Thirsty Dog Brewing Company

Brewery, Eatery

37 Montrose West Avenue
Akron, Ohio, 44094
United States

// CLOSED //
BEER STATS
Average:
0
Beers:
0
Ratings:
0
PLACE STATS
Average:
4.1
Reviews:
5
Ratings:
5
pDev:
6.83%
View: Beers | Place Reviews
Recent ratings and reviews.
Photo of aracauna
Reviewed by aracauna from Georgia

3.88/5  rDev -5.4%
vibe: 3 | quality: 3.5 | service: 3.5 | selection: 5 | food: 4
The atmosphere here is that of a family restaurant, and from what one of the locals I was with said, it is a very family-friendly restaurant. There were a few children there while we visited, but it wasn't a madhouse. The food is pretty good, the spicy chicken sandwich I had was excellent. It's also really impressive to see 14 beers on tap at a brewpub. Unfortunately, it seems that the sheer numbers of beers may detract from the quality. The barley wine was syrupy and flat, but the rest of the beers were at least good, and the Siberian Night is an excellent beer. The rest of the beers are just a disappointment after having Siberian Night before ever visiting the brewpub.
Jun 10, 2004
Photo of cupbeerman
Reviewed by cupbeerman from Pennsylvania

4.28/5  rDev +4.4%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4
Thirsty Dog is a chain brewpub in Ohio; however, they serve very good beer. The bar is set up in a square with an end of a dog bone at each corner. The bar seats about twenty, with a lot of tables surrounding the bar. The atmosphere had quite a sports bar feel to it (this was at 2:00 on a Saturday) with everyone watching the TVs. The service was good for the conditions, because there was only one bartender for the entire bar, and this bartender also had to wait tables. There was a significant waiting period to place an order and to get beers

There were 14 beers on tap. They also had Bud and Bud Light on draft as well. The 14 micro beers were all fresh. The beers are available in 4 oz. samplers for .50 for most beers, and .75 for selected high gravity beers.
Thirsty Dog sells and fills growlers. Their beers are also available at many local beer stores, in 12 oz. bottles contract brewed by Frederick Brewing Co. of Maryland.

Overall I was very impressed with Thirsty Dog. Thirsty Dog was defiantly worth the trip from the Burgh. The food is also very good.
Mar 26, 2004
Photo of beergeek279
Reviewed by beergeek279 from Pennsylvania

4.1/5  rDev 0%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4 | service: 3.5 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4.5
Atmosphere: Thirsty Dog in Akron is in a big, spacious building located on an access road to a plaza. Inside, it seemed like there was quite a few tables, along with a decor of posters of Thirsty Dog's labels and dogs gambling (which is tacky under normal circumstances, but is quite ironic here). The tuns and fermenters are behind plexiglass at the rear of the building, but visible throughout. The bar itself was fairly unique...at each of the 4 corners the bar takes on the shape of the bone's corners.

Quality/Selection: Thirsty Dog has about 15 offerings on tap at any given time; about 10 regulars and 4 seasonals. The line starts with the typical light lager and ale, moves up through pale ales and porters, and ends with the bigger Hoppus Maximus and the exquisite Siberian Night. Some of the better ones include their Goldings Retriever (yes, all the names are that cute) pale ale and Old Leghumper and Raspberry Leghumper porters. The seasonals we had weren't quite as impressive, I'm afraid...they had a good dry Irish stout, but their Karminator dopplebock tasted like cough syrup and the Barleywine like malt syrup. Still, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as the ABV was only recently changed. One minor complaint I have about Thirsty Dog's selection is that they have both Budweiser/Bud Light and a light lager on tap, and I generally feel that a brewpub should choose one or the other.

Service: The people at Thirsty Dog seem to know the beer that they put out, and answered all of the questions that I had about my sampler. The bar was, however, terribly understaffed. On a Saturday afternoon, there was only one person working a full bar. Not only did she have to serve drinks to the whole bar, she was responsible for bringing out most of the food orders at the bar as well which further slowed things down. I don't blame the bartender as scheduling isn't her responsiblity (and for what it's worth, she did a remarkable job under the circumstances), but it's still a service problem.

Food: I enjoyed the food at Thirsty Dog. Though it was the typical bar food menu, the food itself was wonderful. I ordered a BBQ burger...came out nice and juicy, with the meat hanging out of the bun. My brother ordered a side of homemade potato chips covered with bacon and cheddar...both of us together couldn't finish it.

If Thirsty Dog counts as a chain, then this is the best chain that I've been to. With a large selection of beers, knowledgable staff, and excellent food, I'd love to come back here again and also try out the location in Canton.
Mar 26, 2004
Photo of Brent
Reviewed by Brent from Kentucky

3.73/5  rDev -9%
vibe: 3 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 3.5 | food: 3.5
Atmosphere is a little sterile and industrial in a chain-operation sort of way, but not unpleasant. Our waitress was very enthusiastic and knew a good deal about the beers (the only downside was that she recommended mixing a raspberry ale with a porter, and we got something that tasted like Dr. Pepper, blah!). All the beer selections were worthwhile, other than the light beer. Nice sampler availability. Food was fairly standard burger fare, but pretty good quality and servings. The waitress was the high-point of the visit, after some cajoling, she managed to score a couple of Thirsty Dog employee name badges with our names on them.
Aug 04, 2003
Photo of Dogbrick
Reviewed by Dogbrick from Ohio

4.53/5  rDev +10.5%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 5 | food: 4
This Thirsty Dog location is conveniently located right off of an I-77 exit for those trips to and from Cleveland. Luckily it was also located between a wedding and reception when we visited. I couldn't think of a place I would rather kill 3 hours!

The inside is open and airy, and they have a nice view of their brewing area. The whole works is glass encased so it is viewable from a whole section of the restaurant. There is a full 360 degree bar in the center with TVs around the top of it (there is a choice between TV and the NTN trivia game).

As with the Canton location, the number of house brews on draught here is mind-boggling (although I was devastated that Siberian Night was out of rotation), they usually have around 15 different beers to choose from, plus all the bread and butter crap beers that most likely actually pay the bills. They also have the sampler of all of their current brews that comes on a tray shaped like a dog bone (at a mere 50 cents each!). I tried the 'Bout Time Barley Wine and the always-pleasing Old Leghumper.

We had appetizers and both were very good. Both the spinach/artichoke dip and a homemade fried potato-wedge concoction topped with cheese and bacon.

Overall I would recommend this place to anyone traveling through the Akron area to or from Cleveland. You can go to Bennigan's any time, but Thirsty Dog is a real treat!
May 05, 2003
Thirsty Dog Brewing Company in Akron, OH
Place rating: 0 out of 5 with 5 ratings