I invited my new friend Andi, from (lunch it punch it) to join me on a brewery tour in the heart of Over the Rhine in Cincinnati.
The tour starts at historic Findlay Market where you have the option to purchase a beer at the Over-the-Rhine Biergarten before you start the tour.
The tour takes you to the streets in historic Over the Rhine.
Over the Rhine is one of the countries largest historic districts and has the largest collection of 19th Century Italianate architectures.
The tour gives you the history behind so many of the buildings that you might have overlooked.
In the 1890’s, Christian Morelein was the 4th largest brewer in the United States with 80% consumed locally. Notice that the original building windows were round like kegs.
During our tour, we also got to see hops in their simplest form.
Our tour guide did a great job of educating us about Cincinnati history, what the climate was like during prohibition and how it affected the city.
Our tour showed us the original Christian Moerlein complex that became one of the largest breweries in the US before prohibition, and the Clyffside brewery which was a building with a lot of character and brewery detailed design.
Our tour guide was equal parts historian and storyteller which made the building that we stood in even more intriguing.
I love looking at old buildings and wondering what they were like in their former glory.
My favorite part was when we got to go the lagering cellars in the Clifton hillside that are under the Jackson Brewery.
We walked along a the path that gave us a nice view of the city and a bit of mystery to discover what was behind the locked doors.
The beer cellars were set up to have the beer barrels hauled away by horse and wagon.
I loved getting to discover parts of Cincinnati that I never knew existed. This is a great tour to check out even if you don’t care for beer.
The tours wraps up back where you began at the Beirgarten at Findlay Market where you can now have a new appreciation for beer.
Brewery District tours last anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 hours depending on your specific tour and are not recommended for kids. This is a tour that you really want to take in all of the information without distractions to fully appreciate it.
You can find out more about the Brewery District Tours from their website.
Disclosure: I was given complimentary tours for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
[…] You can visit the lager tunnels on a tour with Cincinnati Brewery Tours. You can read about my experience on their Prohibition Resistance tour here. […]