brewery

Wooly Pig Farm Brewery

On Fridays, Wooly Pig Farm Brewery officially opens at 3 p.m., but by 2:30, friends and neighbors are already sitting down at the natural-edge wooden tables that brewmaster Kevin Ely and his family made from a prodigious el

When the farm was for sale in 2014, Jael was finishing her Ph.D. in biology at the University of Utah, and Kevin was the brewmaster and production manager at Salt Lake City’s Uinta Brewing Company. Kevin, who has a brewing science degree from the University of California–Davis, often traveled to Bavaria to obtain equipment for Uinta. While there, he also explored historic farm and village breweries in northern Bavaria’s Franconia region. Photos of Franconia that Kevin sent to Jael reminded her of Coshocton County, but the wooly pigs in the photos really caught her eye.

Couple sitting outside BrewDog's Doghouse

It wasn’t too long ago that the area along Gender Road, south of Route 33 near the Franklin-Fairfield county line, was farmland as far as the eye could see. There was the bucolic village of Canal Winchester nearby and Columbus just a bit farther up the road.

Soon came a taproom-style restaurant and then, in 2018, a 32-room hotel called the DogHouse that has been named one of Time magazine’s “100 Greatest Places to Stay.”

It’s clear from the very start that an overnight stay at the BrewDog complex is not your everyday experience. Here, dogs are welcome (in some of the guest rooms), beer is a celebration, and ingenuity is everywhere.

The staff at Carillon Brewing Company smile for a picture.

When people patronize Carillon Brewing Company in Dayton this month, they’ll discover a Valentine-worthy beer — beet ale — that’s vibrant, earthy, and perfect for winning over hearts and waking up taste buds. “It’s a red ale, made from beet sugar, that’s sweet and very tasty,” says Brady Kress, the Dayton History president and CEO who masterminded Carillon Brewing.