This is the companion article to the guest post we did for Drink Up Columbus, where we rank and review all of the beers at the Barley’s Mini Real Ale Fest. Nineteen is our least favorite and number one is the best, but there were so many good beers here that even being in the bottom few doesn’t say that the beer was necessarily bad. It should also be noted that there were so many double and imperial beers at this fest that some of the lighter beers just tasted “less than” and might be very good in a different setting. That being said, we tried to be as honest as possible with our reviews, and if you disagree please don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments!
19. Beer Name: Buckeye Blonde
Brewery: Buckeye Lake Brewing Co.
Beer style: American Blond Ale
ABV: 5.3%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: BubOhioBeer
This beer poured without any issues but had almost no head. I could try to use a bunch of adjectives to extend the review of this beer, but it would be as arbitrary as drinking it. There was a slight banana taste on the front end; this was followed by a slight wheat finish. But there is virtually nothing going on here. This beer is so light that it may hydrate the drinker. I hope this is just a beer that did not do well in the firkin or against the other heavy beers here, and look forward to giving it a second chance.
18. Beer Name: Dark Helmet
Brewery: The Brew Kettle Works (Cleveland)
Beer style: Imperial Black Lager
ABV: 9.0%
IBU: 45
Reviewed by: BubOhioBeer
Poured relatively easy and with a tiny, tan head. The firkin caused a lot of the carbonation to dissipate. The beer still had vanilla notes up front, but smelled and tasted like raisins. The only thing I tasted was heavy raisin flavor throughout the mouth. It was almost reminiscent of a dubbel. This beer is tasty from the bottle, but falls flat from a firkin.
17. Beer Name: GB Schwarzbier
Brewery: Gordon Biersch Brewing Co.
Beer style: Schwarzbier
ABV: 4.2%
IBU: 21
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
This was one of the beers that I felt may have been overshadowed by some of the bigger flavored beers. For being a dark beer, it tasted almost rather bland. That’s not to say that it tasted bad, because it didn’t; if it was in my fridge it would just be left on the shelf for a while as it got passed over when grabbing for more exciting beers. I would like to drink this beer by itself or as one of the first of the night if I had it to do over again, as it might be unfair to compare it out of style.
16. Beer Name: Left Coast Indie Pale Ale
Brewery: Barley’s Smokehouse & Brewpub
Beer style: American IPA
ABV: 7.4%
IBU: 94
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
When we first tried this beer there was something off about it and we gave it a pretty low ranking, but as the fest was winding down I gave it another shot mainly because they were giving it away. The second time around was much better. The beer actually had the flavor and aroma of a West Coast IPA, but it was still lacking something to make it stand out. The beer poured a hazy orange color with very little head, and the aroma was citrusy but very light as was the taste. The beer had a hoppy finish, but it quickly dissipated – especially for a beer that comes in at 94 ibu.
15. Beer Name: Gonzo Imperial Porter
Brewery: Flying Dog Brewing Co.
Beer style: Belgian IPA
ABV: 9.2%
IBU: 85
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
This is a solid imperial porter, but nothing special. Having had it in a bottle before, I hoped Flying Dog was going to do something special with this cask. The beer pours a deep dark brown with a very small head, and the aroma was that of roasted malt and cocoa with a slight hint of caramel and coffee. The taste has some hop bitterness up front that is quickly met with the cocoa/coffee flavor and the beer is then balanced out by a nice roasted malt backbone. The mouth feel is thick and has slight burn from the alcohol. Had Flying Dog done something new and exciting with this beer (like their barrel-aged version), it may have been rated higher by the Ohio-Beer crew.
14. Beer Name: Twisted Kilt
Brewery: Thirsty Dog Brewing Co.
Beer style: Scottish Export Ale
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: 13
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
This dark caramel beer smelled heavily of coffee – more like coffee grounds – and only one of our reviews ranked this beer high (I was not one of them). I don’t know if they added coffee grounds to the firkin, but that’s the impression that I got. If you can get past the coffee taste, it is a sweet beer with toffee and caramel notes. I have one of these in a bottle in my fridge and will definitely be reviewing it with the hope that the coffee notes are not as pronounced.
13. Beer Name: Brown Stoat Stout Aged with Cherries
Brewery: Weasel Boy Co (Zanesville)
Beer style: Stout
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 28
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
Weasel Boy Brewing Company out of Zanesville showed up to the fest with their barrel-aged cherry stout. The beer poured pretty thin for a stout and the mouth feel was also very thin. The color was a dark murky brown, not close to black like most would expect a stout to be. Holding the beer in the light, a tint of red could be seen from the cherries. The taste was very pleasant, neither the barrel nor the cherries were overpowering and both of those flavors played very nicely with the roasted malt flavor. I was pretty impressed with this offering from Weasel Boy.
12. Beer Name: Bell’s Porter
Brewery: Bell’s Brewery, INC
Beer style: American Porters
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
Bell’s is the maker of some of my favorite beers, including Two Hearted IPA, so I was interested to see how much I remembered this beer. This beer poured with a very frothy head, almost stout-like, and it tasted of caramel and chocolate. A very solid drink. I have only had this beer before in a bottle, and from what I recall this version was not hugely different.
11. Beer Name: Imperial Red Ale
Brewery: Lagunitas Brewing Co
Beer style: American Imperial IPA
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
This beer, like the Flying Dog Gonzo, wasn’t anything special or out of the norm for Lagunitas; it’s one of their standard beers that was just made as a cask ale. Going to these events I kind of expect to see the breweries take some chances and do something different with their beers. The smell was very big with piney/earthy hops and a slight malt sweetness. The beer pours a clear amber color with a tiny white head, and the taste is pretty on par with the bottle version; hoppy and bitter up front with a finish that has a malty flavor of caramel and toffee. Overall I’d say this beer comes off like more of a IPA than a red, which is not a bad thing because red ales really aren’t my preferred style of beer.
10. Beer Name: Plank II
Brewery: Heavy Seas Beer
Beer style: Doppelbock
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
The Plank II is a very dark beer, as the doppelbock description might lead you to expect, It is loaded with sweet toffee flavors. I got to this beer later in the night and it was a bit flat, from being in a firkin I would suppose. The description sheet says that this beer was aged with poplar and eucalyptus; I don’t know if I have ever had a beer aged with those woods before, and it would have been very interesting to have tried it back-to-back with one that wasn’t to learn what they do to the flavor of the beer. But over all this was a tasty, well-rounded beer.
9. Beer Name: Oaked Bodhi DIPA
Brewery: Columbus Brewing Co. (Columbus, OH)
Beer style: American Imperial IPA
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
The was the first beer that I had during the night, so it may have struggled a bit when I was ranking them all. It was very hoppy on the nose with a nice floral bouquet. I am pretty sure they added a ton of hops when dry hopping, which made me wonder why they would oak it as well. It is very hard to get the right balance that would give you both the vanilla and smooth notes that an oak would provide, while also adding the floral and citrus notes that come from a good dry hop. I didn’t taste much oak in this one, but it still was a very good IPA.
8. Beer Name: Mojo IPA
Brewery: Boulder Beer Company
Beer style: American IPA
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: BubOhioBeer
Again out of the firkin, the carbonation in this beer was barely present. There was a slight hop smell. When it first hit the tongue, there was a slight hop bitterness and dryness. The malt is barely present. It finished dry and hoppy, but still pretty light. It is a very drinkable beer and a good entry beer for those just getting into IPAs.
7. Beer Name: Barley’s Bicentennial IPA
Brewery: Barley’s Brewing Company (Columbus, OH)
Beer style: American Imperial IPA
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 105
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
So many imperial IPAs! This was another good imperial IPA, in fact it was my favorite standard IPAs and would have been ranked higher had we left one of our rankers at home. That being said, there was nothing I didn’t like about this beer. According to the poster in front of the firkin, it was dry hopped with centennial, simcoe, and Columbus hops, but it wasn’t as hoppy on the nose as some of the other beers that were at the fest. It was, however, very balanced when tasting. It was a bit cloudy which is strange for an IPA, but I attributed this to possibly getting a bit of yeast because it was a cask ale, but that wasn’t an issue for me.
6. Beer Name: 2XIPA
Brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Co.
Beer style: American IPA
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
The 2XIPA is a beer I have very much enjoyed out of the bottle and it was similar in taste out of the firkin. But when it came to the smell, it was much more exultingly floral than I remember the bottled beer being, and that is a definite good thing. It may have aged in the firkin with more hops than usual. I would guess that they use handfuls and handfuls of cascade hops in this one. Again this is a great example of the style and was a pleasure to drink.
5. Beer Name: Raven Black IPA
Brewery: Thornbridge Brewing Co.
Beer style: English Black IPA
ABV: 6.6%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
This BIPA from across the pond was the first beer I tried at the fest, and what a great way to start it off. This English black IPA poured a nice deep brown color (almost black) with a nice, solid white creamy head. The aroma has a nice combination of roasted malt mixed with earthy and citrus hops. From the first taste, this BIPA packs a punch of bitterness that I like in a IPA and is then almost immediately balanced out with dry roasted malt that really accents the bitterness from the hops. This beer set the bar high for the rest of the festival!
4. Beer Name: Backstage Blonde infused with cherries
Brewery: Four String Brewing Co. (Columbus, OH)
Beer style: Belgian Blonde Ale
ABV: 5%
IBU: 28
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
As light as this beer was when compared to the others, it says a lot that this beer was so highly ranked by our reviewers. It was very light in color with an almost dish-soap-like head. Fortunately for everyone involved, this beer tasted nothing of soap. I have had this beer before and thought it was just okay, but the cherries add so much to this beer. It was the opinion of the table that they should make this beer with cherries all of time. I would absolutely drink this very balanced cherry-tinged beer constantly, even if the cherries come from The State Up North.
3. Beer Name: Raspberry Frogs IPA
Brewery: Elevator Brewing Company (Columbus, OH)
Beer style: American IPA
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: unknown
Reviewed by: HaleOhioBeer
I am not one who is usually for adding fruit to any beer, but I will admit when I first saw the line up I was intrigued the most by this beer because locally Elevators 3 Frogs is my go-to IPA. I tried this beer twice mainly because I enjoyed it, but also because on the first go around I didn’t pick up the raspberry in the beer, just the dryness that they gave it. The second time the raspberry was more prominent and it showed in the glass. The head of the beer had a soapy look to it and the tint of the beer was a reddish color with little raspberry seeds floating around. The taste and the dryness of the raspberries were a nice compliment to the dry citrus flavor from the hops that is balanced off at the end with just a slight hint of malt. I am glad to see that Elevator went outside the norm with this beer because not only was it good, it was a lot better than I was anticipating – which is exactly why it was a top three choice for the Ohio-Beer crew.
2. Beer Name: Palate Wrecker
Brewery: Green Flash Brewing Co.
Beer style: American Imperial IPA
ABV: 9.5%
IBU: 100+
Reviewed by: BubOhioBeer
Go ahead and call a tow truck for you palate, and then call your insurance agent and inform them that you palate is totaled. One of the more apt names for a beer in recent memory, this beer will override any taste you have in your mouth. It pours with relative ease and has a small poofy head. It smells very piney with hints of malt. When it hits your tongue, be ready. This is the full-on palate assault that is so popular on the left coast. Its light carbonation still packs a punch that almost stings the tip of your tongue. Malt and pine notes will flood the corners of your mouth and make your cheeks pucker. Oak notes will be faint, but present. It will finish hoppy, dry, and well-balanced.
1. Beer Name: Cocoa Raspberry Stout
Brewery: Lagerheads Brewing Company (Medina, OH)
Beer style: American Stout
ABV: 6.4%
IBU: 32
Reviewed by: MattOhioBeer
This was ranked in the top three by every one of us at the table, and was the best beer we had here by two of the reviewers (I even had this one twice). When I smelled this dark-dark, cherry-colored beer, it took me on a flashback to my childhood sitting at those giant desks everyone had in elementary school, eating a raspberry Tootsie Pop. You know that smell that comes when you take it out of your mouth for a second to see if you can bite into the Tootsie Roll without breaking your teeth or cutting your gums? It smelled exactly like that to me and it tasted like that too, if you had dipped your Tootsie Pop into a very drinkable stout. A very enjoyable beer to drink as a fruit-beer fan or not, this was a beer that I hope I can have again.
