Christian Moerlein Brewing

What a cool rathskeller, beer hall space!

It was the end of day one of Blink, which means it was Beer-thirty. Lager-o-clock. Five o'clock somewhere, if you will...that somewhere being here.

It is very close to the Airbnb where we were staying, and it is very conveniently located to the OTR/Findlay areas of town. I was surprised that there weren't more people in there drinking, to wrap up a night of Blink and warm up from the chill and rain of the evening. The fact that it was so close to the Blink regions and in the popular area...I think I could count on two hands how many people were there!

Once we entered, we ordered at the bar. The beer isn't terribly interesting or unique. But you'll find a style that anyone would like well-enough. The list of available brews is very manageable (at least in comparison to, like Rhinegeist) and prices per pint are totally reasonable. If you ask for it, they can also do half pours.
We shared some pretzels and beer cheese, and both were even better than we expected them to be.

It was a nice visit and a lovely way to end the evening, fraternity drinking songs from our fellow patrons notwithstanding. If you want something more traditional and historical-feeling than Rhinegeist, I would certainly recommend a visit to Christian Moerlein.

The space itself is unique. The way the brick comes down from the ceiling to meet the pillars is impressive. I wish I was as impressed with the beer as I was with the space.

The beer did not to really do anything for my husband or myself. We ordered two flights, allowing us to try eight beers. The only one that we found interesting was Hudy Delight. It had an after taste of popcorn. Otherwise, we left with each glass still about half full.

There are several tvs to enjoy the games. A pool table is available. The machine takes quarters.

Christian Moerlein Brewing Co shouldn't be confused with its Christian Moerlein Lager House, which is located just off the river. Instead, the Malt House is a more relaxed tap room which happens to be located in the old grain storage facility.

Once inside you will need to make your way to the tap room. However, its worth it as you will immediately appreciate the column supported ceiling, which makes you almost feel like you are in some underground prohibition catacombs. This place has an old-school beer hall feel to it. One downside is that the bar itself is rather small. However, there are more than enough tables to cover even the busiest of happy hours.

Overall the beer here is pretty good, luck most times when I visit a new brewery I often stick with a flight, as it allows me to sample a wide variety of each brewer's best beers and this stop was no different. My personal favorites had to be the Mexican Lime Lager and Blueberry Wheat Ale which had a subtle aroma of blueberry that lingered over my flight providing a pleasant experience.

Overall I enjoyed the atmosphere and the beer; however food service here is limited to pretzels so if you are looking for something more substantial you might be better to head down to the riverfront and stop into the Lager House instead. But if you are looking for an easier going place for a quality beer and conversation this might be the place for you.

I've been to the Christian Moerlein's second location (on the banks) a few years back and really enjoyed the food there. Also huge fan of their products. I feel like this location is very nostalgic and love the underground feel. It's very huge with Tv's if you want to watch sports.
My boyfriend has never been and wanted to check them out. We got Blueberry wheat ale and
Cat's eye session IPA. Both were excellent and refreshing.
They do have a clothing shop and food (pretzels and brats)
I know that we will return. They've been around for a long time so I have such huge respect for this company. Cincinnati's finest craft beers done right.

The Haunted Brewery Tour at Moerlein, where do I even begin.

We had bought our tickets online prior to arrival for a 7:30 PM tour/puzzle. We arrived more than 15 minutes early as suggested. But apparently this meant that we were not going in the 7:30 group (which did not exist), nor the actual 7:32 Group (what an odd time?) we were to go in the 7:40 group, this meant that we had nearly 30 minutes to kill before the tour/puzzles began.

We went into the tap room to wait, but ended up not buying anything as you cannot bring any food/drink with you on the tour. The live music that was in there was so loud that we could barely hear each other talking so we ended up heading out back into the hallway a little early around 7:30 to wait there.

We see the 7:32 group going into the tour, there are roughly 6 of them.
It's now 7:40 and our tour is up, everyone comes over to the start, we have 8 people. We are thinking that this is going to be great! The information said groups up to 20 but we all know when there can be too many cooks in the kitchen. ha. were we misled.

First a deep dive into the "tour" - we are greeted by a women who is dressed up in costume, but does not speak. She merely points a flashlight at some foam board posters that someone wrote on with a sharpie about the tragic accidents that had happened in the brewery tunnels over the years. She is following our group, she's behind us which we all kinda think is weird. We get to the first puzzle, she suddenly flips with no warning a Sand Timer which must equal the 5 minutes we have to solve each puzzle, but really there was no way to know - more on the puzzles later. The rest of the "tour" is us walking through the tunnels, in the dark, barely marked routes, and no annotations to what we are seeing or walking through - none! It just seemed as if we were walking through regular old tunnels, the history of the tunnels were completely ignored.

Next the "haunted" - outside the foam board posters descripting the terrible accidents that had happened there was ONE actor throughout and he was laying on a pile of crates with a "hook" through his lower abdomen. The best part here is the story he was meant to recreate was about a man who died from a hook in his shoulder - not even close. Outside this one guy, we were walking in the dark, which I guess was scary because we could injure ourselves in this unknown place? Otherwise I would not say this was haunted or scary at all.

Next the puzzles - As I said, we kept suddenly arriving at puzzles, there was no instructions and these puzzles were MASSIVE. They were huge displays that we had to quickly figure out. The best part here is they were all SO massive and complex, that you needed more than 8 people to complete them! One specifically had 10 boxes that you had to stick flashlights through to see the projections, welp we only had 8 people so instantly couldn't do this one. We are quickly moving through the puzzles and did not get one single clue in any of the 5 puzzles after the first one as you needed more than 8 people to complete them all. At the end they dump you into a room and allow you to stay as long as you want to try and figure out the rest of the puzzle - here we meet the group of 6 who went in EIGHT minutes before us. All of us are talking how this was beyond difficult and how it would have made more sense for them to look at the numbers and add our two groups together to have been 14 people.

We sat in the room for a while and all came up with little, we decided to call it a night and go test the code - we went to the gift shop to do so and it was a small treasure chest you had to knock-on to get it to open. No one in my group got it to open, which I only later found out the prize, "prize," was a koozie....

We were so in awe after this all we went into the tap room and got a pretzel to split - the pretzel had clearly been sitting out too long and was kind of stale. The beer cheese was good and had some good unique flavors.

After eating we quickly left and moved on to the rest of our night.

This really put a bad taste in my mouth, this event was not what it was advertised to be and was a complete waste of money in my view.

The 4 of us 100% will not be back for this.

Christian Morelein is one of Cincinnati's oldest breweries. It certainly looks like it. This is the original location. It's kind of creepy when you enter. The area isn't great but it's not like it's terrible.

With so many of these breweries opening up, it's easy to forget about this one. It's in a kind of bad section of OTR. This is really close to Rhinegheist. If you've been there and not here, you should give this a chance. The taproom isn't as fancy or modern, but it feels more interesting. It's located in what seems like a basement. There's lots of arches holding up the ceiling which makes it seem like it's been there a long time. I had the Bay Of Bengal Double IPA. It's about $6 for a pint. This isn't as hoppy for an IPA, which is nice because I like it smoother.

It's not in the best area. It's still not that bad. There's a parking lot next to it and there's usually open spots.

This is a great spot for some outstanding brew in Cincinnati! They have a broad selection of beers on tap to choose from, but unfortunately no hard liquor. That means if your date is one of those "Whiskey Neat" types, you should take them somewhere else ;-)

Ambiance wise, the noise levels can get pretty high when the place gets crowded, so bear that in mind - especially at times when they've got live music.

Tip: There's plenty of free parking both in a lot right next door and one that's across the street.

If you walk here, you'll probably notice that the area looks a bit sketchy, but it's not really. That said, it's still probably not wise to have a number of bills in large denominations sticking out of your back pockets as you walk along the street ;-)

On the food front, they serve pretzels, sandwiches, and sausages. Not a huge menu, but certainly enough to soak up a few beers :-)

To be fair, I was at Moerlein more to see the huge nativity display that I was for the beer. Near Christmas, Moerlein is generous to let one of the nearby Catholic churches decorate one the huge rooms into one humongous display of most things Christmas. The most impressive to me was at least one hundred nativities from all around the world. It is difficult to describe the different types and styles there are. I've never seen anything like it. There are some Christmas villages and many other things to see. Of course, be sure to get some beer before you leave to thank Christian Moerlein Brewing for letting this happy year after year.

Taproom is very cool. They have two parking lots. Flights are generously poured and 8 bucks - good value. There were actually some rather unique and good stuff on tap. Power stoutage and Barbarossa are great. There's another dark beer jet something also excellent. That being said, a lot of the flagships aren't all that great, possibly because they're using heritage recipes. The point is that the brewery is worth a visit and you'll find some good stuff here. There's also underground tours here as well, but they're run via third parties.

We had a work party here and it was fun! They reserved the whole space for us, so my experience is probably different than a normal Friday night :) The space is pretty cool looking as it is the ground floor of an actual, old, brew factory! Rugged brick, industrial vibes, fairly spacious, with large community tables. We got a tour of the current brewing and bottling areas, and that was pretty sweet. Don't know if they normally offer that or not. The bartenders we knowledgeable and pleasant. We enjoyed our evening there!