World of Beer's Best of Ohio Tap Takeover

Every Bar in Lakewood promotes three major points, adventure, community and supporting your local businesses.   Today’s blog is about the latter, buying local.  A part of supporting our local businesses, that we sometimes forget, is that it’s not just about our local retailers but also about our local producers.  The manufacturers, the growers and in this case the brewers make great things.  Getting to buy a product that you know was create in your home state, or even town, gives us that extra bit of pride.  Getting to drink something that was made by my "neighbors" makes me happy and makes me feel like I have a closer relationship with my beer.  On Friday, I was invited to World of Beer’s (bar #42) for their Best of Ohio Tap Takeover.

The World of Beer put 48 Ohio brewed beers into their taps.  These covered over two dozen breweries from all over the state.  They ranged our hometown Lakewood’s own Buckeye Brewing to one of my favorite’s Jackie O’s from Athens’ Ohio.  Breweries of all ages attended, from the established, Great Lakes Brewing Company, to plucky new comers like Franklin Brewing Company.  What these breweries have in common is creating products that aren’t just beer.  If you have enough money, know how, and cleanliness abilities you make a good enough beer.  Hell, you can make good beer in your basement.  These breweries do something beyond just making beer.  They are crafting beer.  This may just sound like a play of semantics but to the people that work at these breweries it’s everything.  They spend countless hours tweaking recipes to be the exact beer that they want to exist.  This Friday they got to show themselves off.  It was impressive that there are enough great types of beer in Ohio to fill forty-eight taps  and that we could have used at least another couple dozen beers.  I tried out five of them and still wished there was another half dozen I would have drank as well.  Well, my liver disagrees but what are you gonna do.

The event itself was odd.  There weren't any of the breweries present there like I was told, or at least they weren't obviously present.  There was also a weird smell coming from the sinks or garbage that made us move to a different location in the bar.  It basically felt like a normal day at World of Beer (minus the smell) but with a ton of Ohio beer on tap.  But they had soooo much local beer that they made up for it.

My first beer was Crafted Artisan Meadery, Meadjito.  Artisan is one of four quality meaderies in Ohio.  For those with a good palate, you’ll pick up hints of mint, lime juice, and of course, honey.  If you aren’t a mead connoisseur, it’s going to taste like a mildly sweet and sour white wine.

Next was Actual Brewing’s Photon.  I couldn’t detect much smell to it and it didn’t have a head.  This was a good beer for those trying to bridge the gap from light beers.  It’s very fizzy with little taste.  There’s a slight after taste to it as well.  It’s a nice choice for the light beer drinkers but not too interesting to your average craft beer aficionado.

I haven’t had anything from Fathead’s Brewery in a while and tonight it was time to make amends.  I didn’t even have a choice.  How do you not drink something called Fat Head’s Bonehead Red Rye Cask w/ Pineapple and Habanero.  It had a nice head to it and a soft foam.  They used the rye well, where many breweries have failed.  There should have been a piney and pineapple taste but it had trouble competing with the habanero's heat.  The spiciness took over more and more of the taste as you drank, including sticking around for a long after taste.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and would get it again.  I want to try it with something to eat.  I believe that its complex taste will enhance a variety of foods.

My favorite beer of the night was Elevator’s Horny Goat.  I am always impressed with what Elevator produces and tonight was no different.  Horny Goat is a dark beer that even Kelly, who doesn’t like dark beer, liked a lot.  Its taste combination of whiskey, vanilla, and coconut creates a taste that’s more than its parts.  Horny Goat just got better as you went.  You must drink this, it will raise your expectations for beer and yourself.  Perhaps this was simply because it was my fourth beer in.

My last beer of the evening was Brother Drake's Apple Pie Mead.  This is not a shy mead.  It has a strong sweet aroma of apple, alcohol and cough syrup.  It’s a sweet mead, whose taste is heavy with apple and honey.  The combination can come up almost fake due to its potency.  This strong apple pie taste hides its 13% alcohol content.  This is a beer whose goal is to blast you in the face with apple pie, then knock you on your ass.

These are experiences that can’t get with a domestic beer.  Our Ohio craft beers, instead of being part of the background of getting drunk, are part of our experience.  I enjoyed getting to know some new Ohio beers.  Thank you to the people that crafted them for us.

These are the other beers included for the World of Beer's Best of Tap Takeover:

Crafted Artisin Meadery Meadjito 
Brothers Drake Apple Pie Mead 
Brothers Drake Sour Paw Paw Mead 
Black Box Abbey Ale
Black Box Cloud 9
Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. Barrel Aged Cerberus
Thirsty Dog Whippet Wheat 
Rockmill Petit Saison
JAFB-Wooster Brewery Harvest Saison
JAFB New Stunt IPA
Actual Brewing Ingenuity
Actual Brewing Photon
Great Lakes Brewing Company Space Walker
Great Lakes The Wright Pilsner
Great Lakes Mango Perry Firkin
4 String Backstage Blonde
4 String Big Star White IPA
Hoppin' Frog Brewery Turbo Shandy
Hoppin' Frog BORIS the Crusher
Buckeye Sunstream
Buckeye Hippie IPA
Jackie O's Pub & Brewery Paw Paw Wheat
Jackie O's Galaxy Mandala DIPA
Jackie O's Dark Apparition
Catawba Island Whitecap Wit
Catawba Island Double Couple
Franklin Brewing Company Ltd. Company Ltd. Americas Gold
Franklin Brewing Milk Street Stout
Willoughby Brewing Company Peanut Butter Cup Porter
Fat Head's Brewery Jack Straw
Fat Heads Bonehead
Fat Heads Bonehead Firkin w/ Habanero and Pineaplle
Fat Heads Bumbleberry
Portside Distillery Pop Smoke Rauchbeer
Portside Brewing Ironclad
Lagerheads Smokey Robinson
Seventh Son Brewing Golden Ratio IPA
Seventh Son American Strong
Brew Kettle White Rajah
Brew Kettle Black Rajah
Columbus Brewing Restaurant Bodhi
Columbus Brewing Dalton
Mt. Carmel Deeper Roots Coffee Brown
Elevator Brewing Company Horny Goat
Griffin Cider Lemon Blues
Griffin Cider Honey Oak Nitro
Rivertown Roebling Porter Nitro

Bar #54 Humble Wine Bar

When a bar does really well, it tends to lead it to make new baby bars. Sometimes this creates clones of the original bar leading to a franchise by the same name. Other times these baby bars are created as unique new versions or concepts of the original bar, possibly even being completely different. A number of our newest bars to open in Lakewood over the past year were the offspring of other successful bars. Congratulations Lakewood, it's a wine bar! Bar #54 is Humble Wine Bar to be exact.

OK, let's get it out of the way: yes there aren't beers on tap and it's expensive. But a cheap wine bar with Coors on tap is hardly a recipe for success.

On this wintery February evening parking was not readily available in the giant shopping plaza parking lot. There were mountains of snow waiting to melt taking up a 5^th of the lot and the neighboring bar was having their all you can eat buffet. The bar's back entrance was a long hallway with a sign to point the way to enjoy ourselves on National Wine Day.

facebook.com/humblewinebar

Humble Bar has a classy look of an older pub with a very clean and comfortable feel. There was a long bar you could sit at with a great view of their flaming pizza oven. The bar was busy but with no wait. As with Deagan's, the staff is encouraged to show off their tattoos. The waitress was friendly and encouraged questions. Our friends slowly arrived over the next hour keeping our waitress on her toes and even leading us to require an extra table. The Humble Bar staff never had a problem taking care of us.

Humble Bar carries a variety of food. They are primarily appetizers, including a cheese board, antipasti and salads, and small pizzas. The most noticeable characteristic of their food is they are fresh, light and of a higher quality ingredients. The brussels sprouts weren't in stock, which we didn't find out till we ordered them a half hour into our visit. I started off with their Prosciutto Caprese, which consisted of alternating slices of spiraled mozzarella and prosciutto, and heirloom tomatoes. It was a great combination that I inhaled and recommend. Kelly went with a single cheese on their board. It had a selection of bread and crackers along with her chosen humboldt fog goat cheese out of California. I thought it had a nice combination of sweet, creamy, farts and mold...but in a good way. The margherita and spicy sopressata pizzas were both excellent. The margherita had the edge, with the delicious heirloom tomatoes to the spicy sopressata, which wasn't spicy.

Obviously they had lots of good wine. We went with their weaker options. I started off with a bottle of Chimay Red. It was a refreshing red ale that relies more on fizz than on its subtle taste. I followed it with their BFF Old Fashioned. It's a normal old fashioned with a splash of breakfast. Bacon bourbon, maple syrup and even piece of bacon on the tooth pick make it a great drink option. There was also an olive instead of a cherry on the tooth pick for unexplained reasons. Kelly had Cleveland sunset mead. I thought it tasted like a sour wine mixed with pear juice. Kelly said it tasted like a liquified version of Jennie's Ice Cream's Cherry Goat Cheese.

There were two small TVs in the far corners of the bar. I only bring it up because the one by us played Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 2 and, I think Ben Hur.

I had a nice time at Humble Wine Bar. It's an easy environment to talk to your friends. The light foods allow you, not to feel burdened down by what's in your belly, without loosing out on quality and taste. Their drink list gives everyone something they can really enjoy. Other than apparently running out of brussels sprouts and cherries we didn't have any bumps during our time there. If you are on a budget, plan around their happy hour; this was my largest bill of the blog. Overall, the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. For those who want a higher level of wine bar that also allows one to be relaxed and actually enjoy your food, drink and company, Bar #54, Humble Wine Bar is for you.

15400 Detroit Ave
216-767-5977
contact@humblewinebar.com
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