04 May When You’re a Beer Tourist, You Don’t Have To Go Big
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
Walter had a great idea a while back. She has a lot of great ideas, but this one was relevant to my series on beer tourism, so I’m telling you about it. She pointed out that when we travel for beer or beer festivals, we always end up in the big cities or at the big festivals. But beer tourism can be about the smaller festivals and towns too, so why not try out one of those in another state?
This sounded intriguing to me; in Indiana we have traveled to smaller festivals and had good times, so why not elsewhere? Not every festival needs to be Canvitational or Great Taste of the Midwest, and not every destination needs to be Denver or St. Louis in order to find good beer and interesting beer fans/breweries. So, I started looking around for a festival that would be smaller, but still interesting. The options were many, but not as many as I would have figured.
Perhaps because we’re so plugged into Indiana craft beer, we have knowledge of just about every festival that goes on, from the big ones to the smaller ones, like the new Beastside Brewfest this past weekend and Summer Sippin’ Craft Brew Fest coming up this summer in Plymouth. But outside Indiana, we don’t find out about all the smaller events. However, I did find what sounded like an interesting festival in a small town north of Cincinnati called Lebanon. So, the Lebanon BrewHAHa was our goal this past weekend (April 27th).
The Golden Lamb Inn is just one of the beautiful old buildings in Lebanon. image credit: stories from the playground
Lebanon is an older town that has had other suburban -burghs grow up around it, but it has kept its small town feel and look. Located about 40 miles north of the Rhinegeist rooftop beer garden (a good reference point for beer geeks), Lebanon was platted in 1802, although settlers had been there since just a few years after the Revolutionary War. The Golden Lamb Inn was opened the next year and is still operating, making it the oldest inn in Ohio. Keep the Golden Lamb in mind, as we will talk about them again below.
The picturesque streets, houses, and downtown have drawn people to Lebanon, including a huge yearly blues festival and three movie production crews. Harper Valley PTA with Barbara Eden was shot in town in 1978, and the Village Ice Cream Shop has mementoes and photos from all films that were made in town. Walter and I got to see some of the town because we arrived in Lebanon a little while before the festival started. Which brings up another reason why this festival was of interest to us.Lebanon BrewHAHa started at 6:30 pm and ran until 10:30pm.
Evening festivals are something that a few people always mention when Indiana On Tap gets feedback about craft beer events. Most are in the afternoon to take advantage of daylight hours and to reduce the risk of late night driving by people leaving the festival. But there are the rare nighttime festivals, such as Taps and Touchdowns and some festivals that run as two sessions, one afternoon and one evening, like last year’s Heritage Festival in St. Louis.
We took it easy on the drive south and made a couple of stops because we had the time. First we stopped at Lil’ Charlie’s Restaurant and Brewery in Batesville, since we hadn’t ever visited before. This is one more brewery we can mark off our list; only nine more and we can say we have visited every brewery in Indiana (as long as we keep up with the openings, we did two last week alone).
image credit: Walter
Next, we took advantage of the fact that US 275 brought us toward Lebanon from the south, around the north edge of Cincinnati and right past a bunch of breweries. We stopped in first at March First Brewing for a flight and then at Fretboard Brewing only two miles to the south of March First.
March First Brewing opened a couple of years ago as a distribution only brewery. They sent out bottles with bold, simple labels, and they tended toward lagers. It was just recently that they opened a taproom, but it has become quite popular. We sat down and looked around as we decided on our flight; t never fails to stun Walter and I when we go to other states and see kids in the taproom, even babies at the bar. It’s not that we’re against it, it’s just jarring for the first couple of minutes.
The barrel-aged bock was fantastic, and shocked us back to reality. As we enjoyed it, we took out the sticker collection and added a bunch of Indiana stickers to the inside of the garage door. There were several Indiana breweries represented already, which warms my heart – the craft beer tourism thing is definitely picking up, but we had another thirty or so Indiana brewery stickers to add to the collection. We do what we can.
The jaunt south took almost no time whatsoever, and then we were at Fretboard Brewing. This is an even newer brewery, although they existed in the effluvium as Six String Brewing for more than a year. As the name suggests, they are a music driven brewery with a big stage and an even bigger sound system. With 16 of their own beers on tap, we did couple of flights and talked them over with an old friend.
Lebanon BrewHaHa had a beer tasting notebook – a sign of a top notch festival. image credit: Walter
Danny Gold, late of Quaff On! and originally of Quaff Bros. and Eight Ball Brewing, is now a big part of Fretboard Brewing. It was great to say hi and talk a little beer, but he was a busy guy and we let him move on before the music started that evening. The breakfast stout with French toast was good enough to make the trip was worthwhile, and we hadn’t even gotten to the festival yet.
These two kinds of beer tourism, brewery hopping and festivals, give you different experiences and help you see different parts of the local craft beer scene. Walter and I recommend doing a bit of both when you travel. And that is most easily done with a smaller, more local festival. Huge festivals have a different vibe and include breweries from farther away, so we went smaller.
Lebanon BrewHAHa is a fundraiser for the Lebanon Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Youth Orchestra, so we had a local festival for a local cause. The event organizer, Laura Gall and her team at Simply Events, did a great job of mixing local breweries with quasi-regional breweries, as well as local crafts and food.
We had tried several of the breweries that were present and were aware of several others, but the breweries new to us (Grainworks, 16 Lots, Cellar Dwellar) were just as intriguing as the ones we knew we wanted to visit (Crooked Handle, Toxic, MadTree, Bad Tom Smith, etc.). Talking to new brewers is just plain fun, they haven’t heard any of our best stories yet. Comparing and contrasting how things work or how they tend to fall in Indiana as compared with Ohio is so interesting. As someone once said, you don’t travel to learn another culture, you travel to learn about your own.
People were having fun at Lebanon BrewHAHa, but notice the adequate amount of room. No big crowds. photo credit: Amie Santavicca
Several things were apparent by watching, talking, listening, and tasting at the festival. It was certainly true that Ohio craft drinkers must like hefeweizens and wit beers (white ales). No fewer than 19 of the beers on offer Saturday night were wheat beers, and 15 of those were either wits or hefes. Breweries wouldn’t make them if the people didn’t drink them, so they must be popular.
One of the hefes, from West Side, was our favorite, as it was more clove-forward as opposed to banana dominant. We also like the dry Irish stout from Hairless Hare – so dry that it out to come with a cactus. But not every beer tickled our fancy, neither Walter and were fans of the Mucho Michelada from Lucky Star, a bloody mary beer. We like many beers from the Miamisburg brewery, but this wasn’t one of them. It was spicy tomato juice and that was about it.
The layout of the festival was good. Held in a fairgrounds building, there was space enough for all 1100 attendees without feeling cramped, and the 28 local breweries (+ a few nationals), a winery, and a distillery had quite manageable lines. This might have been because there were several food trucks, several boutiques, and a photo booth that helped to slow people down. It is apparent that the organizers had learned from the first three editions of the Lebanon BrewHAHa, and it showed, as the festival has grown each year.
How many festivals do you see Little Kings at? But, when in Cincinnati…. photo credit: Amie Santavicca
Instead of a VIP session, Lebanon had a cask area with specialty beers and food pairings which sold out quickly. This points out that this was a fairly beer expert crowd. We didn’t see people asking for the highest ABV beers, and everyone was drinking enough water, asking good questions, and going out of their way to rinse their sample glasses. We know people do these things at other festivals, but it happened at an unusually high rate here – high enough that we noticed it.
A bit unusual for this festival as well was the presence of pork rinds. The Golden Lamb Restaurant at the Inn provided them for every brewery station. They are supposedly a good palate cleanser for beer tasting, with some fat and some salt. I think the jury is still out on this, although Walter liked them plenty – no carbs, so she didn’t have to adjust her insulin pump. I just settled for a cream puff from the Schmidt’s Sausage Haus Wagon. No, it wasn’t a palate cleanser, but it was a one pound cream puff and that’s good enough.
The drive back to Indy was looming, so we missed the comedy magician show on the stage after the music by Real Live Humans finished. Michael Kent has been seen on Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us,” and this could have been quite fun despite my almost paralyzing dislike of audience participation shows.
Without question, Walter’s idea to go small as a new way of investigating neighboring craft beer environments was a good one. But equally successful was the idea of combining brewery visits with a small festival as different ways of learning more about the area’s beer. However you choose to go, the key is to go. Talk up Indiana beer and encourage the residents to come see us. I must have handed out a dozen business cards with invitations to come to Indy and let us show them around our beer world. Remember, beer tourism is best when it goes both ways.
Walter’s Words of Wisdom: No matter what beer I’m drinking, the foam lacing always ends up looking like a duck.
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