, with occasional exterior variations like their stores in California.

Just some of the many flavors available

If you want anything ice cream related, Handel's pretty much has it. Scoops, cones, sundaes, cakes, pies and pre-packaged pints are available, as well as creations like the Hurricane (very much akin to Dairy Queen's Blizzard) and a Handel Pop, which is a scoop of ice cream coated with a hard chocolate shell propped on a wooden stick. Handel's boasts about 100 flavors overall, including limited-edition and seasonal specials and occasional creative names like "Spouse Like A House" (malted vanilla ice cream with chocolate coated pretzels and peanut butter) and "Graham Central Station" (graham cracker ice cream with graham cracker chunks.)

With their sign touting a "Christmas in July" special, my spouse couldn't resist getting one of her favorite flavors, peppermint stick. I went with two scoops, with one of my standards (butter pecan) and one suggested by the friendly young lady manning the store (coffee chocolate chip.)

One thing we noticed immediately was how quickly the ice cream started to melt. Indeed, Handel's is by far the smoothest and creamiest of the ice creams texture-wise that we've had, and the melting only enhanced that mouthfeel.

Soft, smooth and perfectly melty

My spouse very much enjoyed the peppermint stick, but by far the star of the show for both of us was the butter pecan. This version was the definition of why I came to love the flavor so much as a child: big chunks of pecans with a base that combined the right amount of salty with sweet. This version basically blew any of the other butter pecans I have tried recently out of the water. Unfortunately, the coffee chocolate chip, the scoop at the bottom of my bowl, probably got the short shrift; there was nothing wrong with it, but by comparison to the butter pecan, it had no chance to impress.

There's an iconic ice cream picture motif that almost always brings a smile to all: a child enjoying his ice cream, with melted ice cream both coating their lips and cheeks, and little streams of their frozen treat flowing onto the hand grasping the ever-increasingly soggy cone. If I had to pick one ice cream out of those I've tried so far to put on that cone to get outcome, Handel's would be my nominee.

Of course, that's not the only scenario I would personally grab myself a scoop or two of Handel's. I mean, who needs unnecessary limitations in their life?

Handel's Ice Cream (location visited)
5908 W Sylvania Ave (Google Maps)
Toledo, OH 43623
(419) 882-1118

Columbus Metro Locations
5665 Feder Rd (Wexford-Thornapple - Google Maps)
Columbus, OH 43228
(614) 853-4464

399 West Olentangy St (Google Maps)
Powell, OH 43065
(614) 336-3813
Facebook     Instagram     Website