Category: Beer

Former Bearcat Hoppin Things Up

Kevin Youkilis is the Greek God of Hops

You almost definitely remember Kevin Youkilis the baseball player. You might remember him playing in a Bearcats uniform from 1998-2001. While at Cincinnati Youkilis was a two-time Second-Team AP All-American and First-Team All-Conference USA his junior year. He also set the UC career records for home runs (56), walks (206), slugging percentage(.627), and on-base percentage(.499). Mr. Youkilis manged to get inducted into the University of Cincinnati Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007 as well.

You probably remember Youkilis the Boston Red Sox player that won two World Series. He had a very successful career in the MLB by any measure. He was a 3 time all star, Gold Glover winner, and Great Bambino curse breaker. He also once held the record for most games without an error and won the Hank Aaron Award in 2008. So yeah, the guy could play the game of baseball pretty damn well.

Somewhere along the way he took on the nickname the Greek God of Walks. Well now he’s tweaked that just a little bit.

Since he hung up his cleats in 2014 Youkilis has been working on his post baseball career. One that we at GoBeercats were super excited to hear about once we read it.

Youkilis is now the owner of Loma Brewing in Los Gatos, California. Which is in the Bay Area close to San Clara and San Jose. This could be the coolest thing we’ve ever heard of. A former Bearcats and Baseball all star to brewery owner? That’s right up our alley. From the looks of their social media accounts the place looks legit too.

In an interview with Draftmagazine.com Youkilis said he discovered craft beer after college and while playing professional baseball.

“The beer you’re drinking changes once you can afford better beer,” he says. “I realized there was really good beer out there created by smaller-producing individuals. What I loved the most was I realized I didn’t have to drink 10 beers to enjoy a night out. A couple well-made beers was more my style.”

So he partnered with his brother Scott and opened up Loma Brewing Co. As mentioned above, Kevin is used to winning awards and whatnot so would it surprise you if we said Loma Brewing won the 2017 California Commercial Beer Brewery of the Year. Well it shouldn’t because they did just that. Now, I didn’t know how prestigious that award is or whatever because it took place at the California State Fair but I do know that California as a whole has an awesome reputation for good beer so winning anything out there isn’t an easy task. After doing some research on the “competition” it turns out it’s legit and super competitive. With more than 1,488 beer entries from more than 400 breweries, the fair has become one of the largest beer competitions in the country. Only the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup are larger!

Loma Brewing Co. offers a wide range of beer styles and is well cemented into the community at this point. Appeasement IPA  is the beer that won the gold medal at the California state fair. There’s also a Kölsch, called Warren Peace, and (No Oranges Allowed) an American wheat ale that won silver in the same competition.

It looks like Loma Brewing does can some of its beers and I will be asking any establishment willing to order beers outside of the normal realm to bring anything it can to the area for GoBeercats to try. I’m looking at you Jungle Jim’s. Hopefully the pictures aren’t just of to go crowlers.

For you Untappd users there is a Wish List on our profile for an easy finding of the brewery and its beers. (@GoBeercats)

For those Bearcats fans planning on making the trip to UCLA for the Bearcats football game in September you should definitely check his place out. According to Google Maps its a mere 5+ hour drive. I’m sure it would be totally worth it.

Now, Kevin Youkilis is known as The Greek God of Hops.

Brewery Review: Little Miami Brewing Co.

This past weekend I visited Little Miami Brewing Company for the first time. They are located at 208 Mill St. in Milford, OH. LMBC (I don’t know if they’re using that acronym) has been open for just over one month and is already a very popular spot on the weekends.

The Place

To start they have plenty of parking behind the building, which is a plus considering the crowd you can expect inside the taproom. I was there on a Friday night and the lot was almost full, still there was parking. The building is hard to miss and really sticks out in the part of town locals call “Old Milford.” Just to the left of it is a huge grain silo. You can’t miss it. You walk in and the setting is that of many breweries today. This one separates itself though with it’s extras. Each window in the front is like a mini roll up cargo door which is something I had not seen before. Tanks and fermenters are placed behind a half wall behind the taps and a large patio is on the far side. With it being January they have the patio door open and a large tent covering it for overflow seating. According to their twitter you can reserve this space for private events. They also have a small open kitchen that serves pizza (which I heard was delicious), pretzels, and an assortment of other things. Above the taps behind the bar they have a giant canoe and other decorations. The canoe and wall is littered with arrows, which I thought was a really cool touch.

The Beer

When I visited, LMBC had 8 of their own beers on tap. The styles ranged from a blackberry witbier to a red IPA. The beer was certainly fresh and the service was great. Of the 8 beers they had on tap of their own I had 6. They also had 4 beers on tap from other local breweries. In addition to that they offer, wine, and spirits as well. The highlight of their beer list were Bike Path a pilsner and Ruby in the Dust a red IPA. I was really impressed with Bike Path. I didn’t expect much since it was a pilsner, they’re not my favorite, but this one was very well done. At 4.8 % ABV and 20 IBUs it’s very crushable. A close second for me was the Ruby in the Dust Red IPA. There is some balance with this one with the hops and malts but I picked up a lot more of the malt. At 7.9% ABV and 50 IBUs it’s a solid red IPA. That night the Ruby was popular, the keg was blown pretty early.

The one criticism I have of the beer line up was that the darkest beer they had on tap that night was a brown ale. If you’re a craft beer drinker looking for dark beer you know a brown ale isn’t really what you’re looking for. According to Untappd they do have a porter they call Smoke on the Water, I’m guessing that just wasn’t available that night.

Overall

LMBC has a lot of potential and with the crowd I saw this past Friday night it looks like they’re going to do very well. I really have no reason to visit Old Milford so if bringing new people into the area was one of their goals they’re certainly accomplishing it. I’ll definitely be back soon, I’m anxious to see what other beers they have lined up in the near future.

They are opened daily and you can find out more about Little Miami Brewing Company on their website and their social media accounts. ( www.littlemiamibrewing.com or @littlemiamibrew on twitter )

Naming the Bearcats Beer

Our Top 9 names for the Bearcats beer that May Never Be

The University of Cincinnati needs to partner with a local brewery to put out a Bearcats brew stat. We know the craft beer scene in this city is top notch and there are several breweries in town with the ability to make this happen.  Will the University ever come out of its shell of sobriety and partner with a local craft brewery to give UC it’s own beer? A lot of people think this will never happen but we certainly hope UC comes around. There are already a number of universities leading the way on this. Here’s what I found so far…

*Updated List*

  • LSU – Bayou Bengal Lager brewed by Tin Roof Brewing
  • Tulane – Green Wave Wheat by NOLA brewing
  • U of Louisiana – Lafayette – Ragin’ Cajuns Genuine Louisiana Ale, from Bayou Teche Brewing
  • Colorado State – Old Aggie Lager by New Belgium Brewing
  • New Mexico State – Pistol Pete’s 1888 Ale by Bosque Brewing Co.
  • University of Montana –Griz Montana Lager by Big Sky Brewing
  • Purdue – Boiler Golden-American Golden Ale by People’s Brewing Co.
  • *New* Northern Kentucky University- Norse Pale Ale by Braxton Brewing Co. 

If you want to know more about these beers you can check out the wishlist on our Untappd profile (@GoBeercats) under college beers.

We know that at least one major brewery in town (Madtree) has reached out to UC and was shot down.

That’s really too bad because the possibilities are almost endless and here are some of our ideas here at GoBeercats:

  1. Five More Yards to go then Hop. Breweries love the hop puns. I think this one works well. Make it an IPA around 6% and throw the Jimmy Nippert stiff arm pose on the label.
  2. Mick & Mack Attack. A milk Stout with obvious branding.
  3. Ring of Red. A Red IPA and an honorable brew.
  4. The Grid Gang. We tailgate at the grid, make a beer out of it with the Sigma Sigma landmarks. Make it a session IPA 4.5% sounds about right and lets crush them on game day.
  5. Back-to-Back. A throwback beer of the 2 National Championships. Obviously it would need to be a double IPA because once wasn’t good enough when it came to titles, the same for hops. Somewhere on the can it would need to throw shade at the useless nuts up north. 10% and 100 IBUs.
  6. Down the Drive. *chug* *chug* *chug* UC! A pale ale at 6% with 61 or 62 IBUs
  7. Lets Gose UC! A tart gose beer that starts with Ohh Ohh Ohh!
  8. Bearcat. A bock beer. It would fit in nicely with a certain OTR brewery’s line up of other cat themed beers. (Saber Tooth Tiger, Cougar, Panther, and Puma) Just throw red and black stripes on the can.
  9. Kings of the Queen City. An Imperial porter 12%

Honorable Mention

  • Huggy (Brown) Bear Ale. A brown ale
  • Cronin’s  Crushable Kolsh. A nice starter beer before making your way to the Shoemaker Center.
  • The Fight of Fickell. A Helles Lager  that brings the pain.

Lets get this done UC!

Have a beer name we should add to the list? Comment or tweet us to let us know what’s up.