Friday is National Beer Day, an opportunity, in part, to celebrate the homegrown brews that fill pint glasses across the Glass City.
And as the season changes, some of those recipes are, too.
“You have a whole different flavor profile for spring and summer that you don’t get over the winter,” said Jason Sanderson, label artist for Earnest Brew Works in Toledo. “It’s no different than clothing. Like a sweater is a porter, is a stout. And now we’re getting into that crisp, clean, tart; you think of spring.”
Earnest Brew Works is one of a handful of area breweries that shared insights into its seasonal beers as winter gives way to spring. It recently added multiple lighter flavors to its offerings, said owner and brew master Scot Yarnell.
“I love My Tart Will Go On,” he said, referring to an apricot sour. “It’s supposed to be a take on ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
“We have Killerney, the Irish red, and we have a wheat beer we’re doing, Upbeat Wheat,” he continued. “[Earnest] Bock is my favorite one to have, it’s a German traditional style. That comes out every year. What is new though is Under Pressure, that one just released, a spring release. It’s a popular style, a hazy IPA, but it’s a lower alcohol one.”
These join year-round offerings like a granola brown ale called Crunchy Hippie, a golden ale called Easy, a West Coast IPA called New Sincerity, and Hoppy Camper, a hazy ale IPA.
Earnest Brew Works opened a new location at 3142 W. Central Ave., Toledo, in March. It also runs locations in South Toledo at 4342 S. Detroit Ave., and downtown at 25 S. St. Clair St.
“I’m not just a guy that’s got a lot of money and I just hired my way into owning a brewery. I’m doing this myself. These are my recipes, my business partner’s recipes; we’re the ones that create the beers,” Yarnell said. “We’re also the ones that talk to customers, see what they like and brewing stuff and making changes based upon what our customers want.”
Over at Quenched and Tempered, 1210 Jackson St., Toledo, Alex Drozdowicz is a brewmaster and co-owner. He said that their seasonal offerings include a new flavor and a nod to a popular holiday in May.
“My brother had a black Mexican cerveza recently, and that piqued my interest because I like dark beers and being able to make them deep and rich without being overbearing,” Drozdowicz said. “So I wanted to do just like a nice, mild, dark, cerveza for Cinco de Mayo. It’s called Tuscan Ring; it’s named after a meteorite that they used as an anvil in Mexico for centuries.”
Quenched and Tempered also offers year-round flavors that are light and refreshing, including permanent taps of Oaty McOatface, Wabash Cannonball, and John’s Beere.
“We have our Rosé the Riveter. It’s a strawberry rhubarb rosé style ale. It has 40 or 48 percent cider-base in there, so it gives it a cider, wine feel to it. A little bit fruitier, a little bit tarter. And we have our bohemian pilsner, Steady Mercury, and that’s our second best-seller,” Drozdowicz said. “We have our American pale ale, which is Fahrenheit 419.”
HEAVY Beer Company at 1301 N. Summit St., Toledo is also coming in hot for spring.
“We will have our Vulcana back, which is our watermelon gose. [It’s] like a sour, part of the sour family, and that’s going to be a nice tart, watermelon-lime, a hint of salt, a perfect summer beer,” said Eric Strayer, marketing coordinator and education director at HEAVY.
Its newest offering is the HEAVY IPA. “We affectionately refer to it as a table IPA or a banquet IPA,” Strayer said. “It is something that is designed to drink as a group.”
HEAVY Beer Company’s year-round offerings include a popular, easy-drinking lager named Better.
“A lot of craft beer bars you go to want to prove how crafty they are, and everything is double hopped or everything is very rich and high ABV. But this is something where if you bring nine craft beer drinkers with you that say, ‘Well, I only drink Miller Lite.’ This is kind of that easy-drinking, you just want a beer option,” Strayer said of Better.
Strayer said they also offer other drinkable beers year-round such as Loop, an American pale ale, Oh Yeah, a hazy IPA, Black Metal, a black IPA, and Good Luck, a dry Irish stout.
“We have a phrase that comes from that HEAVY name: ‘If you’re heavy into it, we’re heavy into it.’ And what that means is we want to know what people are passionate about,” Strayer said. “We want people to obviously drink beer but we want them drinking beer amongst family and friends, doing activities that they are passionate about.”
Northwest Ohio celebrates 419 Day, a nod to the region’s area code, on April 19. HEAVY is celebrating with beer specials and a celebration of the brewery's newer basement space, and Toledo Spirit’s Bellwether will also be open upstairs with cocktail specials and more.
“The big celebration is going to be 419 day, it’s when we officially release [HEAVY IPA],” Strayer said. “Even though we soft released it down here, we will be publicly throwing a party around the big release of this new HEAVY IPA. It will be kind of a city-wide release, a way for all of the city to celebrate.”
First Published April 6, 2023, 12:00 p.m.
