I'll be in Cleveland this week for business. I really like IPAs, stout and Barrell Aged offerings. I'll be downtown and I've had white rajah and head hunter before and will again. Anything else I should look for?
Nope, go to Fat Heads. Also, have breakfast at Lucky's Cafe if you can. Finally, there are a few threads like this that have more info if you search them out.
Fat Heads. Brew Kettle. Tremont Tap House. Platform. Town Hall. That's your list in order, anything else is pretty much a wasted opportunity to go somewhere better.
The above mentioned spots are the absolute best Cleveland has to offer. Do yourself a favor and Drive/Uber/Lyft to any/all of those spots. Downtown doesn't offer much from a brewery/gastropub perspective aside from Portside in the flats.
Definitely hit up Ohio City, which is about 1.5 miles out of downtown. I don't advise walking back downtown at night though. Pretty sketchy area in between, haha. Town Hall had an excellent tap list and there was a coffee peanut butter porter on tap when I was there a couple months back. Great Lakes Brewering and a bunch of other trendy stuff are in that area. In the downtown area I didn't find too many good places for beer except for City Tap. They had KBS on tap along with a bunch of other limited stuff. That place must fly under the radar or something. And their burgers were ridiculously good. The other place I really liked in the downtown area was the Brewer And The Butcher. The food was amazing and their housemade beers were pretty good as well. Some really unique stuff. I highly recommend it.
Aah how did I forget Butcher & The Brewer? They're excellent as well. Probably the best downtown option IMO, definitely worth walking there. The food is excellent too.
If youre into food, the chef at the Greenhouse Tavern won a James Beard award for the Great Lakes region. They had Zombie Dust on draft not too long ago and its right across the street from Butcher&Brewer. City Tap flies under the radar because its a dump and its really close to the Q and the Jake, but they sometimes have some cool stuff on draft. I was there yesterday after work and they had Stone Green Tea IPA, Founders Big Lushious and Blushing Monk, DH Plead the 5th... Town Hall has a great list usually and keep it fairly up to date: http://www.townhallohiocity.com/lounge/brews/
Thanks everyone, I was able to hit up the winking lizard downtown for the White Rajah and Head Hunter, breezed through City Tap (nothing too exciting) and hit up the butcher and the brewer, I thought their IIPA was not very good but the BA Stout with Raspberries was great. Then the next time I hit Greenhouse Tavern for great food and a solid Mystic Mamma. Will def have to get out of downtown next time I am there in July.
Nice to hear you had a good time. Definitely need to get to Ohio City and then onto Fatheads in the suburbs when you have some more time here!
