Crave is launching a series of monthly beer dinners.
The Akron restaurant, 57 E. Market St., will start off with a six-course dinner with Goose Island Beer Co. at 6 p.m. Feb. 4.
The restaurant also has lined up Abita and Kona for future dinners, and will reach out to local breweries for others, co-owner and head chef Aaron Hervey said.
“We are very excited,” he said. “We have been wanting to do monthly beer and wine dinners for sometime. It gives the kitchen staff a chance to really get creative, and it is just another event folks in our area deserve to be able to attend, above and beyond just going out to dinner.”
Tickets are $50. For more details or to make reservations, call 330-253-1234.
Diabetes fundraiser
The 37th annual Sugartown Express fundraiser, which benefits the American Diabetes Association of Northeast Ohio, will include a craft beer sampling this year. The event is from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Friday at the University of Akron’s Quaker Station in Akron.
The following breweries will participate: Hoppin’ Frog, Indigo Imp, Lagerheads, RooBrew and Thirsty Dog. People will receive six tasting tickets, good for two-ounce samples. Additional tickets will be available for purchase.
Proceeds benefit research, advocacy and the education efforts of the American Diabetes Association. Tickets are $30 per person. For more details, go to: www.diabetes.org.
Great Lakes tasting
Great Lakes Brewing Co. co-owner Pat Conway will serve as the host for a special beer tasting from 7 to 9 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Cleveland brewery, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
The tasting, which costs $45, includes appetizers, a beer sampler, souvenir tasting glass and T-shirt. Tickets are limited. For more details, go to www.greatlakesbrewing.com.
Great bars
Draft Magazine released its list of the 100 best beer bars in America for 2013 and three bars in the Cleveland area made the cut.
The magazine honored the Buckeye Beer Engine in Lakewood, McNulty’s Bier Markt in Cleveland and La Cave du Vin in Cleveland Heights. To read the reasons why and check out the entire list, go to www.draftmag.com.
McAuliffe visit
As reported last week, craft beer icon Jack McAuliffe is visiting Cleveland chatting with beer drinkers and promoting the release of New Albion Ale.
McAuliffe was the founder of New Albion Brewing Co., which opened in 1976 and is considered the first microbrewery in the U.S. The brewery closed in 1982.
He will be at the Lizardville in Rocky River from 7 to 9 p.m. today and at the Lizardville in Bedford Heights from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Those visits are free and open to the public.
Unusual growlers
Flatrock Brewing Co. in western Ohio’s Holgate sells perhaps the most unusual growler in the business.
The production brewery and taproom, which opened last month, sells a 16-ounce growler that’s actually a mason jar. Its tasting glasses also are small mason jars.
“People really like them when they come in,” brewer and owner Lawrence Pritchard III said.
Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his beer blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/the-beer-blog.
