A First Visit to Pigskin Brewing Company
Pigskin Brew Company is located on Mill Street
Being in-town to do my annual visit to my family, I found out there is a new brewery in my hometown. In fact, it’s the only brewery in my hometown and it opened up only a half-year ago. Located in my hometown of Gahanna, Pigskin Brewing Company is located by Creekside, in a lovely shopping area alongside Mill Street, having opened up in February. So, yesterday, I went and visited. With a very evident visual aesthetic of a sports-themed location, Pigskin is actually very football-themed bar. Interestingly, they are about to experience their very first-ever football season, which should be very exciting. Pigskin features free wifi, drafts of $5.58 and very upbeat music, although their entire theme is sports-focussed.
As to their beer, while they have about a dozen beers from other breweries, they had seven (which turned into eight) beers available on-tap of theirs. Their taster flights of beers comprise four beers of 5oz pours in a roughly prolate spheroid shape, evocative of footballs, coming in at $9 per flight. Being the beer-drinker that I am, I got two flights, drinking all of their beers.
First flight of beers
I started off with Who’s on First? (5.0% ABV), a session IPA, which is crisp, dry, and bitter with prominent tastes of breadiness and grassiness with some tropical fruit at the back of the palate and very noticeable in the finish. It was slightly dank, as well, with a clear look. Next up, I had the Hop-A-Long (6.0% ABV), a pale ale, which is where my lack of an olfactory/gustatory vocabulary greatly fails me: what I did, however get was a sense of some limes with some herbalness at the end and prominent on the finish, with a murky look to it. Next up was the Porterback (6.0% ABV), a porter, with a light, toffee with roasted coffee on the nose that hits the palate and gives way midway on the palate to a fruity juice flavor, perhaps pineapple or passionfruit, that lasts on the finish, while the coffee roastedness still lasts throughout. Finishing up the flight was the Vanilla Porterback (6.0% ABV), a vanilla-flavored porter, with an unmistakably vanilla nose, which tasted enjoyably creamily smooth, especially in contrast to the Porterback, and sweet, perhaps also accenting chocolaty flavor in it, as well. Also, it had a very mellow finish and it was my favorite beer of the flight.
Second flight of beers
For the second flight, I started off with the Cream of the Crop (5.2% ABV), a cream ale, which was easy to drink that had the color of apple juice, with a light toasty nose and flavor, with a little fruitiness. It tasted kind of like Pabt Blue Ribbon, except it was more flavorful, with more of a lingering finish than Pabst Blue Ribbon, with a lingering toastiness. Next up was the Kickoff Mild Brown (3.5% ABV), a brown ale, which was probably pleasant for a brown ale, I suppose, with some chocolateness and roastiness. I don’t care for brown ales, generally, but it’s probably good for the style. Next up was the Legendary Amber (7.0% ABV), a hoppy amber ale. I’ve never had an amber ale with as much hops, but this was clearly special; okay, it was hoppy. On the nose, it was grassy and slightly dank with papayaness, which carried through enjoyably on the palate, with really prominent papaya notes, especially on the finish, and some juiciness at end. This beer was my favorite of the flight. Finally, 5pm rolled around and a new beer was unveiled. Apparently, every Wednesday at 5pm, Pigskin Brew Company opens up a new beer, called the “Won Off Wednesday”. Yesterday, the beer just happened to be a Double IPA, with an ABV in the high single digits. Okay, this beer actually kind of made me laugh, in a summery joyfulness sort of way. This beer was oddly fruity, actually, with a sweet, slightly dank, either pineapple, passionfruit, papaya nose and somewhat grassy bitter with the tropical fruits and slightly dankness on palate, and an amusingly dank and topically fruity finish, like pineapple mixed with orange juice. It was a very pleasnat beer, but I was surprised to find out that it was a double IPA.
I enjoyed my time at Pigskin Brew Company and their beers, as well. However, when I arrived, there was just one server there, who was trying to deal with the new POS system that had been instituted two days before. However, by the time I was working my way through the second flight of beer, they had three servers, and even one of them was comfortable enough chatting with me about the beers. I am glad that my hometown has a brewery and it should be an enjoyable sports bar.
