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.

Return to the Trails (Pt. 4): Go (North)west, Young Craft Beer Seeker

Earlier posts from this current "Return to the Ale Trails" series:
Part 1: Jumping Onboard The Trail Train - Newcomers to the Scene
Part 2: Ales for what Ails You - A Closer Look at Fresno, California's Ale Trail promotion
Part 3: The Columbus Ale Trail (Year 3) - Bigger and Better Than Ever

Part 1 of my original 4-part Ale Trails series (written in November 2016) can be found here.

This final part of my current Ale Trail series proved to be one that piqued my curiosity the most, as it delved into a scene that I knew existed but did not have many real details about.

While it doesn't make up the entire equation of what gets an area's craft beer scene noticed on a larger scale, overall exposure plays a huge role. In some ways, that's what Fresno (Part 2 of this series) and Columbus (Part 3 of this series) are seeking, albeit at different stages of the process.

In recent months, my spouse and I have noticed the appearance of Canadian craft beer on the shelves of our local stores, and the few bottles that we tried were a far cry from anything produced by a couple of big time north-of-the-border beer producers that happen to rhyme with Cabatt and Polson.

This is why a couple of Canadian newcomers to this compendium of ale trails particularly intrigued me. We had mentioned the Niagara Ale Trail in the first part of this series, and it is nice to know it's not that hard to grab a craft beer after coming up close and personal with one of the most spectacular natural wonders in North America.

However, it was the existence of the British Columbia Ale Trail, an area that I had known mainly for other things (the best Chinese food outside of China, numerous natural wonders, and one of the most popular movie filming substitute locations for various other world cities) that inspired me to dig deeper into the world of craft beer both in our neighbor to the north and British Columbia.

Return to the Trails (Pt. 3): Seeking The Paddle-Tested - Year 3 of the Columbus Ale Trail

Earlier posts from this current "Return to the Ale Trails" series:
Part 1: Jumping Onboard The Trail Train - Newcomers to the Scene
Part 2: Ales for what Ails You - A Closer Look at Fresno, California's Ale Trail promotion

Part 1 of my original 4-part Ale Trails series (written in November 2016) can be found here.

A strong finish was in the cards for Year Two participants in what's turned
out to be a very popular and successful Columbus Ale Trail promotion

As it turned out, Columbus area craft beer seekers proved they know how to pace themselves, at least in regard to the second year of the Columbus Ale Trail promotion.

According to Jim Ellison, owner of Columbus Brew Adventures and co-organizer of the Ale Trail, April saw a huge surge in those completing the entire trail of 28 breweries for the ultimate prize of a specially-designed card deck, with many cards featuring logos of the participating breweries and trail partners. Starting with just over 300 redemptions at the beginning of the month, participants turned in enough completed passports to push the number to over by April 30th, the last day of Volume 2 promotion.  In addition, Ellison added that over 1,700 pint glasses were awarded to people who visited at least four of the participating breweries.

My spouse and I were one of those who finished strongly and claimed both the card deck and pint glass. When the card deck had been initially announced as the ultimate prize for completing the Volume 2 Ale Trail, I personally thought it was one more unique (and coolest, IMHO) offered by any ale trail. That feeling seemed to be validated by my research revealed in a series of posts last November which looked at ale trail promotions across the country.

I also wondered what could Columbus Ale Trail promoters could do the top themselves. As it turns out, the third edition of the trail I believe is the most fun yet.

Return to the Trails (Pt. 2): Ales for What Ails You (The Downtown Fresno Ale Trail)

Earlier posts from this current "Return to the Ale Trails" series:
Part 1: Jumping Onboard The Trail Train - Newcomers to the Scene

Part 1 of my original 4-part Ale Trails series (written in November 2016) can be found here.

What if I told you that an ale trail was the key to relieving the economic ails of a downtown?

As written, that question is a bit overstated. But come fall of this year, a prominent California city is poised to see just how far beer can them in their continuing downtown revitalizing efforts.

The skyline of Downtown Fresno, California (photo credit to The Fresno Bee)

While I have said in the past that, for me, the capital of California, Sacramento, shares the most similarities to my new Columbus home, its neighbor to the south, Fresno, sports its own interesting parallels. For instance, the general sports landscape in both cities centers around its college football team; in fact, Fresno and its love of its Bulldogs may be the closest thing you get in California to the college football game day hoopla in cities like Columbus and similar big college football towns more commonly found east of the Rocky Mountains.

In addition to sporting professional Triple-A level Minor League Baseball teams (the Clippers and the Grizzlies), both cities find themselves as pro sports loyalty battlegrounds due to their central locations within their respective states. Cleveland and Cincinnati pro teams battle for attention in Columbus, while Fresno residents are mainly divided between San Francisco and Oakland to the north and Los Angeles and soon, Las Vegas (with the impending move of the Raiders) to the south.

Other interesting parallels include their unique ethnic concentrations in Columbus' Somalis and the Fresno-based Hmong (interestingly, both cities share their distinction with the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in Minnesota) as well their "flyover country" status. In Fresno's case, though, I have a feeling it's more a case of lying in "drive by country" - most travelers going through the area stay on the main north-south artery, Interstate 5, which lies an hour or so to the west of Fresno.

Return to the Trails (Pt. 1): Jumping Onboard the Ale Trail Train

The Summit Brew Path, Ohio's second ale trail promotion behind
the Columbus Ale Trail, has happily exceeded all expectations

In November, I wrote a series of posts sampling some of the ale trails of the country, starting with what has been a very successful such promotion here in the Columbus, Ohio area. I also then compared some of the other similar promotions in relation to metro areas similar to Columbus on a population basis as well as both a general and specific look at some of the other more interesting promotions that I found across the country.

Six months later, I thought it would be fun to update this series with a look at some of the mostly newer promotions that have appeared for craft beer aficionados to tackle, as well as take a look at what awaits those who undertake this year's version of the Columbus Ale Trail as well as the associated Columbus Craft Beer Week.

(Ale) Trailblazing Across The Country: Part 4 - Along The Two-Eight-Seven

Previous Ale Trail Blogposts
Part 1 - Beer Tourism and The Ale Trail (with a focus on the Columbus Ale Trail)
Part 2 - Brewery/Ale Trail Comparisons with similarly-sized metro areas to Columbus
Part 3 - A Compendium of the Nation's Ale Trails

From a United States craft beer perspective, there are a select few cities that make the craft beer seeker's palate water just from the mere mention...Portland, Oregon...San Diego, California...Asheville, North Carolina...and so forth. For these cities, extra ancillary promotions like an ale trail concept are pretty much not needed; for all intents and purposes, the attraction and strength of these craft beer scenes speak for themselves.

For this post, I had originally considered taking a brief look at how all these cities promote their craft breweries and how it fits in the overall picture.  Upon closer inspection, it turned out one of these meccas, recently named as one of the top craft beer destinations in the country by a prominent online travel site, provided a contrasting approach to the ale trail equation: one part of the named metro has an ale trail, while the other part does not.

(Ale) Trailblazing Across The Country: Part 3 - All Ale Trails Great and Small

Previous Ale Trail Blogposts
Part 1 - Beer Tourism and The Ale Trail (with a focus on the Columbus Ale Trail)
Part 2 - Brewery/Ale Trail Comparisons with similarly-sized metro areas to Columbus

Part 3 of this mini-series of blog posts covers the ale trails that I located offering a similar passport/stamp system as the Columbus Ale Trail (detailed in Part 1 of this series, as noted above.)

I will say that while I tried to make this as wide-ranging an incentive-laden ale trail list as possible, this is by no means a comprehensive list. With that said, I would like to hear of others that exist if you got 'em to share. Perhaps with enough feedback, I could be persuaded to do a followup post in the near future.

Also, I found that the Columbus Ale Trail card deck for this year's edition of their trail is pretty unique in terms of ale trail giveaways. The closest most unusual swag that I could find on other ale trail concepts was sunglasses on the Kalamazoo Ale Trail as well as a discounted homebrewing kit for the Santa Cruz Beer Trail (more details on both below.)

Boatyard Brewing, a member of the Kalamazoo "Give a Craft" Beer Trail
(Photo courtesy of DiscoverKalamazoo.com)

(Ale) Trailblazing Across The Country: Part 2 - Six Above, Five Below

Track 7 Brewing from Sacramento, California, which is about to embark
on their own version of the ale trail concept

Research Parameters, Such As They Are
I posed the question on my last blog post, which touched on the concept of the ale trail with a focus on my locally-based Columbus Ale Trail, about what other craft beer ale trail promotions might be found around the country, their structure and their incentives.

Other than actually finding those cities and regions with active ale trails, I figured a meaningful comparison in relation to the Columbus area would be useful. Once I thought about it a little more closely, I figured looking into metro areas with similar populations would be an easy and relevant comparison measure.

So I took a look at where Columbus stood in terms of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) - as of 2015 (Note: Population statistics were taken from Wikipedia's List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas and rounded down or up for simplicity), the Columbus metro area, which here reaches as far as Marion and Zanesville, comes in at just over 2 million with a rounded total of 2,022,000 people.

From here, I decided to take the MSAs both directly above and directly below in terms of population and dive in. Interestingly enough, the next metro area population-wise higher than Columbus that had an active ale trail really isn't all that far away from Ohio's capital city. The remaining metro areas researched included two neighboring Ohio cities, a couple of fellow capital cities, and a journey from coast to coast.