| Great Lakes Brewing Company | |||||||||||||||||
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| Location | 2516 Market Avenue Cleveland, Ohio United States |
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| Year opened | 1988 | ||||||||||||||||
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Great Lakes Brewing Company is a Cleveland, Ohio-based regional brewery and brewpub, which has been in operation since 1988. The brewery has been cited as important to Cleveland's local identity.[1] As of 2010, it is the 22nd largest craft brewery and 31st largest overall brewery in the United States.[2] The company brews in accordance with the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516.[3] Great Lakes Brewing Company is not to be confused with the microbrewery Great Lakes Brewery, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Established by brothers Patrick and Daniel Conway in 1988, Great Lakes Brewing Company started out as the first brewpub and microbrewery in the state of Ohio,[4] remaining at their original location, though expanded to several adjoining properties. The brewery and restaurant are located in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland across the street from St. Ignatius High School and the West Side Market.
Great Lakes' products can be found increasingly throughout the Midwest, with heavy distribution in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, though the beers can also be found throughout metro Columbus, metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan, Indiana, and are popular in Chicago. Great Lakes beers can be found as far west as Minnesota, as far south as North Carolina and as far east as Syracuse, NY, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. [5]
| Beer | Pack | % ABV | IBU | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burning River Pale Ale | 6/12 | 6.0 | 45 | An award-winning American Pale Ale named for the infamous 1969 burning of the Cuyahoga River.[6] |
| Commodore Perry IPA | 6/12 | 7.5 | 80 | An India Pale Ale named in honor of American Naval Officer, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, whose contributions in the War of 1812 include the Battle of Lake Erie.[7] |
| Dortmunder Gold | 6/12 | 5.8 | 30 | An award-winning Dortmunder-style lager which was originally named The Heisman after the famous football player and Cleveland native. It is GLBC's first beer, as well as the brewery's best seller.[8][9] |
| Edmund Fitzgerald Porter | 6 | 5.8 | 37 | A Porter named for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a ship that frequented Cleveland ports and sank in 1975 with many Northeastern Ohioans aboard. Consistent with the Conway brothers environmentally-conscious objectives, the famed local Cleveland ice cream manufacturer, Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream, uses the GLBC's leftover porter to make a flavor known as Edmund Fitzgerald Chocolate Chunk.[9][10] |
| Eliot Ness Amber Lager | 6/12 | 6.2 | 35 | An Amber Lager named after Eliot Ness, the famed prohibition agent and eventual Director of Public Safety in Cleveland. Ness frequented a tavern which is now the site of the GLBC's brewpub, and also has a connection to the Conway family: GLBC co-founders Pat and Dan's mother served as one of Ness's stenographers during his time in Cleveland.[9][11] |
| Beer | Pack | % ABV | IBU | Availability | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conway's Irish Ale | 6 | 6.5 | 25 | January–April | Named after Patrick Conway, a Cleveland policeman who directed traffic for 25 years near the brewery, and the grandfather of Patrick and Daniel Conway, the owners of the Great Lakes Brewing Company.[12] |
| Dopplerock | 4 | 7.8 | 18 | February–March | A German-syled Dopplebock, named in part, as a pun on Cleveland's connection to the coining of the term Rock n' Roll.[13] |
| Holy Moses White Ale | 6 | 5.4 | 30 | April–July | A Belgian Wit, named for the City of Cleveland's founder, Moses Cleaveland[14] |
| Lake Erie Monster | 4 | 9.1 | 72 | May–July | An unfiltered Imperial India Pale Ale, named to honor Bessie, the monster allegedly living in Lake Erie.[15] |
| Oktoberfest | 6 | 6.5 | 20 | July–October | GLBC's interpretation of this Bavarian festival's namesake Märzenbier, in tribute to Cleveland's German heritage.[16] |
| Nosferatu | 4 | 8.0 | 75 | September–October | An Imperial Red Ale Named for the 1920s German movie Nosferatu.[17] |
| Blackout Stout | 4 | 9.0 | 85 | November–January | A Russian Imperial Stout named in commemoration of the 2003 North America blackout.[18] |
| Christmas Ale | 6 | 7.5 | 40 | November–December | Produced for only eight weeks, during the holiday season, it is the GLBC's second biggest seller and the majority of it never leaves the Cleveland area.[9][19] |
In addition to the beers available in bottles (and kegs) GLBC also brews many beers which are only available at their brewpub and restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, or are sometimes seasonally available from on tap in select Northeastern Ohio pubs. A short list of these include Ohio City Oatmeal Stout, an IPA named Hop Madness (which was for a short period in 2010 known as Quitness as a jab at LeBron James defection to Miami) and Moondog ESB.[20]
Great Lakes Brewing Company has undertaken a number of initiatives to promote sustainability, including recycling promotional materials to create fuel for heating an outdoor structure, the use of straw-bale construction (incidentally the first straw-bale structure in Cleveland), the composting of leftovers from the brewery's restaurant, and the use of local and organic food. The brewery also provides barley left over from the brewing process to local farmers for use as feed and to local bakers who use it to produce bread and pretzels.[21] In addition, the delivery trucks are equipped to use biodiesel and are fueled with left-over vegetable oil from the restaurant. The brewery also uses outside air for cooling during winter months, rather than conventional refrigeration units.[22] The organization is growing, with 5800 members in 2008.
Great Lakes Brewing Company also hosts the meetings of Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, a business network in the Greater Cleveland area focusing on sustainability and entrepreneurship.[22] The brewery has set up displays at a number of sustainability-oriented events, including a 2006 "greener living fair" at Ohio State University,[23] and the "green pavilion" of the 2009 Cleveland Home and Garden Show at the I-X Center.[24]