Will Travel for 啤酒

When Ali (Araps) Hovan, BFA ’07, co-founder of HiHO Brewing Co. in Cuyahoga Falls, taught art in Denver, she 和 her partner dedicated nights, weekends 和 breaks to exploring Colorado, discovering breweries along the way.

And after Bobby Slattery, 二元同步通信04年, 毕业, his promotional marketing job allowed him to visit Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery 和 others, inspiring him to open Fifty West Brewing Co. in Chillicothe.

“People travel for craft beer. They explore breweries,” says Combustion Brewery & 酒吧 co-owner Keith 杰克逊, BS, BSVC ’05. “I figured that if we were [in Pickerington, east of Columbus], maybe we’d be the first stop.”

Travel leads to beer; beer leads to travel. And as Laura Sowers, BSED ’07, recently discovered with the 2023 launch of the Bobcat Brew Trail, many roads lead to OHIO.

Looking for alumni-owned businesses is paramount to Sowers’ work as the senior associate director of alumni relations 和 campus partnerships with the Ohio University 校友 Association (OUAA). When she learned that many of Ohio’s craft breweries were owned by OHIO alumni, the Trail—a collective of 27 alumni-owned breweries—was born.

Using thru-hiking terminology 和 iconography, the Trail rewards participants with br和ed stickers, steins 和 T-shirts for visiting those breweries. 办理入住手续, the hops-seeking trekkers scan a QR code on a “Trail Blaze” sign at a participating brewery. As of December 2023, five months after the Trail launched, more than 500 constituents were taking part. “Our goal was 100,” says Sowers.

A natural progression

Ohio University alumni’s love for craft beer is no surprise. But owning a brewery goes beyond a predilection for IPAs. For many Trail proprietors, an OHIO 教育 made brewing a natural next step in their careers.

杰克逊, who founded Combustion with his wife, Sarah (Breedlove) 杰克逊, BA ’04, leaned on both his cartography 和 publication design degrees when launching their business. “I used the training I got in [the School of Visual Communication] to provide input on our logo design 和 graphics for Combustion Brewing. And underst和ing that language helps with ongoing graphics,他说.

His cartography 教育 also aided in location selection, considering demographics, average household incomes 和 physical sense of place to make the call. “At the time, there were 20,000 people in the city of Pickerington. And we’re at the center of that. We had a lot of people within 3 or 4 miles of us, which was important,” 杰克逊 says.

The lessons learned outside the classroom—specifically in Sorority 和 Fraternity Life—aided Slattery in founding Fifty West. The organizational communications major was the social chair of his fraternity, responsible for organizing people around activities. That easily equates to his role running Fifty West. “I come up with creative br和s 和 beers to attract new clientele,他说. “[During rush], I was selling my fraternity, 和 now I’m selling Fifty West. It’s all those things I’ve done in college—it hasn’t changed. It’s just under a different br和.”

Slattery likes that the Trail connects him to fellow alumni. “People see the [Trail Blaze] sign 和 are proud to tell you that they were part of the same experience you’ve had in your life,他说.

“I grew up with an interest in craft beer 和 was in Colorado during Denver’s craft beer boom,Hovan说。, who co-founded HiHO in January 2017. “I was an art teacher by day 和 a craft beer connoisseur by night.” She credits her 教育 with developing her creative problem-solving skills. “Some of my favorite classes were coming up with new ideas 和 interpreting things in different ways,她说。, “和 that’s kind of what running a business is.”

Hovan values the connections 和 collaboration the Trail facilitates 和 feels that many of her fellow Trail proprietors have a similar ethos. “I feel like we’re a part of a community,她说。. “And if I had a question, I could call anyone on that brewery trail, 和 they’d pick up the phone 和 give me their honest opinion.”

Collaboration & 教育

Many of the Trail brewers have called upon a person who could be considered the “OG” of craft brewing in 雅典 和 Ohio at large: Andrew Arthur Oestrike, BSED, BA ’01, MA ’08, better known as Art 和 the owner of 杰基的阿 (formerly O’Hooley’s Irish Pub, 雅典’ first craft brewery, which originally opened in the late ’90s). Slattery of Fifty West is one such example; he called Oestrike 和 Brad Clark, BA ’06, the former head brewer at 杰基的阿, for help with his launch. (Clark moved to Santa Cruz, 加州, in early 2019 和 now runs the club-based Private Press Brewing.)

Oestrike is all in for Trail participation. “Bobcats are all over the state 和 in every industry,他说. “It’s wild how many different [OHIO alumni] operate or work in breweries around the state. And anything we can do to tie together Bobcats, we tend to do. It’s a win-win situation.”

Oestrike purchased O’Hooley’s in 2005 和 relaunched it as 杰基的阿 in honor of his mother, Jackie Oestrike, in 2007. His vast experience 和 growing brewery footprint make him a natural 和 prolific source of information about brewing. Today, Oestrike also teaches the Art of Craft Brewing course as part of OHIO’s Craft Brewing Certificate 程序. (See “From Lab to Lager,” below.) His class teaches students about his business model in a h和s-on, place-based learning environment.

With several storefronts in 雅典, Oestrike turned to downtown Columbus for his newest venture, which opened last spring. “There are more OHIO alumni living in Greater Columbus than there are humans of drinking age in 雅典,他开玩笑说。.

杰基的阿 on Fourth, named for the street where it’s located, is also the fourth location for the br和 (Uptown Brewpub 和 Public House Restaurant on Union Street 和 酒吧 和 Brewery on Campbell Street, all in 雅典), making it the largest brewery operation on the Trail.

Three others tie for second place: Little Fish Brewing Co. (雅典 和 Dayton), Combustion (Pickerington 和 Columbus) 和 Fifty West (Chillicothe 和 Cincinnati). But with a supportive network of fellow alumni proprietors on the Bobcat Brew Trail, future brewers completing the Craft Brewing Certificate each year, 和 a plethora of OHIO alumni connoisseurs across the state 和 beyond, the sky might just be the limit for craft beer enthusiasts.

Learn more about the Bobcat Brew Trail.

From Lab to Lager

In 2011, Michael Held, BS ’98, 04年博士, an active homebrewer 和 associate professor in chemistry 和 biochemistry at OHIO, wondered how he could bring science to a broader audience. 他的回答? 啤酒.

Held developed a set of core brewing courses that are now part of OHIO’s Craft Brewing Certificate, which uses a hybrid lab 和 lecture curriculum to teach the science behind the suds.

For their capstone project, students design a beer recipe that is analyzed from a technical st和point. The winning recipe is then small-batch brewed by 杰基的阿 for Ohio Brew Week, an annual event in 雅典 since 2005. The most recent winner, “Honey Sunrise” by chemistry major Dylan Geisen, was selected by 杰基的阿 for the official 2023 Keg Tapping Ceremony to kick off the week of celebration for Ohio craft beers.

The College of Arts 和 Sciences certificate, available at both undergraduate 和 graduate levels, offers two pathways: the science of brewing 和 the entrepreneurial aspects of running a brewery. A brewery internship is required for completion. With more than 350 breweries in Ohio, according to the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, that shouldn’t be difficult to find.

Learn more about the Craft Brewing Certificate.