Branch & Bone
Dayton, OH
Sun noon – 8pm
By Dayton937
By Lisa Grigsby
Every year RateBeer recognizes the best new brewers, best places for beer by region and country, best reviewers, best beers in the world, best beers by style and best 100 brewers in the world. This year Dayton’s own Branch & Bone was recognized by RateBeer for Best New Brewer in Ohio.
Branch & Bone was recognized as part of the RateBeer best awards 2019 for Best New Brewer in Ohio. RateBeer tabulated over 4.2 million reviews submitted by its global community, examining more than 640,000 beers by over 33,000 brewers and over 74,000 places around the world — bars, taprooms, brewpubs and more, from Brazil to the U.S. to China.
“It was a pleasant surprise and we are flattered to have been recognized in a field of our peers. It’s a major award” said Brett Smith, Brewer/Founder at Branch & Bone.
Helping bring new life into a historic neighborhood, Branch & Bone is a small 7-barrel brewery and taproom located in Dayton,Ohio that specializes in wild and mixed fermentation beers.
“2019 was our most competitive year to date, seeing continued growth in the number of brewers, beers and ratings added to the site. We couldn’t be prouder to recognize these breweries for this hard-earned honor,” said Joe Tucker, founder of RateBeer.
For more RateBeer Best competition information, including the 2019 lists of winners, visit www.RateBeer.com/RateBeerBest.
(937) 723-7608
905 Wayne Ave
Dayton, Ohio 45410
Founded in 2018, Branch & Bone Artisan Ales is an independently owned brewery located in the Historic South Park neighborhood of Dayton, OH. Constantly striving for perfection through experimentation, Branch & Bone Artisan Ales combines the ingredients of earth and the work of humankind to craft subtle, yet flavorful ales. Inspired by European traditions and modern American eccentrics, we brew a range of ales that will encourage exploration.
By Lisa Grigsby
The Wayne Avenue Brewery that opened in South Park last June has just introduced a Stein Club. Membership in the Branch & Bone Stein Club is limited to 60 members. Membership includes the 25oz glass pictured here. Thursday nights are designated Stein Night. Take your members only glass home and bring it in with you on Thursdays to receive a ~23oz pour (allowing for appropriate head) of any beer available in a 14oz pour for the 14oz pour price for the entire year.
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Additional benefits include:
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Monthly email newsletter with advanced information about upcoming events and releases before the public announcements.
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Annual members only party with special tappings.
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First right of refusal on yearly Stein Club membership renewal.
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Other benefits added over time like additional non-Thursday random Stein Nights and possibly a members only merch item.
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Membership is $50 and includes the glass. Membership period starts September 13th 2018 and goes until September 13th 2019. Purchase of membership must be made in person in the taproom. Members must provide name, phone number, and email address at time of purchase.
A large focus and passion is funky, alternative fermentation. Sour beer, saison, and mixed fermentation styles as well as spontaneous fermentation will be a staple among the ever rotating offerings from Branch & Bone Artisan Ales.
905 Wayne Ave, Dayton, OH 45410
Hours:
Saturday 12–10PM
Sunday 12–8PM
Monday Closed
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 4–10PM
Thursday 4–10PM
Friday 12–10PM
By Kevin Gray
When Branch & Bone Artisan Ales opens in historic South Park (905 Wayne Avenue) in the first quarter of next year, it will add to the long list of existing breweries in the Miami Valley and will become the sixth brewery within walking distance of downtown, securing the Gem City’s reputation as a beer tourism destination. Kept mostly under wraps until now, the brewery, started by Brett Smith, John Joyce, and Kevin Kriegel, is already underway with renovations and has started assembling their brewing equipment. In this Dayton MostMetro exclusive, we ask the ten questions readers want answered.
What is behind the name?
Music and other expressive arts have a large influence on us. The name draws inspiration from the Simon Joyner song “Nostalgia Blues” on his album Grass, Branch & Bone. A lot of what we aim to do ties into music and art as brewing beer is our form of expression.
The crux of what we are can be found within the name. Branch & Bone Artisan Ales represents the connection of earth and human through fermentation. The art of brewing relies on the products of the earth. Yeast combines these ingredients to create beer. Our labor simply guides the yeast to do its thing. By selecting the right ingredients: malt, hops, water, and yeast, our influence on the finished product can be seen. In addition to those basic elements of beer, people can expect to see a lot of other earthly components in our beers including fruit, teas, coffee, foraged plants from our local forests, and wild yeast and bacteria from our area.
One aspect where we differ from most breweries is that our brew system is extremely manual. So, to bring it all together, we see Branch & Bone as a symbiosis of the ingredients of earth turned into a fermented beverage aided by our hard work.
Who designed your logo? How did you settle on the concept for it?
Our icon logo was designed by Joshua Minnich of Columbus, Ohio and our text-focused logo was designed by our good friend Greg Tobias here in Dayton. Artwork is integral to our brewery and it was important for us to work with local artists that we knew could create something that fit us. We went through various themes, many that we liked, but eventually landed on what you see. We feel that it captures what we want to portray our brand.
Your location asks visitors to extend the downtown entertainment district by connecting the Oregon with South Park. What was behind the decision to locate where you did?
We love the South Park Historic District. It’s a really interesting, eclectic neighborhood that we see a lot of potential in. We hope that the residents really enjoy having us as neighbors. In searching for a location, we wanted to be close to downtown. Developments in the area are driving people downtown and we want to be a part of that. The businesses along Wayne Avenue extending from the Oregon District seem to be driving traffic as you suggest. We looked at a few locations in that corridor, but the building we ended up in was just perfect for us. It has enough space for us to grow and gives us a lot of room to store oak barrels, which we intend to have many of.
There are a lot of breweries in Dayton now. What will be different about Branch & Bone? What will you offer that the area doesn’t already have?
People can expect a lot of what they love in other breweries at Branch & Bone, but we will have a focus on mixed fermentation saisons and wild ales, with a lot of beer aging in oak barrels. We will be making beers that we love to drink, so you can expect hoppy beers, saisons, wild ales, berliner/gose (often with fruit and other interesting ingredients) stouts/porters, barleywine (and other English style pub ales), beers infused with coffee, historical beers, lagers, and some very creative and off the wall beers that we dream up.
Walk me through your vision of the taproom—what can visitors expect to see?
Visitors will be greeted by a simple and clean space. They can expect a modern look with a rustic feel. Creating a customer experience, influenced by that of our favorite breweries, in the taproom beyond just beer will be a major focus. We want to create a very comfortable, fun taproom where people hang out with friends and family while feeling like our friends and family when enjoying our beers. Everyone can expect some fun events and we will always have good music playing!
Tell me about your beer styles. What do you envision your line-up to look like?
Our lineup will feature 8 beers on draft and will typically consist of a couple of hoppy beers, a porter or stout, a couple of berliner/gose style beers infused with interesting ingredients, a couple mixed fermentation beers, and we want to regularly feature a beer with coffee on tap.
As our oak aged mixed fermentation beers mature, people can expect to see more of those available on tap.
Do you intend to have several flagship styles? How about one-off variants?
We will have certain styles that are usually represented, but no real flagship beers. Some beers will make an appearance more often than others as ingredients/seasonality and popularity dictate, but variety and exploration drives our passion to create.
For the geeks out there, it’s time to get technical. Let’s talk specs—brewhouse size, fermentation tanks, expected annual output?
Our brewhouse is a 7-barrel brewhouse, very manual, created from modified dairy tanks. We will start with four 7-barrel fermenters and a 15-barrel fermenter. We will have a few tanks dedicated to infusing fruit into beer, and a decent amount of oak, including a foudre, to start. The barrel program will always be growing and will be a major focus for us.
Annual output will likely start out around 7-800 barrels and max out around 1500-2000 barrels/year.
What is your distribution plan? Will your beers be available outside of the taproom? Keg only or will you do bottle/can distribution?
To begin, our beer will only be available in our taproom but when we can, we will self-distribute kegs to establishments in the area known for their exceptional beer service. We look forward to having our beer involved in community events as much as production allows as well.
Bottles and cans will be available as limited release products through the taproom as production dictates. No timetable has been set for these releases.
How soon do you plan to sell to AB InBev?
When Limp Bizkit actually plays a show at the Sunoco across the street…
But on a more serious note, we are an independently owned and operated brewery. We aren’t beholden to anyone other than ourselves and that means there will never be an influence to sacrifice product and quality for profits. We are passionate about this industry and we believe ownership matters. “Craft beer” has experienced many changes as it has matured, even just over the past couple years. During that time, many acquisitions of small craft breweries by large conglomerates in the larger beer industry have occurred. This has caused a blurring of what we used to all know as craft beer. We take the same stand as many of the well-established independent breweries that inspire us. That stand is that brands owned by these mega corporations that employ shady business tactics serve to blur product distinction within the industry, limit access to raw ingredients, and stifle fair competition among market access for the small independent brewery. To sell your brand to a company actively acting against the interest of independent breweries while asking the consumer to continue their support for the brand under the illusion of that independence is disingenuous. We take pride in being an independently-owned brewery and will work to prove the value in that to our customers through creative exploration, commitment to quality and customer service, and active involvement in our local community.
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