Walking into Bob Mueller’s man cave is an overwhelming experience. Bob started collecting beer containers in 1975, mostly cans and some foreign bottles. With most regional breweries going out of existence in the early ‘80s he started focusing on Craft beers, starting with Sam Adams. Now he has a collection of over 2,000 unique beer bottles plus another 500 cans that is believed to be the largest collection in Central Ohio.
When he and wife Patti found their Olde Towne East dream home in 2002 he knew the unfinished basement would be just the space to set them off. After completing their final home restoration project in 2012, Bob got down to business designing and constructing his very own beer bottle museum. Using repurposed wood taken mainly from the kitchen renovation, he has created a cozy man cave drinking hole. Bob says it took five years just getting the basement floor to dry out and stay dry by running the gutter downspouts out to the street. Then he poured the floor. He and friends did most of the carpentry work on the bar.
The bottles and cans are grouped by brewery and region, including from various nations around the world. In the late 1990s he managed to collect a beer called “Leningrad Cowboy” from his Finnish “beer pal.” His freewheeling international beer swapping days ended after the 9/11 tragedy. Besides the beer container collection he also has a collection of 100s of colorful, whimsical beer mats.
His very own keg box holds pride of place. Bob recounts the tale of how he spotted it during one of our annual Olde Towne East Trash to Treasures yard sales. He found it with a sign on it saying 500. Since a new keg costs around $800 he thought the cost was $500. But no, it was only $5.00, but broken. Bob snapped it up and for another $80.00 had it repaired and up and running.
Attendees at the 32nd Olde Towne East Summer Tour of Historic Homes will be able to see the collection for themselves on Sunday, July 13 from 2-7pm… and perhaps get a chance to sample that famous $5.00 keg! For tickets and more information about the tour, visit oldetowneeast.org
This is a guest post by Ann Twiggs, tour chair.
