West Point Market, an upscale grocery store in Akron, will hold an unusual beer tasting from 7 to 9 p.m. June 8. The event is dedicated to canned beer.

Elmer "Goose" Steingass is living the dream — at least the dream of every man or woman who has ever brewed a five-gallon batch of beer at home.

Steingass, 60, a retired radio and television engineer from Wooster, now works at Akron's Hoppin' Frog Brewery, one of the best rated breweries in the world.

Tom Gray is the head brewer at Black Box Brewing Co., a small production brewery in Westlake on the west side of Cleveland. Black Box makes not only the Black Box brands, but also does the Crooked River and Cleveland’s Own brands. And if you think you recall Gray’s name from another brewery, you’d be right. He’s worked at Boulder Beer in Boulder, Colo., Crooked River in Cleveland, Rock Bottom Brewery in Cleveland, Blue Coyote Brewing in Lansing, Mich., Wallaby’s in Cleveland and Ohio Brewing in Akron.

Question: Why did you become a brewer?

Here are a couple interesting beer stories:

-- Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland picked up a nod in a nationwide story by the Associated Press about craft beer proving to be a major hit at baseball parks. To read the full story, click here.

Samuel Adams has released the Samuel Adams IPA Hop-ology Variety 12-pack. It includes five limited release beers and the new Grumpy Monk, which won a silver Best of Show medal at the recent International Beer Fest in Cleveland. Grumpy Monk is a Belgian-style India pale ale.

The 12-pack also features Third Voyage, Dark Depths, Tasman Red, Latitude 48 IPA and Whitewater IPA. The IPA pack is available nationwide for a limited time.

Table 45, the restaurant in the InterContinental Hotel Cleveland, will host a four-course dinner featuring Indigo Imp Brewery at 6 p.m. June 15.

Chef Tom Schrenk and brewer Matt Chappel will talk during the dinner about the pairings, which will feature Blond Bombshell, Jester, Firebrand and Gatekeeper.

Downtown Cleveland is getting a new craft brewery. In fact, it's getting a combined brewery and microdistillery.

The Portside Distillery is located in the basement of a brick building on West Ninth Street right next to the $272 million Flats East Bank project. It’s also adjacent to the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority – which is the reason for the Portside name. (See video below.)

Beer and wine are returning to the Ohio State Fair, which runs July 25 to Aug. 5. Alcohol made its debut at the fair last year after plenty of debate and was a big enough success that it's coming back, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

“It’ll be another great opportunity to bring awareness about a local Ohio product,” Christy Eckstein, the executive director of the Ohio Grape Industries Committee, told the newspaper. “Last year’s sale was the single most-impactful educational opportunity Ohio wineries had for the year.”

This Week, a weekly community newspaper in the Columbus area, has a story highlighting the Columbus Brewing and Elevator Brewing operations.

Columbus brewer and owner Eric Bean tells the newspaper that he's having trouble keeping up with demand and noted that he's going to have to build a new facility. He wants to stay in Columbus.

Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron will tap a firkin featuring a Belgian-style pale ale at 5 p.m. Thursday at its tasting room. The beer is 8.1 percent alcohol. Stray Dog, a street vendor, will be at the brewery serving food.

Meanwhile, the Brick House Tavern + Tap in Cuyahoga Falls will hold a special promotion tonight (Wednesday) featuring dry hopped Thirsty Dog Old Druid Saison on its beer engine. Starting at 5:30 p.m., people can buy a pint and keep the glass.

The Spoetzl Brewery -- known for making the Shiner beer brand -- is releasing a new craft beer in Ohio. Shiner Wild Hare Pale Ale is now available in the Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton markets. The beer originally was launched in the brewery's home state of Texas in February.

Spoetzl says that Shiner Wild Hare is the first ale made by the brewery in its 103-year history. Spoetzl describes the beer this way: "Shiner Wild Hare is a classic American pale ale made with American two-row barley with a blend of Munich and Caramel malt for rich malt flavor and clear amber color. US Golding and Bravo hop varieties are used in the kettle and fermenter for crisp bitterness and assertive fresh hop fruit and floral aroma. More than a pound of hops is used to produce each barrel of Shiner Wild Hare."

Hollywood Casino Toledo will offer a pretty impressive beer list -- at least for a commercial casino -- when it opens Tuesday.

I was part of a media tour Monday and paid special attention to the beer taps as we passed through the Scene sports grill.

Lager Heads Brewing Co., both a brewpub and production brewery in Medina, is transitioning into 12-ounce bottles for its Barnburner Lager, Tyranny American Pale Ale and Bed Head Red.

The beers previously were available in only 22-ounce bombers. The 12-ounce bottles should be on retail store shelves now or shortly.

Good River Brewing Co., a brewpub that hopes to open in Amherst, has launched a $40,000 fundraising effort through Kickstarter.

Owner and brewer Dan Blatt -- who currently brews at J.F. Walleye's Microbrewery on Middle Bass Island -- also has started a blog to keep beer fans up to date with the effort.

John Najeway is co-owner of Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron. Thirsty Dog started out as a brewpub chain and later bottled its beer. After the brewpubs disappeared, Najeway continued to have the beer bottled on contract. He opened the Thirsty Dog production brewery in Akron in the former Burkhardt Brewing Co. building. Najeway also for years has headed the Ohio Craft Brewers Association. He hands over the reins to the group this year to Eric Bean at Columbus Brewing Co.

Question: Why did you get into the brewing industry?

The Arc of Stark County will hold its inaugural Rhythm & Brews beer tasting from 6 to 9:30 p.m. June 14 at the Cultural Center for the Arts in Canton.

Beer drinkers will be able to sample beers from Esber Beverage, Heidelberg Distributing Co., Anheuser-Busch Sales of Canton, Ohio Brewing Co. and others.

The Fisher Foods store in Jackson Township has started selling draft beer by the growler. The grocery store's growler station features six taps.

John Najeway, co-owner of Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron, will be at the store from 4 to 8 p.m. May 25 to talk with customers and offer samples of Thirsty Dog Labrador Lager. The beer won a bronze medal earlier this month at the International Beer Fest in Cleveland.

Valley Vineyards, an estate winery-brewery in Morrow, will hold its Wine & Beer Festival from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. June 2. The winery started a brewery, called Cellar Dweller, earlier this year.

The event includes beer and wine by the bottle or glass, local food from Warren County, hot air balloon rides by Bella Balloons, visits by Ohio Renaissance Festival actors and an amateur wine competition hosted by Listermann of Cincinnati.

Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron will tap its 15th anniversary Cask Conditioned Coffee Porter at 5:30 p.m. today (May 17) at its tasting room.

The beer will be tapped on the brewery's beer engine. The beer is made with fresh roasted coffee from Bent Tree Coffee Roasters in Kent.

Jake, John and Dick Leinenkugel from the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. are traveling across the country celebrating the brewery's 145th anniversary. They will stop in Cleveland and Cincinnati over the next week.

They are meeting with fans and serving beer from a special Airstream trailer. The Leinenkugel Family Road Trip will be at 8965 Pearl Road in Strongsville from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday pairing Leinenkugel’s with chicken wings. (UPDATE: I was told Friday morning that the specific address provided on the Leinenkugel website was incorrect for this event. It was apparently 8465 Pearl Road. The brewery PR folks also had declined in advance to provide the name of the bar/restaurant in advance, saying they couldn't for legal reasons.)

Casinos aren't exactly known for having a great craft beer selection. Instead, the offerings tend to be Budweiser, Miller and Coors brands. Nothing wrong with that, if that's your cup of tea.

But there's some good news for craft beer drinkers at the new Horseshoe Casino Cleveland. The casino, which opened Monday night and has promised to help promote the region, features a few beers from Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland and Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron.

Drink Up Columbus, the website that keeps tabs on all things drinking in the state capital, has an update on the new Hoof Hearted Brewing Co.

The brewery will debut its Musk of the Minotaur IPA starting this week at several locations in the Columbus area and in Cincinnati. It will debut Friday at the Hide-A-Way Hills Lodge in Hocking County.

The Dayton Beer Co. will hold a three-day grand opening this week, bringing back locally made craft beer to the Gem City. Dayton, which has a rich brewing history, has been without a brewery for years.

The tasting room at the small production brewery will be open from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and noon to 10 p.m. Saturday. (See video below.)

Great Lakes Brewing Co. is planning a special beer for its 25th anniversary next year. Brewery co-founder Pat Conway made the announcement Saturday at the International Beer Fest in Cleveland.

The brewery is still brainstorming about what to make for its silver anniversary, he said. "We don't know what it is yet," he said. Great Lakes, founded in 1988 in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood, is the oldest craft brewery in Ohio.

Kriek from Brouwerij Oud Beersel took home the gold "Best of Show" medal Saturday at the second annual International Beer Fest at the I-X Center in Cleveland. The other "Best of Show" winners were: Grumpy Monk from Samuel Adams (silver), and Pale Bock Lager from Dundee Brewing Co. (bronze).

The giant beer festival featured a judged competition with the "gold" winners in each style category facing off for the "Best of Show" honors.

Here's a quick rundown of some Ohio-related beer news:

-- The Cincinnati Equirer has a profile on the soon-to-open Double Barrel Brewery in Cincinnati. "We respect the art and creativity that goes into brewing, but the final product is about taste and character," owner Sean Smith told the newspaper. "The more sophisticated beer drinkers are a growing market, and it’s fun to be a part of it.” To read the full story, click here.

The Moerlein Lager House in Cincinnati will induct Christian Moerlein, founder of the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., into the brewpub’s Beer Barons Hall of Fame at noon Saturday. Moerlein will be the first inductee.

MillerCoors is releasing a beer made using a 91-year-old pre-Prohibition recipe in the Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus markets this month. The beer, called Batch 19 Pre-Prohibition Style Lager, will be available in select locations (see list below).

MillerCoors said it discovered the recipe in an old logbook in the Coors brewery archives. It described the beer as having "a bold, hoppy flavor that is well balanced using a rare combination of Hersbrucker and Strisslespalt hops." The beer was first introduced in 2010 in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Denver and Boston and is now expanding distribution.

Gov. John Kasich and Ohio Department of Commerce Director David Goodman will tour Mt. Carmel Brewing Co. outside Cincinnati starting at 2 p.m. Thursday.

They will take a look at the brewery’s newly opened tasting room and discuss the positive impact of a new Ohio law that allowed production breweries to open tasting rooms without buying an expensive second license.

Lake County Captains baseball team will host the inaugural Captains Beer Festival from 1 to 4 p.m. June 9 at Classic Park in Eastlake. The event will take place on the concourse inside the stadium and will feature at least 20 different breweries.

Here's some Ohio-related beer news:

Three Ohio breweries took home medals Saturday at the 2012 World Beer Cup in San Diego. The event featured 3,921 beers from 799 breweries in 54 countries. In other words, the competition was stiff.

“The World Beer Cup is called the Olympics of beer,” said Matt Cole, brewer at Fat Heads Brewery & Saloon and a multiple winner at this year’s event. “It’s extremely competitive.”

Breweries are opening left and right in Ohio this year. And there have been some long-established brewers wondering if the state can sustain such rapid growth. Heck, there is only so much shelf space at the beer store and only so many taps at bars and restaurants to go around.

The Washington Post has a short story from last week’s Craft Brewers Conference noting that there is some fear within the industry about the growth nationwide. “The world almost seems flipped on its side — a revolution has happened,” Benj Steinman, president of the trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insight, said, as quoted by the Post. To read the story click here.