Columbus Monthly / September 2012 / Up Front: Columbus on tap

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Up Front: Columbus on tap

There’s a reason it’s called the Brewery District.

Columbus has a proud history of beer making, dating back to the brewery founded by Louis Hoster in 1836. A handful of major breweries were producing hundreds of thousands of barrels on Front Street by 1900, fueled by the traditions of the German immigrants who lived nearby.

Prohibition pretty much put an end to that. A long dry spell followed, but Columbus beer is back in a big way.

The revival started in the late 1980s with CBC and Barley’s. More recently, names such as Four String and Zauber have taken the place of century-old labels like Born and Gambrinus on local tap handles. (Check out John Ross’ feature on page 50 for a tasting tour of these breweries and more.)

This new generation of brewers reflects the celebrate-local sentiment that’s also blossomed in the food scene. Columbus beers taste like they’re from Columbus—they’re unique, sometimes eccentric, always interesting—and they’re crafted with the passion and energy we expect from the city’s creative community.

By the way, Hoster Gold Top is still around, though the Columbus beer shares only a name with the historic brewery, not a direct lineage. It is one of my favorites—ice cold on tap at Villa Nova. It’s a nice way to toast the past, and future, of the city’s most refreshing industry.

Fit to print

We always hesitate to write about our colleagues here at the Dispatch Printing Company. As journalists, we know that presents an unavoidable conflict; as readers, you have a right to be skeptical when we cover our own company.

But I couldn’t resist previewing the Dispatch’s format change, and I thought the story
was worth braving those pitfalls
(see page 66).

I always get a kick out of seeing newspapers in old movies—they were huge! Fifty years ago, the Dispatch measured 15 inches wide—that’s two-and-a-half feet when spread open. It’s now 11 inches wide by 22 inches tall. But even as the page dimensions have gotten smaller over the decades, the basic format hasn’t changed much.

The new Dispatch will be different. It’s even more compact, at 10.5 by 14.6 inches, and the format is more modular and colorful—more like a magazine. For those of us who are fans of the printed page, it’s exciting to see the city’s daily newspaper undergo such a groundbreaking transformation.

Cheers,

Brian Lindamood

552 ounces of beer were valiantly sacrificed for  this month’s photos. Jodi Miller’s trade secret? Salt gives good foam … and deters photographers from imbibing before the shoot’s finished.