Photo: DDaugherty

The Buckeye Beer Engine in Lakewood is an eclectic pub with an array of customers from novices to knowledgeable beer drinkers.  To know how the Beer Engine made it here, you have to look at how it got started.  I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Garin Wright, co-owner of the Buckeye Beer Engine and Buckeye Brewing. I found it fascinating.

In 1997, Garin and his father, Robert, opened the Brew Keeper on Miles Road in Bedford Heights.  Garin was into home brewing and wanted to start a business where customers could come in and brew their own individual batches of beer.  When things were not going so well with the business, Robert told Garin to start brewing beer to bring in some revenue.  Even though brewing wasn’t intended to be Garin’s main focus, he truly fell in love with the brewing process.  Over time, Garin’s passion for brew on-premise waned while his passion for brewing with Buckeye increased.

But the city’s zoning wouldn’t allow them to obtain a food license and that prevented full growth. Garin explains, “Between 1997 and 2006, even though we had a bar at the Brew Keeper that carried 12 to 20 different beers on tap, we didn’t have food, liquor and we barely had wine. . . We knew that only a couple of places in the country could exist as a ‘brew on-premise’ without that additional revenue stream.  When you can add food to a pub, it creates the complete package.”  Eventually, Garin knew it was time to move on.

After literally looking in every community in Cuyahoga County, the duo finally settled on opening a new place in the near west suburb of Lakewood. A resident of Lakewood for about a decade, Garin knew that having the Beer Engine on Madison Avenue would have its perks. With an ArtWalk, neighboring bars and a healthy restaurant base, the Beer Engine is  Well-positioned on this active suburban street. It’s now open every single day of the year (something Garin took away from his real ale festival trips to Chicago) from 11an to 2am.

So what makes the Beer Engine different than any other pub in the area?  Well, while Lakewood was selling hands down more craft beer in  retail stores than any city in Ohio, what the city didn’t have were many bars catching up to the retailers.  Garin changed that. “We have 27 beers on tap and carry one on retro handle.  We don’t carry the mainstream beers, but you’ll find Blatz, Straub etc. on the retro handle, two beer engines and more than 200 brands of bottled beers in the beer cellar from all over.” 

And, Garin and Robert hired an event coordinator from day one who has a great palate for beer and keeps the place stocked. That brings me to the beer engine.

The actual beer engine is more than just the name of the pub . . . it’s a device that extracts beer from a cask or keg not pressurized by compressed gas.  Back before refrigeration, beer was put in the cellar to keep it cool.  The hose from the keg led upstairs to the beer engine on the bar. The bartender would use the engine handle to pump the beer from the keg in the basement to your glass. A big fan of cask-conditioned beers, Garin wanted to carry them and felt fortunate to get the name Beer Engine for his business.  

While the extensive draft and bottle beer menu printed on continually updated flyers and stapled beverage lists is critical to the bar’s identity, the food menu is also important to its success. After kicking around the idea of pizza and other standard pub fare, Garin said “Let’s do burgers!”  And burgers they do. From the downhome “Porky Burger” (a burger topped with pulled pork, mustard bbq sauce and hot pepper cheese) to the local flavor of the “west Side Burger” (carmelized onions, sour cream, cheddar cheese and one cheddar potato pierogi).

Passion describes and defines Garin. From his early days as a brewkeeper in Bedford Heights to the a hot and humid Dayton Ale Festival in 2008 where he found himself alone at a table pouring and handing out Buckeye Brewing beers all day long to long lines of beer enthusiasts. Left without help, Garin never set foot outside of that booth even though his time could have been better spent meeting and greeting patrons and talking to distributors and other brewers.  He stayed htere, handing out beers and sharing his creations.  If that isn’t passion for your craft, I don’t know what is. –Submitted by David Daugherty, David’s Photo Arts

Editor’s Note: As a vegetarian, I can attest that there are plenty of good things on the menu (pierogi, eggplant, bean burgers, etc.) to please a non-meat eater.