Draft Days: Three Can't Miss Cleveland Beer Week Events

Bottoms up, Cleveland! Tomorrow kicks off the sixth annual Cleveland Beer Week, a nine-day celebration of Cleveland’s hopping craft brewery scene with more than 350 events. Need the abbreviated tour for your liver’s sake? Here are Winking Lizard co-owner and Beer Week co-founder John Lane’s must-attend events:

1. Great Lakes Tap Takeover: Sat. Oct. 11 @ 11 a.m.

Great Lakes Brewery takes over the Winking Lizard Lakewood’s taps with 43 different Great Lakes beers. Yes, you read that correctly. In addition to the Ohio City brewery’s standards, Great Lakes' brewers have been stashing special elixirs and planning a few surprises to keep the beer flowing in the name of Lake Erie. A handful of beers will only be on tap for a few hours (or as long as it takes for the tap to run dry), with the last one hitting the bar at 5:30 p.m. “We are tapping a barrel-aged Christmas Ale. That’ll be the highlight of the day,” says Lane. “Christmas Ale is already revered in this city, but to have it barrel-aged is superb.” Winking Lizard Tavern Lakewood, 14018 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, 216-226-6693, winkinglizard.com

2. Culture Yourself, Tue. Oct. 14 @ 6-9 p.m.

What’s better than beer? Beer and cheese, of course. This ticketed event ($40 for 20 pairings) will feature 17 breweries — including local favorites Brew Kettle, Buckeye and Great Lakes — for an evening of beer and cheese pairings at the West Side Market in Ohio City. “This is the first time the West Side Market has opened their space for [any group] other than themselves in its entire history that we know of,” Lane says. One of the cheese stands will be open for some expert help. Lane’s favorite combo? “I love when you get a nice stout with a really nice blue cheese,” he recommends. “I’m a freak about blue cheese.” West Side Market, 1979 W. 25th St., Cleveland, 216-664-3387, westsidemarket.org

3. Brewzilla, Sat. Oct. 18 @ 6-10 p.m.

“A Monster of a Beer Tasting” is this event’s subheading, and for good reason. “We’ll have probably 120, 130 different breweries,” says Lane, with many breweries offering several types of beer. In the past, Brewzilla has been Cleveland Beer Week’s culminating event. It’s followed for the first time this year by a bluegrass festival on Sunday, but this is still the king of beer events. VIP tickets are already sold out, and general admission tickets ($50 per person) are going quickly. 5th Street Arcades, 530 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, 216-583-0500, 5thstreetarcades.com

For tickets or for more information about the nonprofit Cleveland Beer Week or the Malone Scholarship Fund it supports, visit clevelandbeerweek.org

Play Ball

Beer and baseball seem made for one another. An Indians pre-opening day party April 11th from 2-11 p.m. at the Greenhouse Tavern celebrates both with a limited edition ale created by Buckeye Brewing Company in collaboration with restaurant owner and chef Jonathon Sawyer specially for the occaision.

The label on the bottles is special too and I‘m proud to take some of the credit for that. Here’s why.

In January, Sawyer posted a picture on Facebook of a possible label for Saison de Maison, another joint project with his Lakewood brewing pals. He asked for comments on the image which featured an unclothed and buxom lass in all her busty glory. So I weighed in with this opinion: “Ditch the tits. So old, so done. How 'bout a nice tasteful full frontal of a guy?” Another person (a woman of course- the guys were, well- more universally uncritical and enthusiastic) added: “I'm with Laura. Jonathan, why don't you be the model? I'd BOOK back to Cleveland to have that beer.”

He didn’t respond online or any other way. I thought maybe my remark- half serious, half jokoing- had annoyed or offended him. And then I forgot about the whole thing. Imagine my surprise when Sawyer called me at the end of last week to tell me about the cool label for the latest Buckeye/Greenhouse suds. Turns out that he took my suggestion to heart.

The label you see here is the work of Kyle Roth of Epstein Design Partners. There was a rumor that Sawyer’s wife Amelia was prototype for the lovely lady on the Saison bottle. So I just had to ask Sawyer if he was the inspiration for the batter with the strategically placed foot. “Absolutely not,” he assured me. “It’s one of our bartenders.”

Whoever stepped up to the plate for this, did his part for gender equity. And my response is Ladies- this one’s for you!