Last week, the Cincinnati Enquirer’s craft beer beat writer posted his list of the top five current craft breweries in Cincinnati. With that came the disclaimer that he hadn’t actually visited all of the breweries in Greater Cincinnati. I have. (Even Great Crescent). While any list ranking the “best” of anything is entirely subjective, it’s difficult to have credibility ranking something when you haven’t experienced all of that thing you’re ranking.
Cincinnati is a great beer city with some amazing breweries. There are a bunch outside of my top five that you could easily rank in your own top five and get little argument from me. There are also a few breweries that used to be in my top five that have fallen off of the list – either because of dropping quality, lack of creativity, or maybe a newer brewery knocked them down the list. Anyway, here’s my current top five breweries in Cincinnati:
5 – MadTree
MadTree may play little brother to Rhinegeist in terms of size, but they don’t play little brother to anybody when it comes to quality. With a backbone of one of the best taprooms in the city, they brew some consistent and delicious beer. I could run down all of the beers that I love from MadTree, but it would take too long and I’d run out of internet space. Just to name a few, Lift kolsch, GABF winner Happy Amber, Rubus Cacao, the “High” imperial IPA series, and fun out of the box things like their Local Blend coffee series are all quite impressive. MadTree is also probably the most ethically and socially conscious brewery in the city.
4 – Sonder
Sonder is the new kid on the block. Around for just a couple of years, the large brewery in Mason came out of the gates swinging and has been brewing consistently great beer since day one. They poached Luke Shropshire from Streetside and partnered him with Chase Legler formerly of Wisconsin’s New Glarus, and the two have teamed up to produce an incredibly diverse lineup with Luke’s love of sours and Chase’s expertise in classic German styles. Very few breweries can run the gamut from brewing quality New England IPAs and sours to top-notch kolsch style beers, lagers, and a freaking amazing dunkelweizen.
3 – Urban Artifact
Urban Artifact kind of feels like they should have their own category. After starting out brewing most of the same things as other people, they eventually realized that they weren’t like other people and that they could brew simply amazing overly fruited sours and goses. Their year-round rotation of freshly fruited sours – the Midwest Fruit Tart series – is second to none in the industry. Couple that with an equally spectacular portfolio of seasonal goses – including Keypunch, Pinwheel, and Pickle – and Urban is hard to beat. Oh yeah, they also do some of the best barrel-aged sours and have an amazing taproom in an old church in Northside. Check and mate.
2 – Streetside
I always joke that the reason my wife and I bought a house in the East End is so that we could be close to Streetside. That’s only half true. Streetside and owner/head brewer Garrett Hickey have not only a great taproom in Columbia Tusculum, but their beer is amazing. Their barrel-aging program is one of the most robust in the city, including Demogorgon, and they also produce some of the best New England IPAs. Throw in some quality classic styles, and an underrated sour program including some collaborations with Pretentious Barrel House in Columbus, and you’ve got an all-around solid brewery.
1 – Brink
Small but mighty, Brink may just be one of the best “unknown” breweries in the country. Unknown is a relative term, however, because they’ve won back-to-back Very Small Brewery of the Year medals at the Great American Beer Festival. Quite simply, everything Brink puts out is amazing. Whether you like west coast IPAs, hazy IPAs, or milkshake IPAs, or even “classic” styles like their Moozie Milk Stout and Hold the Reins English Mild (both GABF medal winners). Brink also does some great barrel-aging, including their anniversary series that is out of this world. Their schwarzbier is also one of the best I’ve ever had.
Brink may have a tough time staying at the top of this list, though, as their co-founder and head brewer Kelly Montgomery recently moved to Third Eye Brewing to work on a bigger system. Still, Brink consistently puts out amazing beer.