Rick Armon is probably the most-respected beer journalist in Ohio, so it makes sense that the Akron Beacon-Journal writer put together a “50 Must-Try Craft Beers of Ohio” book.
First off, let me just say that it must have been pretty difficult to narrow down the list of beers to just 50. There’s so much great beer in Ohio, and there are multiple very distinct different beer scenes, so capturing all of that had to be a challenge.
I was able to meet Rick at a book signing at Madtree and his love for beer is apparent. He also took some tips on checking out new breweries in the Queen City (we told him that Fretboard had just opened).
If I had to give the book a critique right off the bat, I’d say that it’s a little heavy on the Northeast Ohio scene, with 19 of the 50 beers hailing from that part of the state. In fact, nine of the beers come from either Fat Heads or Great Lakes, meaning that about 20% of the beers featured in the book come from just two breweries. And that’s not to say that those breweries aren’t great, because they are. I guess I’ll give Rick a little bit of a pass, seeing as how he lives in Northeast Ohio and those beers are more accessible to him. If I came up with a list it would probably have about that many beers from Cincinnati.
To note, 13 of the beers came from Southwest Ohio (Cincinnati/Dayton), and 13 are from Central Ohio (Columbus). That’s a pretty fair distribution although Cincinnati has more breweries (take that Columbus!).
There are a ton of things to like about the book, including the high quality pictures and wealth of information to go along with the description of the beers. I learned something on pretty much every page, and it’s cool to go back and re-read a description before I try a beer.
There are also tons of different styles represented. In the introduction, Rick mentions that his original list had way too many IPAs, and I’m glad that he narrowed the hoppy beers down to include a wealth of different styles.
The other great thing about the book is that Rick also included pages featuring the coolest breweries that you have to visit, the stories behind the coolest brewery names, and popular Ohio food paired with beer.
This book is definitely a great resource for anyone who loves Ohio craft beer.