Road Trip Advice - Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis and Columbus.

I’m totally ripping off Leighton’s thread because I’ll also be taking a road trip soon and his thread was a good idea. Before rate beer summer gathering, I’m going to a wedding in Ohio. I’m going to hit up Athens on Thursday, do wedding stuff Friday and Saturday and then the following cities which I’m not too familiar with.

I haven’t narrowed down my brewery list yet, so I won’t hit up all of these. I guess what I want to know is which ones are can’t miss or if there is a particular store or other beer/cider/mead place that I should add to the list.

Also, is there a better beer hub near Indianapolis for Monday than Dayton, OH? Louisville? Almost nothing is open in Indianapolis on Monday, so that’s why I’m going there Tuesday instead.

Sunday: Cincinnati
Woodstone Creek Winery
Fifty West Brewing ------my personal can’t miss
Tap & Screw
Rivertown Brewery
MadTree Brewing
Bad Tom Brewing
Listermann
Rhinegeist
Craft Connection
Old Firehouse brewery
Braxton Brewing
Dogberry

Monday: Dayton
ToxicBrew
Hairless Hair
Ball&Chain
Lucky Star
Star City
Lock 27
Carillon Brewing

Tuesday: Indianapolis
Scarlet Lane
Taxman-----personal can’t miss
Oaken barrel
mashcraft
Blackacre brewing
Triton Brewing
Wabash
Daredevil brewing
Upland
Granite City
Bier brewing
Bent Rail
Sun King
Tow Yard
Flat 12
Indiana City
New Day Meadery----personal can’t miss
Fountain Square
TWODeep
Chilly Water
Outliers
St. Joseph
Ram
CannonBall (Open yet???)

Wednesday: Columbus
Zaftig brewing
Seventh son brewing
Pigskin brewing
Land Grant brewing
Columbus brewing
Barley’s Brewing
Four String brewing
North High brewing
Lineage brewing
Knotty Pine brewing
Zauber brewing
Wolf’s Ridge brewing
Elevator brewing
Smokehouse brewing
Actual brewing

Thanks!

What week are you doing this? If I’m in town (which is highly likely), I’ll take you on an Indy tour, and we have a guest bedroom if you’re looking for somewhere to stay. May be able to put together a tasting in Cincy on Sunday if the crew is up for it too (I’m done teaching until July and my schedule is pretty flexible).

The week/weekend before rate beer gathering Pittsburgh. I’m driving from Columbus to Pittsburgh on Thursday. Thanks!

Couch surf with michcam8 and have him buy you Hoof Hearted.

Hoof Hearted would be great, but it looks like they are only open on Sundays.

Hoof’s brewpub has regular hours W-SU and is very close to Wolf’s Ridge and Seventh Son.

http://www.hoofhearted.bar/visit/

Originally posted by miketd
Hoof’s brewpub has regular hours W-SU and is very close to Wolf’s Ridge and Seventh Son.

http://www.hoofhearted.bar/visit/

Louisville wouldn’t be much of a stop on a Monday - might be worth it if you combined it with Lexington but you’d have to get a pretty late start as West 6th in Lex and Against the Grain + Bluegrass BC in Louisville are the only ones open before 4 PM on Monday. If you started in Lexington in the afternoon, you could hit West Sixth, Blue Stallion, Ethereal, Country Boy, and then hit Louisville with the options of Great Flood, Cumberland, Against The Grain, BBC, and New Albanian across the River (and would probably want to check out the tap list at Holy Grale - not going to get many local ticks there but they do get some spectacular beers).

In Indy - Cannon Ball isn’t open yet.
- Bent Rail isn’t brewing yet.
- Wabash isn’t open on Monday
- You can get Outlier beers at Brugge brewery which is very near Triton in Broad Ripple along with Thr3e Wise Men and Broad Ripple brew pub (none of which I would consider essential stops but are all very close - Brugge does have some spectacular mussels and frites)
- Twenty Tap is a few blocks north from Upland taproom on College - they have a great tap list with some of their own beers - all available as flights.
-If you go the Upland taproom off I-69 northeast of town, you will be very near Books & Brews and Redemption breweries.
-I would include Big Lug (surprised b3shine didn’t recommend it) and Deviate breweries.

Cincinnati:
Taft’s Ale House is really #1 (Fifty West and its new production facility across the street are arguably #1 or #2). That should be on your list.

Woodstone Creek is only open from 2-7 Saturday at this point, and that probably won’t change anytime soon.

Craft Connection is a local beer tour bus company; it’d get you to a few places, but not as many as you want.

If you have one day, places like Old Firehouse, Dogberry, and Tap & Screw are all out of the way and not as good as many others, so I’d skip them. Bad Tom sucks. Fibonacci is another newish brewery, but isn’t very good.

Ei8ht Ball will offer many, many more rating opportunities than others. It’s right across the river.

Hofbrauhaus Newport is cool, but half liters are the smallest size offered.

Moerlein Lager House and Moerlein’s production brewery are both very central and offer flights.

Blank Slate is over by Bad Tom, not far from Fifty West. They make better beer than most places in the city.

Urban Artifact is a sour-only brewery in Northside that makes more interesting stuff than most places around here.

Mt. Carmel is over on the far east side; I’m not sure if they do flights, though.

I’d stick with Dayton for Tuesday. There’s more there than Louisville, at this point. You’re missing several:

Crooked Handle
Dayton Beer Company (go to the downtown location over Kettering)
Eudora (in Kettering, not far from the original DBC)
Fifth Street Brewpub
Warped Wing
Pinups & Pints (strip club brewery in Medway; they usually have 1-2 house beers at any time - or so I’m told)
Yellow Springs (about 15-20 minutes east of Dayton, but worth the trip)

So yeah, stick with Dayton. If you’re prioritizing, you have 4 basically downtown: DBC’s new big location, Warped Wing, Toxic, and Fifth Street. Carillon is just south of downtown near UD. The rest more or less form a ring around the outskirts.

Shoot me a PM with the dates of your trip. My wife is due in the beginning of July, so I might not be available, but I at the very least can be around to help plan the trip to maximize your efforts.