Craft Beer Bars in Toledo, Ohio

Maumee Bay Brewing Company / Brew Pub -- located in the Oliver House of Toledo is very cool. Their breakfast stout, Total Eclipse, is excellent. They are releasing the barrel aged version on Tuesday, December 2nd.

 

When you need a list of places just go to the "Places" tab at the top of the page and perform a search using the qualifiers that you want in your list. Here's a list of Bars and Eateries in 'Toledo' http://beeradvocate.com/beerfly/list?path=/beerfly/list&sort=name&show=search&searcht=place&bar=Y&eatery=Y&name=&city=Toledo&s_id=OH&c_id=&zip=&area=&submit=Search. You can redo the search for Sylvania, Maumee, etc. or you can also do a search on the area code or something with a broad limiter to get all of the cities within that area.

 

A few places to start would be The Attic on Adams (above Mano's), Burger Bar 419 and Caper's.
Swig in Perrysburg is awesome as well. Tons of rotating taps.
As stated, Maumee Bay is excellent. They are actually going to be releasing a few versions of Total Eclipse this coming week. Look on their site for details.
Once a month, craft beer lovers meet up to drink in local places. Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/craftbeernighttoledo/
SMASH Toledo is also a good place to start, they are mostly about food, but they do videos on beer as well.
http://smashtoledo.com/website/category/categories/craft-beer-categories/
They also do video reviews of places: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAXn04DProazIbzeSpCq5FLyIZS7kvm65

 

That is VERY interesting news.

 

My vote also goes to Swig. By far the best constantly-rotating selection in Toledo, and they score kegs of beer you won't find anywhere else in the city. Excellent food as well; we live close by and stop in at least once or twice a week. Maumee Bay is great; they have some top-notch beers that have flown under the radar for a long time but seem to be growing in popularity now that they're starting to bottle. The Attic on Adams has a limited selection but are probably the most consistent in getting Three Floyds on tap, if you're interested. And Capers has great pizza and a small but good selection on draft. The manager's husband runs Smash Toledo, and they've done an excellent job of making Capers a destination for beer as well as food.

 

I don't think I'm adding anything new to the conversation, but just my 2 cents' worth, so to speak:

The Attic is my favorite place in Toledo for the atmosphere, awesomeness of what they put on tap (as well as getting some of the harder to find stuff), and service.
Swig is fantastic for their selection and the whole charcuterie thing they have going on.
Maumee Bay is well worth visiting, and they have some excellent beers in their lineup. Like a few people said, definitely don't miss the event Tuesday. It's a staggered release (at Mutz, the bar below the brewpub). From the Oliver House's website:
Special Tapping
5:15pm - Bourbon Barrel Aged Total Eclipse
5:45pm - Bourbon Barrel Aged With Vanilla Beans, Cacao Nibs & Coffee Beans
6:15pm - Bourbon Barrel Aged Total Eclipse Mole
If you like pizza and a good craft selection (not huge, but some good stuff), Caper's is my first choice, but I recently discovered the 5th Street Pub in Perrysburg and it's worth checking out. For food and decent selection, Nick and Jimmy's also isn't bad, though there's nothing you can't find anywhere else. I do like the food.
I would suggest, as someone else has, looking up Smash Toledo, Toledo Craft Beer Aficionados, and groups like that assuming you're on Facebook.
I try to throw together a tasting every couple of months or so, and I'll post something about it in this forum, so look out for things like that.
Toledo's getting much better than it used to be, and there's more happening all the time.

 

awesome, Love Total Eclipse, just had it on cask infused with van/cocoa beans...can't wait to try BA version

 

For those that went to this what did you think? What one was your favorite? Did any of it make it into bottles?

 

Guessing that these are ferkins and therefore will be drained in no time.

 

It's getting harder to find bars that don't at least have a couple good taps, but some definitely do better than others.

Swig in Perrysburg is still a favorite of mine. They do a very good job of rotating taps.
The **** & Bull across from the main gate at 5/3 Field has a good tap list downtown.

 

isnt this event today?

 

Event is today, sure wish I could go try the variants but Toledo is just a bit of a haul with multiple pints in me.

 

Thanks for the post. I didn't read closely and thought it was last night. Not sure I will get off in time tonight to go but would like to hear what people think of it. When MBBCo first showed a picture of the barrels it looked like there was a lot of it.

 

Speaking of Maumee Bay, a friend in the industry told me that they're no longer partnered with Cavalier - is that true?

 

I liked the regular barrel-aged version the best. The vanilla one was overpoweringly so; not much coffee or chocolate made it through and I thought it laid waste to the balance of the base beer. The mole variant wasn't too bad--a bit less spicy than I would prefer, but a lot of chocolate. I talked to the brewmaster and he mentioned that their Blitzen winter ale, scotch ale and barleywine are all sitting in barrels for future releases. They're likely to be a one-off; I think they only received twelve barrels in total. Overall it was a lot of fun, though. I hope they continue this on a more regular basis than the two or three tappings we got this past summer.

 

Were they all still on tap when you left? Do you think they will go through it all tonight? Thanks

 

True. Maumee Bay goes with Treu House/Anhieser-Busch now.

Swig is easily your best bet in the Toledo area. **** n Bull and the Attic right in downtown Toledo are both great as well. The Bier Stube in Sylvania recently added 37 taps. They always had a fairly decent selection and I've been told they've double up on 5-10 popular domestics but the rest have been filled by microbrew selections. I only live five minutes from here so I'll have to check it out this weekend.

 

This similarly aligns with my thoughts of the beers released. The standard barrel-aged Total Eclipse was a fantastic beer, one I wish I could have purchased multiple bottles or growlers of. The mole was my second favorite, although I didn't get too much spice out of it. Nice, rich, and chocolatey though. Regarding the vanilla, I too found it to be slightly overdone on the vanilla, such that the other flavors were nearly lost and it almost became cloying. All were beers I'd drink again if offered the opportunity, but the standard version was a phenomenal beer that I would actively seek out.