Located about 15 miles east of Columbus is the Granville Brewing Company, a nano-brewery that has been largely flying under the radar since its inception in February 2012. That is not by accident. According to co-owner Jay Parsons, “from the very beginning, we wanted to focus on the beer, not the marketing.” To that, I say “mission accomplished.”
The brewery itself runs on a one-barrel system with six one-barrel fermenters, and their total annual output is only about 50 barrels. With such limited output, most of their production stays in Licking County, most often at Brews in Granville and the Beverage Source in Newark. However, Granville does bottle about 25% of their production in bombers which occasionally show up in Columbus at a few of the better bottle shops like Crafted Drafts.
“We want to support our local outlets, so we have been slow to expand into Columbus,” said Ross. But that is about to change, because Granville Brewing is growing. A seven-barrel brewing system with four seven-barrel fermenters is expected to be up and running by this summer, so this fall you can expect to see Granville’s ales arriving in growler shops and craft beer bars around Columbus. To manage their movement into more of Central Ohio, Granville has added Liz Dyke to their team as their Director of Sales.
Granville has brewed 16 different beers in the last four years, but their wheelhouse is in Belgian-style ales. The focus on Belgian Ales was a bit of a gamble when they started. “Four years ago, I had to explain to people what a Saison was,” Ross remarked. It has turned out to be a good bet, however, as their beers are very well respected. Their three flagship beers since launching have been The Reaper Saison, The Betrayer Tripel and the Oppressor Imperial Amber.
For the first several years, Ross managed all the brewing. However, with a full-time job and a family to raise, spending another 20 hours a week brewing became a bit much. This led to the hiring of Steven Wagner, better known as ‘Pinto’, as their new full-time brewer. Pinto has been doing most of the brewing for the last year or so, with Ross keeping his hand in the mix.
The brewery itself is located on Ross’s 25-acre farm a few miles west of the village of Granville. It is highly doubtful you have visited them as their ‘taproom’ (AKA Ross’s man cave) is not typically open to the public. The major exception has been for the Columbus Brew Adventures Licking County brewery tour — I’m told it is the last stop on the tour as it tends to run overtime because the patrons are always reluctant to leave. They do occasionally open the taproom to small groups by appointment, and you can call Liz at 740-507-3643 to set something up. Next year they plan to introduce limited taproom hours.
