Showing posts with label Willoughby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Willoughby. Show all posts

Black Friday Bedlam: The Second Annual Mead & Brew Tour (Part 1)

The ritual of Black Friday has become a source of tradition (or avoidance, depending on your viewpoint) for many families around the country.  While most of these experiences center around the greatest shopping bargains you can find, for my spouse's side of the family, it means a gathering of the troops for a whirlwind tour of breweries and meaderies in the area.

Last year's journeys took our collective group into the Detroit area for a sampling at places like Ferndale's Schramm's Mead and Warren's Kuhnhenn Brewing. This year, we ventured into Northeast Ohio for a whirlwind journey in and around the Cleveland area.


Two of our first three visits on the first half of our journey were repeat visits of area breweries that my spouse and I had made not too long ago, with a kickoff of proceedings at Akron's Hoppin' Frog Brewery and a more extensive lunch stop a few hours later at Lake County's Willoughby Brewing.

Not surprisingly, not much had really changed since we blogged about these two breweries not too long ago. However, we did want to say Hoppin' Frog's special Black Friday release, the Gavel Slammer Dark Ale (a direct reference to the measure which eliminated the ABV cap on Ohio-brewed beers) turned out to be an appropriate commemoration strictly based on its 17.4% ABV.

OH Beer Travels: Willoughby Brewing Company (Willoughby, OH)

Our recent mini-venture into Northeast Ohio allowed us an opportunity to visit some of the area's breweries, starting with our first stop a half-hour outside of metro Cleveland in the form of Willoughby Ohio's long-standing craft beer haven.


First Impressions: "The pictures didn't lie; this is one large space."

Reality: Located in a former trolley car repair company building, Willoughby Brewing, which opened up in 1998, has helped anchor a bit of a renaissance of the downtown area of this Lake County town of roughly 22,000 people. Within its space, one can sneak a peek at the building's former life by looking overhead as the mini-trolley model wends its way around the tracks.