Great Lakes Brewing Company
Great Lakes Brewing Company is a brewery and brewpub in Cleveland, Ohio. The first brewpub and microbrewery in the state, Great Lakes Brewing has been noted as important to Cleveland's local identity and as one of the initial forces behind the revival of the Ohio City neighborhood on the near West Side. In 2015, it was the 21st-largest craft brewery by volume and the 28th-largest overall brewery in the United States.
The company was established in 1988 by brothers Patrick and Daniel Conway, both St. Edward High School graduates, in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood, located near St. Ignatius High School and the West Side Market. The brewpub and restaurant remain in their original locations, while production has expanded to adjacent properties.
The present site allows visitors to enjoy a glass of beer in the original brewpub which features a Tiger Mahogany bar from the 1860s, a Beer Cellar and the Rockefeller Room, named after Standard Oil founder and Clevelander John D. Rockefeller, who was thought to have worked in the building. There is a gift shop selling beer, along with apparel and barware. Tours are available on the weekends. Since its inception, Great Lakes has also served as an incubator for Northeast Ohio brewers, with brewmasters at nearby Market Garden and Goldhorn Brewery in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood both being alumni of Great Lakes.
Distribution
As of 2012, Great Lakes' products are heavily distributed in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. They can be found in Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Southeast Michigan, Indiana, and west to Minnesota and Wisconsin, south to Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, and east to Syracuse, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.Beers
Year-round
| Beer | Pack | % ABV | IBU | Description |
| Dortmunder Gold Lager | 6/12 | 5.8 | 30 | An award-winning Dortmunder-style lager which was originally named "The Heisman" after the famous football player and Cleveland native. It is GLBC's first beer, as well as the brewery's best seller. |
| Eliot Ness Amber Lager | 6/12 | 6.1 | 27 | An amber lager named after Eliot Ness, the famed prohibition agent and eventual Director of Public Safety in Cleveland. Ness frequented a tavern which is now the site of the GLBC's brewpub, and also has a connection to the Conway family: GLBC co-founders Pat and Dan's mother served as one of Ness's stenographers during his time in Cleveland. |
| Holy Moses White Ale | 6/12 | 5.4 | 20 | A Belgian wit-style ale, brewed with orange peel, coriander and chamomile, named for Cleveland founder Moses Cleaveland. |
| Burning River Pale Ale | 6/12 | 6.0 | 45 | An award-winning American pale ale named for the infamous 1969 burning of the Cuyahoga River. |
| Great Lakes IPA | 6 | 6.5 | 50 | An American India pale ale, brewed in celebration of the company's recent transition to an employee stock ownership company. |
| Commodore Perry IPA | 6/12 | 7.7 | 70 | An India pale ale named in honor of American naval officer Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, whose contributions in the War of 1812 include the Battle of Lake Erie. |
| Hazecraft IPA Hazy IPA | 6 | 6.7 | 40 | A hazy India pale ale, named in honor of Ohio's contributions toward space exploration, brewed with Simcoe, Azacca, and Lemondrop hops. Available August 31, 2020. |
| Edmund Fitzgerald Porter | 6/12 | 6.0 | 37 | A porter named for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a ship that frequented Cleveland ports and sank in 1975 with many Northeastern Ohioans aboard. Consistent with the Conway brothers environmentally-conscious objectives, the local Cleveland ice cream manufacturer, Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream, uses the GLBC's leftover porter to make a flavor known as "Edmund Fitzgerald Chocolate Chunk." Edmund Fitzgerald Porter is often named in the Beer Judge Certification Program as the most stylistically correct representative of a porter within the porter category. |
As of 2020, Dortumunder Gold Lager and Great Lakes IPA are also available in cans year-round. A 12-bottle variety pack containing 3 bottles each of Dortmunder Gold Lager, Eliot Ness Amber Lager, Commodore Perry IPA, and Edmund Fitzgerald Porter is available year-round.
Seasonal
Pub exclusives
GLBC brews many beers which are only available at their brewpub and restaurant or are sometimes seasonally available on tap in some Northeastern Ohio pubs including Hop Madness and Moondog ESB.When the Cavaliers won the 2016 NBA Championship, the city of Cleveland's first major sports championship since 1964, the Great Lakes Brewery celebrated by bringing back its Belgian-style wit beer, renamed in commemoration of the end of 52-year title drought, "The Wit is Over." It was the same formula as 2015's "Wit til next year." The beer offers flavors of cardamom, coriander, green peppercorn and orange peel with a 4.8% ABV.
Sustainability
Great Lakes Brewing Company has undertaken a number of initiatives to promote sustainability, including recycling promotional materials to create fuel for heating an outdoor structure, the use of straw-bale construction, the composting of leftovers from the brewery's restaurant, and the use of local and organic food. The brewery also provides barley left over from the brewing process to local farmers for use as feed and to local bakers who use it to produce bread and pretzels. In addition, the delivery trucks are equipped to use biodiesel and are fueled with left-over vegetable oil from the restaurant. The brewery also uses outside air for cooling during winter months, rather than conventional refrigeration units. The organization is growing, with 5800 members in 2008.Great Lakes Brewing Company also hosts the meetings of Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, a business network in the Greater Cleveland area focusing on sustainability and entrepreneurship. The brewery has set up displays at a number of sustainability-oriented events, including a 2006 "greener living fair" at Ohio State University, and the "green pavilion" of the 2009 Cleveland Home and Garden Show at the I-X Center.