Joe Schutzman is a Newport firefighter who loves Northern Kentucky’s culture, sense of place – and beer. Find Joe’s previous columns and more on NKY dining here.
Spring seems to finally be in full swing in Northern Kentucky, and as with every year in this area, it couldn’t have come soon enough. Where March often only hints at spring, coyly bringing up the idea of spring but rarely following through, April is when the season genuinely gets underway.
It’s the time of year when the patios, terraces, and gardens of my favorite beer drinking establishments and institutions are budding with new life.
I like to consider myself the leader of the charge to outside drinking within my friend group. Whenever the weekend forecast suggests sun and a temperature above 50, I’m texting friends to meet up. Somewhere between ignorant and hopeful, you’ll find me, in a heavy sweatshirt or jacket if need be, sitting outside with my beer.
This was not the case the other day, luckily. In fact, weather conditions were quite perfect for beer drinking when I found myself on a Friday afternoon sipping suds at Braxton Barrel House in Fort Mitchell.
My grandparents happened to have a late morning dentist appointment, and fortuitously enough, the dental office happens to be literally across the street from Braxton. They rang me up and asked if I would be available for lunch. I was off work, and when I found out where they were, I not-so-subtly suggested we should have lunch at Braxton.
My grandma asked if they had food, and I told her I didn’t exactly know, but I knew they for sure had beer. As it turns out, they certainly do have food! More on that shortly. Pap, a fellow kindred soul of beer imbibement, was as happy as I at the guarantee of beer and less concerned about further sustenance.
Braxton’s Barrel House is the home of their beer-barrel aging program, but it also has a really nice taproom where you can sample a little bit of all they have to offer. Here you’ll find their staple beers as well as seasonal offerings and even some trial beers. Located in a repurposed grocery store, it has everything one could hope for in a good taproom.
It happened to be an apropos choice for my article this month, as Braxton Brewery recently announced its partnership with the Cincinnati Reds as their official craft beer. This was through pure serendipity, however, as beer drinking is my only business, not the beer business.
And for those worrying, Grandma, Pap, and I didn’t just have a liquid lunch. The Barrel House has teamed up with a food trailer called Slider Shack. They offer good sliders and loaded fries.
Now I’ll be the first to tell you that I love the recent culinary trend to start branching out with beer and food. Places all over are starting to give beer a similar gravitas to wine when it comes to food pairings, and I love that approach and think it brings a whole new dimension of creativity to the table. That being said, there will always be room for a good beer with a burger and fries. It’s classic and cliché for a reason. It works.
Now, finally, let’s get down to the beer. This is not the first time we’ve talked about Braxton in this article series, so I made sure to try things we haven’t featured yet, like their famous Garage Beer and seasonal Oktober Fuel.
The hit for me during this visit was their take on a German festbier, which Braxton aptly and simply calls “Bier.” This also works out nicely to keep us rolling from last month’s article on the history of festbiers. Pap and I both agreed that “Bier” was our favorite of the ones we sampled.
We also tried their Golden Bend, which I was pleasantly surprised by. This is a smoked Helles that I didn’t even know they did. It isn’t as strong as a full German rauchbier like Schlenkerla’s famous beer, but it’s definitely “smoke-forward” and would be a great gateway beer into the genre.
Finally, we tried their Zwickelbier. This is a kellerbier, an unfiltered lager, that is crisp and tart with just a touch of sweetness. This is the beer my grandma liked best. It was good enough for her to get two, actually!
All in all, it was a lovely afternoon of sun and suds spent with some of the people I love most in this world. It filled me with joy and gratitude and reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote, “and I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”