Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Cleveland Brew Bus

Anyone else feeling like last weekend was soooo long ago already? I have a case of the Tuesday Blues today, I think. Maybe because Mr. H and I got to do something different and pretty fun on Saturday evening, the Cleveland Brew Bus.

You get to hop on board a small bus (maximum group number is 20) for a craft brewery tour and tastings all around Cleveland. You get picked up at the new Market Garden Brewery production facility. They have several tours to choose from, and multiple options every weekend as long as there are enough riders. We were on the New Breweries Tour, which includes three stops, tastings of four samples at each stop, gratuity for the brewery servers, and a pretzel necklace.

Our first stop was The Jolly Scholar, located on the Case Western Reserve Campus.
They probably had my favorite beer tastings of the night at this stop, but the worst food. Mr. H and I shared the Crab Rangoon Stuffed Mushrooms, and they were pretty awful, if I'm honest.
Next up was a stop at Nobel Beast Brewing Co. over on Lakeside very close to the WKYC TV-3 station. Mr. H and I were having a great time!
But, of course we were, since we were with good buddies celebrating this guy's birthday!
Along with our four samples here...
...we ordered dinner. The chef came from Spice Catering Co. (and other impressive gigs), so there is a lot of farm-to-table and local ingredients used here.

We shared the CLE Corndog ($7) with Deejay's smoked kielbasa, spent grain batter, honey beer mustard, and caraway kraut.
And the Grilled Bologna ($12) on a Challah bun with gnar-gnar, smoked thousand island, roasted garlic, and cheddar.
Much better than the food at our first stop.

Nobel also had my favorite setting of the evening.
Our final stop was the only brewery that we had been to before, Terrestrial Brewing Company in Battery Park.

They had my least favorite beers of the night, but I did get to try the new brew made with Kool-aid (tart with a fun green glow) and they also had Founder's Breakfast Stout on draft. Lots of pooches wandering around this stop too, so that was a highlight of the evening!
It was a great way to spend a Saturday evening with friends, seeing some breweries that we hadn't been in to yet and pushing us out of our comfort zone to try some brews we wouldn't normally order on our own.

The owner of Cleveland Brew Bus was our tour guide, and she's very knowledgeable about the craft beer industry and Cleveland beer scene. I think she said she and her husband took over the business in 2014. She got us in and out, and on time, which is no small feat when dealing with 20 adults consuming beers and having fun!

Cleveland Brew Bus
Leslie Basalla
(216) 773-2567
tours@clevelandbrewbus.com

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark has done this several times with co-workers and loved it!

Kate @ GreatestEscapist.com said...

This sounds like such a fun thing to do. Maybe I'll plan one of these tours for my birthday! Also, bummer about the food at Jolly Scholar - though admittedly, crab rangoon-stuffed mushrooms SOUND kind of awful, haha.

Bite Buff said...

I can see why. Getting a bigger group would be fun!

Bite Buff said...

It would definitely be a fun birthday outing to plan. Ha, for someone that loves stuffed mushrooms and crab Rangoon separately, I had high hopes! Mushrooms were cold and texture was weird, and the crab stuffing had very little flavor.

Mady Stoner said...

I love this idea! There’s a couple on there I haven’t been to and need to try out. Thanks for the intel!

Julia said...

I can’t believe we’ve never done the brew bus yet! That’s definitely on our short list of things to do!

Bite Buff said...

Do it! Maybe a blogger outing should be planned for one. That could be fun.

Styled by Stacy said...

The love of craft beer is the only thing my husband uses to bond with my brothers I'll have to set them up with this!