Brewery Visits - Fat Head's Brewery and Saloon

Fat Head's has started gaining some popularity in the Cincinnati area, and around the country, so I decided to go take a tour of this small brewery in North Olmstead, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.

If you've never been to Fat Head's, or never had their beer, you're missing out. This place has the feel of your corner pub, but it's also a nice family restaurant. The first thing you notice when you walk in, is their logo:

The bar itself has a very nice selection of beer. Of course, they pride themselves on their beer, brewed on site, but they also have a very large selection of other craft beers from many other breweries. I ended up trying one of their beer's, Hop Juju, an imperial IPA. They had a cask version and a non cask version. I decided to go with the cask.

It was very tasty indeed. Lots of pine, but very smooth an easily drinkable at 9.5%

After a drink, it was time to check out the brewery. Since the brewers were all out at the Cleveland International Beerfest setting up when we visited Fat Head's, we were greeted by one of the managers, who also happened to be the owner. Sadly, after drinking so much the rest of the day, I have forgotten his name. Anyways, the brewery is on site and is very visible from the bar area. You can actually see their mash tun, boil kettle, and several fermenters. Though I was not their when they were brewing, I imagine you could watch the Brewers Mike and Matt (and others) brew their award winning beers. 

Fermenters

The tour was brief, but exciting. The brewery has produced just over 3500 barrels in the short time it has been open. Their 10 barrel system has them brewing almost every day of the week, just to keep up with the growing demand of their beers, not only in their saloon, but around the Ohio area. I was told that they keep looking for ways to make their award winning beers better, as well as trying new recipes to make even more award winning beer. 

Fermenters

Grain Mill

As we wrapped up the tour, we began to wonder when we would start to see some of this beer around Cincinnati (apart from at Cincinnati Beer Fest and other Fests) and we were treated with a nice bit of news: Fat Head's brewery is looking into several sites in the Cleveland area to open a production brewery! I would love to see some of these tasty brews at my local grocery store. 

In all, this place was really cool. Go check it out if you can. It's an awesome time. As a prominent wall in their saloon says: