Out-Of-Town Craft Brewers Drawn to Columbus, Ohio

, Out-Of-Town Craft Brewers Drawn to Columbus, Ohio

(Columbus Skyline – Courtesy Andy Spessard)

Columbus has become a magnet for craft brewers from other Ohio cities and even as far away as Aberdeen, Scotland.

The state’s capital and most populous city in Ohio (892,533 as of 2018 estimate) Columbus has a diverse economy based on education, government, insurance, banking, defense, aviation, food, clothes, medical research, health care, hospitality, retail, and technology.

And those kinds of industries attract youthful workers to higher paying jobs…money that many millennials spend on craft beer…

, Out-Of-Town Craft Brewers Drawn to Columbus, OhioIn 2016, Money Magazine ranked Columbus as one of “The 6 Best Big Cities”, calling it the best in the Midwest, citing a highly educated workforce and excellent wage growth. BusinessWeek has called it one of the 50 Best in the US. Forbes gave Columbus an “A” and has name the city one of the Best Places for Business and Careers.

So yes, Columbus has got it going on…And out-of-town craft brewers want in on the action and the city’s youthful and moneyed demographics.

And the fact that the central Ohio city is around a two hour drive from Cleveland to the northeast, and Cincinnati to the southwest makes, Columbus and ideal location for brewers in both cities looking to extend their brands.

As Platform Beer’s founder Paul Brenner, whose company opened a taproom a taproom in Columbus in 2016, explained to the Columbus Dispatch, the city’s proximity to Cleveland makes it a very attractive target…

Columbus is roughly a two-hour drive from those cities, making a central Ohio expansion easy to manage. We can get people quickly down there and be seen as a local presence.”

The city “has a little more youthful feel than the other two cities in Ohio (Cincinnati and Cleveland), and our brand tends to skew a little younger than other craft breweries<”

, Out-Of-Town Craft Brewers Drawn to Columbus, Ohio

(BrewDog Franklinton -Courtesy Nicholas Dekker)

Columbus was a finalist when Stone Brewing was looking to open an Eastern hub. And although Stone ended up in Richmond, VA., Scotland headquartered BrewDog picked up on the city’s vitality and chose Canal Winchester, Ohio, just south of Columbus, as the home for its US brewery and DogHouse Hotel.

“Columbus is located in the heart of the Midwest making it an ideal for transporting the freshest beer to other major Midwestern cities within a two to three day drive,” DogTap Columbus manager Nate Quick shared with American Craft Beer. “And the city has a vibrant and growing craft beer scene that BrewDog was excited to become part of.”

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