Cocktails and Craft Beer: More than Mead at Brothers Drake

Written by Sage Wolfe on April 13, 2012 in Bars, Beer, Liquor, Short North - 4 Comments

Photo from Brothers Drake Facebook

Brothers Drake Meadery has had a tap room for quite a while, but it felt more like a place to try-before-you-buy than a spot to spend an evening with friends. That’s changed in the past months, with local art lining the walls and various artists performing regularly. They’ve got a new nine tap system in place, serving up six meads and three beers, plus an OYO whiskey barrel full of mead! Five of the meads are staples comprising their tasting flight, and the sixth is an experimental mead (right now it’s a wonderful dry, unfiltered mead with fresh raspberries). The six draft meads are all half-off for happy hour, which lasts 4-7 pm weekdays.

They’ve also got a kickass new bartender, Annie Williams, who’s whipping up crazy, delicious concoctions like the Spanky’s Hot Buckeye Basil Express (Wild Ohio mead, Watershed gin, basil, orange zest and jalapeno). Annie placed third in last year’s Central Ohio GQ/Bombay Sapphire bartender competition as the youngest and only female to place. She’s planning to barrel-age cocktails, starting with The Stoner, a mix of hopped traditional mead and OYO Stonefruit Vodka

Brothers Drake also carries a nice selection of craft beer bottles, featuring exclusively Ohio breweries such as Brew Kettle, Rockmill and Portsmouth Brewing Co. The big draw for me, though, are the shiny new beer taps. Eric Allen of Brothers Drake has a fairly strict ‘no crap on tap’ policy, and like me, he’s a big fan of Jackie O’s from Athens. It’s my favorite brewpub, and I’m not alone – it’s currently ranked 56th in the world on RateBeer, besting large craft breweries such as New Belgium, Flying Dog and Lagunitas. There’s a problem though: Jackie O’s doesn’t deliver to Columbus. But while they won’t officially distribute here, there’s nothing that stops Eric from kicking his buddies a bottle or two of mead to run kegs and cases up and down Route 33 like craft beer-swilling drug mules.

Razz Wheat, Jackie O’s “girly beer,” is on tap now, along with their dangerously smooth Russian imperial stout, Dark Apparition. On deck are Drawn & Portered and the deliciously bitter Matriarch double IPA. Don’t expect this selection to last, or for Jackie O’s to be reliably on tap, so if you’re interested in trying these beers, get to Brothers Drake soon.