Some friends of mine recently commented that they hadn’t been to very many of our ever-growing list of craft breweries in town. We were considering doing one of the organized brewery tours but soon realized that for the price of those tickets, we could do our own tour using Uber to get around and go where we wanted to go when we wanted to go there.

Outside Mt. Carmel

We started out at Mt. Carmel Brewing Company, and since this was the first stop of the day and the farthest from our starting point, we decided to drive ourselves out to the former farm-house turned brewery. Mt. Carmel Brewing Company was established in 2005 and is Cincinnati’s oldest craft microbrewery. As they have grown every space of the house has been slowly converted from living to brewing and drinking spaces. It can be somewhat of a maze to find a seat inside, but I think the true beauty of this brewery happens when it is warmer and the entire yard can be enjoyed.

Inside Mt. Carmel

As far as the beers go, I find their year round offerings to be mostly average, but their snapshot series are all really great beers. All three snapshots were on tap during our visit and there was even a taproom only beer pouring. There are plenty of TV’s throughout the space and though they do not serve any food of their own, they have food trucks visit often.

Blank Slate Bar

The second stop on our self guided brewery tour was to Blank Slate Brewing Company. We lucked into an excellent day to make our first visit to Blank Slate, as they were celebrating their one year anniversary of their PourHouse taproom. This included hourly special tappings and way more selections available than they normally have.

Blank Slate Birthday Party

Despite this being our first visit to the PourHouse, I have enjoyed Blank Slate’s beer since their opening in 2011 and consider them to be one of my favorite breweries in town. Their Fork in the Road is outstanding and the Shroominous, brewed with shiitake mushrooms, is a must try. During this event they had their hugely popular Opera Cream Stout on and it did not disappoint! I look forward to many return visits and can’t wait to see what the brewery looks like after another year.

From there we moved on to a couple of breweries that I have been to and written about before. MadTree Brewing Company is one of my favorite breweries in the city and their tap-room is always busy. They have 18 beers on tap, so even if you are familiar with their canned offerings, there is likely plenty of other beers you haven’t had.

Braxton Brewing Company is one of the newer breweries in town, but they are quickly making a name for themself with their Dead Blow tropical stout and Storm golden cream ale. They have already started canning Storm, so their popularity will continue to grow. Their tap-room is large and probably the nicest around.

We had hopped to see a few other breweries on this tour, but I guess we will just have to save them for our next round of Uber Brewery Tours.