Ohio Brew Week - Day 1
Monday, July 14th, 2008 | Trip Reports
Beer Menu from Jackie O's in Athens
This is the first in a series of articles on my recent trip to Athens and the Hocking Hills for the 3rd Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival. This event was held in Athens, Ohio the week of July 14, 2008 and because the event is intended to promote tourism in Athens as well as feature the wide variety of excellent Ohio-brewed beers, I will discuss all aspects of our trip to Athens, although emphasizing those aspects that are more beer and festival related. This is by no means intended to be a complete summary of the entire festival — there were far too many events and beers featured for one person to cover alone. Rather, this is intended as a summary of my personal trip report of my experiences and observations during my week long visit.
My wife, Sally, is primarily responsible for our visit to the Ohio Brew Week. While visiting nearby towns (Logan and Gallipolis) last year on a family reunion without me, she fell in love with the area and was looking for an angle to include me when, voila, she came across a small advertisement for the 2nd Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival. There are a lot of places I’d like to go on a family trip, so to get me to spend my vacation dollars in Athens would take some doing. But a week long beer festival sounded like my idea of a vacation, so it was off to Athens we went this year.
With the Route 35 now two lane highway the entire way starting at Xenia, I found the trip to Athens from Dayton surprisingly easy. Which was fortunate, because due to a late 1:30 PM start, I am thinking I am going to miss the first official event of the Festival, a 4PM tasting at the Oak Room. I would normally not be that concerned, except I already bought tickets in advance for all the formal tastings, including this one. So at 3:30PM, I literally dropped my family and luggage off hastily at our first accommodations of the trip — a cabin near the Hocking Hills area - and continued on the 31 mile trip to Athens. I pull into Athens right at exactly 4PM, only to find several of the key roads closed for construction. Athens appears to be an endless series of one way streets with no clear cut block pattern, and there appeared no easy way to travel from one end of town to the other with the key section of West Union Street shut down. It took some time, but thanks to my navigation system on my iPhone, I was able to find an alternate route along Smith Street ( perhaps one of the narrowest and steepest roads this side of San Francisco) and find The Oak Room.
So I get there a bit late, but find that the tasting is apparently running late as well. There’s a group of about 10 people seated around a rectangular shaped mini-bar that is open in the center just large enough for one person to stand comfortably. It looks like they are still on the first or second beer and there are also cheese and crackers being served alongside much larger tasting glasses (at least 4 ounces) than what I am normally accustomed to for these type of tasting events. The theme of this particular tasting is beers from Barley’s Brewing in Columbus, and we taste 5 beers led by a discussion from the bartender, who is aided by notes from the brewery. To be honest, my first impression is one of disappointment and that maybe coming here is a mistake. I suppose I expected a bit more for my $13 such as a representative from the brewery itself, and perhaps a bit more food and appetizers to go along with the beer.
But to Kevin’s credit, he’s a bit more knowledgeable about beers than most bartenders, the enclosed square bar area was an ideal venue for this type of event, and the sample sizes I thought were very generous, so I decide to make the best of it. The beers themselves are interesting. Blonde Bombshell is described as a Munich Helles Lager which I find very light color and rather bland, and the MacLenny’s Scotch Ale was a bit underwhelming with only a faint hint of the scotch malts. The Droughtfire IPA was very drinkable with a mild hoppy flavor. Their flagship beer is the Barley’s Pale Ale and is described as using two English malts and three variety of hops. A very English style beer and a good session beer. On the other hand, the last beer we taste is an Imperial Raspberry Wheat, a raspberry barleywine with 16 pounds of pure raspberries per barrel and an 11.5% ABV. Although this sounded impressive and interesting to taste, I find the beer to be virtually undrinkable for more than a few sips.
All in all, I am somewhat disappointed at the first event, and head down the road to Jackie O’s, where the official Ohio Brew Week kickoff ceremony takes place at 6PM. Jackie O’s is the only local brewery in the town, and although it looks like a typical dive bar from first glance, one wall is covered with two large white erase boards that detail the current draft selections. There are no less than 18 different draft beers on site, with an incredible 14 different beers being brewed onsite. I’m overwhelmed at the quantity and variety of different drafts on site and my attitude quickly changes from trepidation to eager anticipation. Before I get a chance to study the menu in detail, I decide to start with Thirsty Dog Orthus Belgium Double, a delicious slightly sweet distinctly Belgium style ale. I’m really tempted to try some of the higher gravity local beers — Dark Apparition is a Russian Imperial Stout, Black Betty is Imperial Raspberry Porter aged in bourbon barrels, and the Thorogood is a Scotch ale aged in bourbon barrels (it took me a while to get the 1 bourbon, 1 Scotch, 1 beer Thorogood reference). But I save those for another night and try the ChomoLung Ma instead, and organic honey nut brown ale, which turns out to be one of the lighter selections they have and is very drinkable.
In the meantime, there is a ceremony going on in a small stage. The mayor of Athens is present to say a few words as well as Dan Gates, the Director of Ohio Brew Week. They all talk a lot about Jon Sparhawk, who is given credit for creating the idea of Ohio Brew Week Festival, yet passed away much too soon in 2007 at age 57. Jon was described as loving family man, a passionate small business owner, a community leader and friends to countless of people throughout Athens and Ohio. In honor of Jon Sparhawk, Jackie O’s brewed a special beer to commemorate him, which they tapped a special beer, named the Sparbock, brewed in his honor. I couldn’t pass up tasting one more beer for the night, and the Sparbock seemed like a fitting tribute, a fine beer with a lot of character and slightly sweet aroma and taste. It was a fine way to wrap up Day 1 at the Festival.