NEWS
There’s no place like home for the holidays, and there’s no place like the kitchen for beer! It’s no secret that a well-stocked fridge of Great Lakes Brewing Co. beer is sure to please during the holidays, but saving a bottle or two for the saucepan will yield dishes so delicious even the pickiest eater will be asking for more!
Discover what our brewpub chefs have always known and add a splash of our award-winning beer to your holiday entrées, sides, and desserts. Below are just a few of our favorite beer-infused recipes perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or anytime you want to pair great beer with good food and friends.
ROASTED TURKEY THIGHS WITH CHRISTMAS ALE GLAZE
Flavorful from-scratch beer infused sauces and dressings have long been a signature at our Cleveland brewpub. With warm cinnamon aromas, sweet molasses flavors, and a tangy ginger finish, Christmas Ale Glaze will gift a festive flourish to your favorite holiday dishes and bring a taste of our pub to your table. Use a little (or a lot!) to kick up your roasted vegetables, pork tenderloin, ham, and more with a festive zip that everyone will enjoy. See how easy it is to use with our simple and delicious Roasted Turkey Thighs with Christmas Ale Glaze recipe. Find bottles of Christmas Ale Glaze at our gift shop, in select retailers throughout Ohio, and online here.
ELIOT NESS AMBER LAGER MUSHROOM GRAVY
Arguably the most important side dish for the holidays (sorry, stuffing), no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a rich and savory gravy. The smooth and malty Eliot Ness Amber Lager (one of our favorite beers to cook with) is the not-so-secret ingredient in our flavorful Eliot Ness Amber Lager Mushroom Gravy recipe. It’s a gravy so good you may want to pour some in a glass (but we recommend saving a cold beer for that). Get the recipe here.
ROASTED CARROTS WITH DORTMUNDER GOLD HONEY GLAZE
Sweet, tender, and hearty, our Roasted Carrots with Dortmunder Gold Honey Glaze is a side so scrumptious you may forget you’re eating veggies. The best part about making this dish? The recipe saves enough Dortmunder Gold for you to enjoy while you make it! Go ahead, chef… have yourself a sip! Get the recipe here.
HOLY MOSES WHITE ALE ORANGE MARMALADE WITH DINNER ROLLS
This might be our easiest “recipe” yet! Just open a jar of Christmas Ale Strawberry Cranberry & Cinnamon Jam and slather it on your favorite dinner roll for a sweet and citrusy kick. Through a collaborative (and sustainable!) partnership, our friends at Cleveland Jam use low-fills of some of our favorite year-round brews for a variety of beer jams, including the Eliot Ness Fig Apple Jam, Dortmunder Gold Raspberry Jalapeño Jam, and Burning River Pepper Jam. Find them at our gift shop, at select retailers throughout Ohio, and online here.
CHRISTMAS ALE PUMPKIN PIE
A slice and a sip of holiday cheer? Don’t mind if we do! You’ll be happy you saved room for dessert with our beloved Christmas Ale Pumpkin Pie recipe. Prefer an apple pie? We’ve got a recipe for that, too! Now that’s how you slice up a win-win at the dessert table.
Great Lakes Brewing Company Announces Maryland Distribution
October 7 Launch With Backup Beverage Will Serve the State
September 25, 2019 – Cleveland, OH – Great Lakes Brewing Co. (GLBC), now celebrating 31 years of independent craft brewing, announces plans to distribute their award-winning ales and lagers throughout Maryland.
On October 7, Ohio’s original craft brewery will be available throughout the state of Maryland through a partnership with Backup Beverage. While GLBC has deepened and extended their existing distribution territory in recent years, this is the first new state the brewery has opened since 2012.
According to GLBC Regional Sales Manager Mike Friedle, launching in the state of Maryland presents exciting growth opportunities for the brewery. “Maryland has long been a missing piece of our distribution footprint along the East Coast. Previously, those in the area would need to travel to neighboring DC, Virginia, West Virginia, or Pennsylvania to purchase our product. We’re thrilled to finally make our beers available to everyone in the DMV.”
Customers can expect to find GLBC’s year-round family of beers in package and draft: Dortmunder Gold Lager, Eliot Ness Amber Lager, Holy Moses White Ale, Burning River Pale Ale, Great Lakes IPA, Commodore Perry IPA, and Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. GLBC’s seasonal portfolio will also debut in Maryland beginning with the award-winning Oktoberfest and Ohio City Oatmeal Stout in October, and followed by fan favorite Christmas Ale in November.
An official kickoff event is set to take place on October 4 at Max’s Taphouse in Baltimore, prior to the statewide launch which will involve several customer appreciation events, meet-and-greets, tastings, and giveaways. Customers can follow @GLBCinDMV on Twitter and Instagram and visit greatlakesbrewing.com/events for launch event announcements and regular updates.
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About Great Lakes Brewing Co.:
Great Lakes Brewing Company (GLBC) was founded in 1988 by brothers Patrick and Daniel Conway in Cleveland, Ohio. Independent and employee-owned, GLBC is known for its award-winning portfolio of fresh, balanced, and flavorful beers with names and artwork that tell stories of the Great Lakes region. Since its founding, GLBC has remained a principle-centered brewery with a “triple bottom line” philosophy, balancing financial responsibility with social and environmental responsibility. For more information visit greatlakesbrewing.com
About Backup Beverage, LLC:
Based in Frederick, Maryland and servicing the State of Maryland, Backup Beverage, LLC is committed to building brands through Education and Customer Service. “Relationship building is our job and maintaining that trust between our customers and ourselves is paramount.”
Great Lakes Brewing Company is proud to once again be recognized by ERC as one of Northeast Ohio’s 99 best places to work! NorthCoast 99 recognizes great places to work for top performing people that drive results, provide competitive advantages, and allow businesses to innovate and grow. Applicants are evaluated based on policies and practices related to the attraction and retention of top performers, as well as data collected from employee surveys. This is the fifth year GLBC has been honored!
In addition to receiving our fifth NorthCoast 99 Award, we also received the Total Rewards special category award. This award is given to an organization that finds unique ways to align total rewards with employee performance, business results, and/or strategic priorities. We accepted our award at the annual NorthCoast 99 event, celebrating our achievement with a group of GLBC employees representing multiple areas of our company.
We are honored to receive this distinction and stand beside so many wonderful organizations in Northeast Ohio, and we are thankful for our dedicated family of employee co-owners. If you are interested in becoming a part of our outstanding team, visit our Employment Page to browse our current openings. Not seeing any positions that match your skill set but are interested in being notified of future openings? Our Application for Future Positions can be found here.
Great Lakes Brewing Company is proud to be a returning sponsor of Pride in the CLE! Our beer will be served on tap at the Great Lakes Brewing Co. Beer Garden in Public Square during the Pride march and celebration on Saturday, June 1. Enjoy our Dortmunder Gold Lager, Great Lakes IPA, and Holy Moses Raspberry White Ale in the Beer Garden, and say hello to members of our GLBC family who are participating in the march. Pride in the CLE will take place from 12-6PM in Public Square.
Cultivating communities is part of our GLBC DNA. We salute Pride in the CLE and the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, and send cheers to our LGBTQ friends and family.
As one of Ohio’s largest and oldest craft breweries with a family of approximately 240 employee-owners, we feel we have a responsibility to continue striving for true diversity and inclusivity, and inspiring others to do the same. That’s why we are thrilled to announce that Great Lakes Brewing Co. is a recipient of the inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Event Grant from the Brewers Association.
We are honored to be one of the six grant recipients out of 51 applicants working to foster a more diverse and inclusive craft beer community. Our vision? To create and host a diversity and inclusion-focused employment fair and networking event that is welcoming, fun, and meaningful for our industry colleagues and those who are interested in learning more about working in craft beer. We hope our event will serve as a forum for listening, learning, and “tapping opportunity.”
The Tapping Opportunity event is a step towards eliminating perceived barriers to employment in the craft beer industry. As we continue to plan this event with our HR Department’s leadership, we look forward to inviting our colleagues in the industry and community partners to participate. We are excited for the chance to show interested individuals the many opportunities and career paths available in craft beer.
We hope our Tapping Opportunity Event will serve as a welcoming space for underrepresented groups in craft beer. We appreciate the Brewers Association’s leadership and commitment to diversifying this industry we love, and we are excited to join them in this important work.
We hope you’re excited, too. Stay tuned for more updates!
We are thrilled to announce that Great Lakes Brewing Co. has been named a “Small Giant” and one of the Best Small Companies of 2019 by Forbes.
As we’ve grown over 30 years, we’ve stayed true to the values that have helped us remain independent: respecting resources, fostering relationships, sharing success, and brewing consistent, quality beer. We are honored to see this work recognized by Forbes.
With a newly established employee stock ownership plan, a fun and engaged company culture, and the belief that Brewing Good can happen anywhere, we promise to continue creating storied moments for our staff and customers. Thank you to the employees, partners, and fans who have joined us along the way… it’s an honor to brew for you! Cheers!
Learn more about Forbes Best Small Companies of 2019 here.
Sure, we may travel across the country in search of the most pungent hops, brew with millions of pounds of barley, and care after our proprietary yeast like it’s a loved one, but there’s really no ingredient we care about more than water. Whether we’re spending our Month of Service cleaning up shorelines or raising money for clean water initiatives at Burning River Fest, we know the key to Brewing Good is the availability of clean drinking water. After all, you can’t brew great beer without great water.
Thankfully, we have one of the greatest freshwater resources right in our backyard. In honor of World Water Day, we sat down with Brewmaster Mark Hunger and representatives from Cleveland Water to find out why Lake Erie is a brewer’s best friend (and why it’s critical we protect it).
What parameters of water are important for brewing?
MH: All of them. Beer is 95% water, so everything from clarity to mineral content to PH levels is of the utmost importance. The chemistry of the water can really dictate how a beer turns out.
So not all water is created equal?
MH: Beer styles originated based on the water they were brewed with. Every region in Europe has their own style, and it’s mostly because brewers were trying to make the best of the water that was available to them. Pilsen, for example, has very soft water, so it’s important that the chemistry of your water reflects that if you want to brew a Czech-style pilsner.
The chemistry can affect other ingredients, too. For example, harder water can accentuate hop character. A common additive for brewing is gypsum, so this might be added too if a style calls for harder water. Sometimes we don’t need to add anything because the chemistry and quality of Cleveland water is already what we need it to be.
Why is that?
MH: The water we get from Lake Erie is extremely consistent and stable. The most stable water is groundwater, but the chemistry of it can be very specific depending on the geology of the source it comes from.
Consistency is so critical to good brewing. We’re fortunate to have Lake Erie because of how reliable it is. We get water analysis from Cleveland Water every year and the chemistry of our water doesn’t ever really change. That can’t be said of all water sources, and it makes our job a lot easier knowing the chemistry won’t be different from one day to the next.
To learn more, we met with Communications Coordinator Brenda Culler and Water Quality Manager Scott Moegling at Cleveland Water to find out why Lake Erie is such a dependable source for drinking (and brewing) water.
Tell us a little about Cleveland Water.
BC: We are the 9th largest public water system in the country and the largest on Lake Erie. We serve 1.4 million people in Ohio and our four treatment plants produce on average 210 million gallons of drinking water each day.
What is the water treatment process?
SM: We remove dirt, bacteria, viruses, parasites, and chemical impurities from the lake water and turn it into safe drinking water. Cleveland Water’s treatment process includes primary steps of coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection, and finishing. {Authors’s note: you can see the entire process here.}
BC: By law, ingredients like chlorine are added to combat bacteria and possible recontamination, while others are added to protect dental health and prevent pipe corrosion. Staff test the water throughout the day every day to make sure it’s clean and safe to drink. The Garrett A. Morgan Water Treatment Plant on Cleveland’s West side has the capacity to treat 150 million gallons per day, pumping an average of 45-50 million gallons of water a day to residents.
Our Brewmaster says brewing with Cleveland water is easy because of how reliable it is. Why is that?
SM: Source water can change on an hourly basis. Rain, snow, industrial runoff, and organic materials can change the quality and chemistry of water instantly. Let’s say it’s autumn and a heavy rain knocks down leaves and they all wash into a river. If that river is your main source of water, you’ll likely see an increase of tannic acid from the additional organic material being introduced. Or a heavy snowmelt might cause road salt to infiltrate a river through the storm sewers. The constant shifting of chemistry makes treating that kind of source water harder because of how unpredictable it can be every hour, every day.
BC: Constantly changing water quality is not really an issue we see with Lake Erie. We have four water intakes three to five miles off the shore, each in about 35 to 50 feet of water. The intakes are so far out from shore and at a depth that the water just isn’t affected by those kinds of changes.
SM: The importance of the depth and distance of our intakes cannot be overemphasized. It’s absolutely critical to our product. The location of the water source dictates its quality and our intakes are constantly pulling in stable water with reliably consistent chemistry.
So how do you evaluate consistency?
SM: Predictable water allows for predictable treatments and predictable outcomes. Lake Erie just doesn’t change that much, and when it does, we know it’s going to change. For example, year in and year out, the pH levels of our water source are somewhere between 7.5 and 8.0 in the winter and 8.0 to 8.4 in the summer. Since we aim for slightly above neutral pH in the finished product, the regularity (and predictability) of Lake Erie makes it easier for us to treat.
But what if something did change?
BC: Our facilities use state of the art equipment. Our intakes are equipped with devices that measure the quality of the water in real time, so we can check the turbidity and the pH levels of the water before it even reaches a treatment facility. We even use satellite imagery to monitor lake conditions. The level of advanced warning we can get gives us time to prepare and take preemptive action if needed.
SM: Again, the importance of distance and depth of our intakes cannot be overemphasized. Each of our four intakes are spaced out across 15 miles, so if the quality of water at one intake is giving us concern, we could possibly shut that treatment plant down if needed and still draw water from the rest of the intakes and continue treating it for distribution at our treatment plants. Our goal is to make it so that our customers never have to think about it.
What are the environmental threats to Cleveland’s water supply?
BC: Anything and everything. Whether it’s polluted run-off or a tanker spill, it’s critical we protect Lake Erie. We are so fortunate to have a giant freshwater supply (that is also an economic engine) in our backyard that people honestly forget just how lucky we are.
SM: Industries all around the world depend on water, and it’s becoming an increasingly big concern for many countries. When it comes to drinking water, we’re in a region where we don’t have to worry about drought. That’s not something that can be said in many places throughout the US. There is no other resource more vital to protect in our region than what we have in the Great Lakes.
Want to learn more about? Join Cleveland Water at their annual Drinking Water Week Open House on Saturday, May 11. See all of the ways we’re protecting our freshwater resources here.
Words by Adam Ritterspach
To our friends near and far,
As you may know, numerous wildfires have left California in a state of emergency. Of the many fires that tore across the landscape, the Camp Fire has become one of the most destructive fires in California’s history. The fire broke out near the town of Paradise, California and destroyed nearly 10,000 homes, killing many residents and displacing thousands more.
This has affected our friends at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. profoundly. While their production facility in Chico was spared, much of their workforce has been left to deal with the aftermath.
Because of this, Great Lakes Brewing Co. is proud to answer Sierra Nevada’s call to participate in a nation-wide fundraising effort to support the impacted communities. On Wednesday, November 28, Brewpub Brewer Steve Forman spent his day in Brewhouse No. 1 brewing Resilience IPA, Sierra Nevada’s brew benefiting those affected by the Camp Fire. Once Resilience IPA is ready to be tapped at the brewpub, 100% of the sales will be donated to the Sierra Nevada Camp Fire Relief Fund to support those impacted by the Camp Fire.
We’re honored to be Brewing Good a short 2,396 miles away. Learn more about Resilience IPA here and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates.