Last Tuesday I headed up to Cleveland, OH for a day filled with food, beer, and new friends. Since I’m the food buyer at my store I was invited by one of my distributors to attend their annual food show showcasing 130 of their companies products. And let me tell you…it was intense. It was basically a scaled down Fancy Food Show featuring mostly cheese. It was cheese overload…but in a good way.
Everything from soft gooey goat cheeses to hard cows milk cheeses rubbed in espresso. There were meats, pastas, fish, and tons of chocolate. But mostly cheese. Did I mention there was a lot of cheese yet?
After a few hours of exploring what was being offered I made note of my favorites and had to take a bit of a break. In the morning while we were waiting for the show to begin I met some great new friends who mentioned they were taking a trip to the famous Great Lakes Brewing Company in the city. Since we carry craft beers in our store, and I’m trying to learn more about beer I decided to tag along.
I think this was my first tour of a brewery and definitely the first time I’ve ever been to the city of Cleveland. The brewery was located in this extremely cute artsy part of the city, and there was this amazing smell of yeast and malt that floated through the air. The staff was so incredible to give us a full tour of the brewery as well as treat us to a beer tasting and lunch.
I have been gaining interest in beer so this was a great opportunity for me to not only learn about how the beer is made and bottled, but to try some of the great beers that Great Lakes makes.
We decided to get a full tasting which was 4 oz of 10 different beers, and it was so fun to taste them all and pick out our favorites. Since it had been a long, hot day, beer was exactly what my palate wanted and needed.
The menu looked incredible as well, and I had actually heard really great things about the food, but I was still full from food show so I decided to go with something light and ordered their grilled vegetable salad.
And of course I snapped a pic at the sausage platter because it looked sooo good!
I was very impressed by the beers and immediately told my beer buyer we needed to bring them in the store. If you ever have the chance to try Great Lakes Brewing Co. beer I highly recommend it. Thank you to the Great Lakes Brewing Company for being so accommodating and treating us to a great meal! It was a Whirlwind day, but so very worth it.
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JEALOUS!
seriously, that all looks so tasty – glad you got to go