When we were in Cincinnati earlier this year, we took in a late season baseball game at Great American Ball Park. (Click here to see the entry on Great American Ball Park.) The night before, we were in downtown Cincinnati driving around and we saw an interesting brew pub next to the stadium and I wanted to go in to check it out. The only problem was that there wasn't any parking in the immediate area. The next day before the game, we decided to go to the brew pub to get a beer and something light to eat. This is the story of our visit to the Moerlein Lager House.
Christian Moerlein was a German immigrant who settled in the Cincinnati area in the mid-19th century. The Christian Meorlein Brewing Company began production of beer in 1853 in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood that was home to many of the 36 Cincinnati breweries by the start of the Civil War. By 1890, the number of breweries had slipped to about 23, but collectively were brewing over 35 million barrels of beer annually with the Moerlein brewery exporting beer to parts of Europe and South America. Cincinnati was truly the Beer Capital of America.
The Christian Moerlein brewery suffered the fate of many breweries across America when Prohibition began in 1919. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the Moerlein Brewing Company - as well as many of the other pre-Prohibition breweries - never went back into beer production. One of the breweries that did go back into beer production was the Hudepohl Brewing Company. Hudepohl survived Prohibition by making "near-beer" and jumped back into full production of beer in 1933.
Hudepohl survived the purge of remaining Cincinnati breweries that began to close when brands such as Budweiser, Schlitz, and Stroh's began to take market share from the local breweries in the 60's. They focused on regional branding with many people in and around Cincinnati continuing to enjoy a cold "Hudy". In 1981 the company revived the Christian Moerlein name as a "better beer" brand, sort of a precursor to today's craft beers. Hudepohl used the business model the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco was following to produce a higher grade of beer under the Moerlein label. Christian Moerlein became the first American beer to be recognized as adhering to the Reinheitsgrebot - also known in English as the German Purity Brewing Law - that was established in 1516 using only water, barley and hops in the brewing process.
By the mid-80's Hudepohl was undergoing tough times and was forced to sell to a local brewing rival, the Schoenling Brewing Company. The company eventually closed the Hudepohl brewing facility and moved all beer production to the Schoenling plant.
By the mid-1990's, the Boston Beer Company - makers of Samuel Adams beer - had begun to outgrow their brewing facility in the Boston area. Looking around for a brewery that would allow them to brew more beer and increase market share outside of New England, Boston Beer Company bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery in 1997. Sam Adams was brewed in the old Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery for a little over four years.
The family who held all the recipes for the beers Hudepohl-Schoenling got into the beer and tea distribution business after selling out to Boston Beer Company. By the early part of the 21st century they decided to get completely out of the beer business and focus on distributing bottled tea. This is where Cincinnati resident Greg Hardman, a 20-year beer industry veteran, comes into the story.
Hardman graduated from Ohio University in 1984 and immediately went to work as a sales rep for a beer distributor in Athens, OH. In 1987, he was hired by the U.S. importer for Warsteiner beer as a salesman. Warsteiner enjoyed a surge in popularity during Hardman's time with the company and he eventually became the president of sales for Warsteiner's North American operations. The company thought so much of Hardman that they moved their headquarters from Chicago to Cincinnati to keep him happy.
Pictured right - Greg Hardman. Picture courtesy Cincinnati.com
Even though Warsteiner grew dramatically during Hardman's tenure, he felt that he really needed to take a business risk. Knowing the legacy of Cincinnati's brewing history, he left Warsteiner in 2004 after 17 years and bought the rights to Christian Moerlein, Hudepohl, and dozens of other beer brands that were once the pride of Cincinnati beer drinkers.
Hardman had a four-part plan that included the return of local ownership of Cincinnati's great beer brands and build their base of sales, the opening of local brewing operations in the heart of Cincinnati's historic Brewery District and to finally open a world-class bier haus to announce to the world that Cincinnati was once again major player in the production of beer. Hardman was able to accomplish all of that by 2012 when he opened a new brewing facility in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and the opening of the Moerlein Lager House as part of Smale Riverfront Park along the Ohio River at the corner of Joe Nuxhall Way and Main St. in Cincinnati. (see map)
The Moerlein Lager House features a large bar with a main dining room and a beer patio where the windows would open on warm days. Some booths near the bar featured beer spigots on the table to allow people to do their own pours.
We were seated in the 'L' shaped main dining area at a table up against a window that looked out over Joe Nuxhall Way and out to the Ohio River and beyond into Kentucky. We were given lunch menus by the hostess who sat us and after a bit our server, Alison, came over to greet us. Looking over the beer menu, I was somewhat surprised at A) the number of beers the Moerlein brewery has; and B) the number of non-Moerlein craft beers they had on the menu. They had nearly 30 beers on tap, about six dozen beers in a bottle, and over a dozen beers in a can. I wanted to try the Moerlein Altered pale ale, while Cindy went with the more hoppy - and more alcohol content - Moerlein India Incline pale ale.
The lunch menu at Moerlein Lager House featured a number of burgers, sandwiches, flat bread pizzas, entrees such a 6 ounce filet with cheddar-mashed potatoes, fish and chips, and something called the Angry Mac & Cheese which featured melted jalapeño cheese over macaroni noodles with shrimp mixed in.
Figuring that we were going to graze on food at the ball park, I warned Cindy not to eat too much. She needed something and decided on getting the Applewood grilled chicken salad. The chicken breast was sliced and placed on a bed of greens topped with a cranberry poppyseed dressing with bacon bits and blue cheese along with chopped hard boiled eggs, cranberries, and spiced pecans. She declared the salad to be delicious.
I thought about getting a burger, but then thought against it when Cindy ordered her salad. I went basic and just got a wedge salad. I'd been on a wedge salad kick at dinner as of late and this was a nice sized wedge - not too big, but not too small. It featured chopped tomatoes, bacon bits, blue cheese crumbles and a blue cheese dressing. The lettuce was cold and fresh, while the blue cheese was pungent and flavorful. This was a perfect light lunch for me.
But the beer was the star of our meal. I enjoyed the Moerlein pale ale that I had that I ordered a second one before we left. Cindy was happy with her India pale ale. I had a sip and it was definitely more pronounced in the hops. Mine was more smooth on the finish.
As we were getting ready to leave, I happened to look down at the floor near the front hostess stand and found this plaque. It turns out that the Moerlein Lager House was built on the site of the former Riverfront Stadium and right at the entrance was where first base would have been. The plaque commemorated the 4192nd hit by Pete Rose that broke the all-time hits record for Major League Baseball. The plaque basically said that this was the spot where Rose stood when he received a nine-minute ovation after breaking Ty Cobb's record in September of 1985.
The Moerlein Lager House was a neat place. We enjoyed the beers very much - we got another one when we went into the ballpark - and even though we just had salads we thought they were very good. This is a place that I would definitely go back to because the rest of the menu looked very good and interesting. The service was a little choppy, but good enough since we weren't in any large hurry because the ball park was just across the street. The Moerlein Lager House was one of the finest brew pubs that I've every been to and one that I would wholeheartedly recommend on a trip to Cincinnati. The only thing would be to figure out where to park when there isn't an event going on downtown.
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