COLUMBIANA, Ohio – A lot of breweries say they are all about staying local, focusing on their community. And they are. But few remain more committed to their local roots than Birdfish Brewing Co.
That commitment is seen in everything from ingredients used to merchandise sold for the ownership quartet: Brothers Josh and John Dunn, cousin Jared Channell and the Dunns’ brother-in-law Greg Snyder.
Local pride isn’t just talk; it’s in their blood. The Dunns’ great-grandfather was general manager of Renner Brewing in the Akron-Youngstown area. That brewery has roots to 1865 and lasted close to 100 years.
“What kind of makes our brewery unique is we have a local partnership with Yarian Quality Malts,” Josh Dunn said. “Seventy to 80 percent of the beers we brew have a Yarian base.”
Those malts are then sent for processing to West Branch Malts in Brunswick.
“We focus heavily on local,” said Jason Jugenheimer, a jack-of-all-trades staffer – brewer, bartender and social media-marketing guru at Birdfish. He said they use other area farms, including Barn Talk Hops in Wadsworth, for ingredients.
And it’s not only about local ingredients, Dunn said. “If you walk into our merch room, all our shirts are printed right down the road.”
“A couple of businesses have launched because of Birdfish,” Jugenheimer added. “RAT Creative does all the shirts, they do some of the can designs. … The guy who owns all the pinball machines was just restoring and collecting, and then he started hanging out down here.”
Birdfish Brewing is at 140 E. Park Ave., Columbiana.
Keith Campanelli’s machines at Birdfish helped evolve his business, Jugenheimer said. And when he said he wanted to give back through his company, A Pirate’s Life Pinball, the brewery began brewing a Double IPA. Over three years, $10,000 has been donated to four charities through sales of the ale: Project MKC, Doctors Without Borders, The Cure Starts Now and Second Harvest Food Bank.
On the first Friday of every month for vinyl night, a dollar per beer poured is donated to Youngstown-based Golden String Radio. The money goes for efforts that support adults with disabilities.
All of the philanthropy and commitment has tangible effects for communities across Ohio, including Columbiana and its population of about 6,550.
“Especially in a small town, I think,” Jugenheimer said. “That’s where the growth is now. You get a town that doesn’t have a brewery in there. Look at Sandy Springs (Brewing Co., in Minerva). They’re building their beer, restoring homes into an airbnb. The growth is there. Look at what they have done at UnHitched in Louisville, how they have expanded that community a little bit.”
He added: “These guys really want to invest in a community, and I think you see that. Sometimes you get breweries that open in bigger cities and they’re so saturated it’s harder to make that local impact than you can in a small town.”
Before any of Birdfish’s beers were brewed, though, there was – of all things – wine.
“In 2010, Jared and I started home brewing in his garage,” Josh Dunn said. “Prior to that we were winemakers with Jared’s dad. We made homemade wine and realized shortly after that we didn’t drink that much wine at the time.”
Enter beer.
Josh Dunn, one of the owners, pours a beer.
“We tried beer,” he said. “Ever since, it’s been growing, progressing with new equipment as home brewers and upgrading, sending our stuff to competition, with the goal of opening up a brewery. We said, ‘Hey this is going to happen now or never.’ "
They began brewing on a one-barrel system on Main Street, working in a 700-square-foot taproom. They carved free time, evenings, and the work paid off. It was clear the demand was there.
“We all came together to make it work,” Dunn said.
They started by brewing five to seven one-barrel batches per week, which meant a lot of time in the brewhouse, but it allowed them to “dial in recipes,” Dunn said. If they passed muster, the beers would matriculate to the seven-barrel system. Or they could simply brew a one-off.
“You could do something with hot peppers, and you don’t want to do 220 gallons of this too-spicy beer, so it’s nice to (use) a one-barrel system,” he said.
In November, they marked six years since their founding.
They shut down the smaller taproom during the pandemic “because we couldn’t support both,” Dunn said. The current location - located in a former Chevy dealership - is more amenable for social distancing. The space covers 6,500 to 7,000 total square feet between production and taproom.
Stationed throughout the taproom are dark-wood tables made from recycled wood courtesy of an old barn in Columbiana. The space is playful – literally. About 20 pinball and a few Skee-Ball machines brighten up the place, which has one wall lined with staves. A tabletop hockey game also awaits competitors. The original sign from their Main Street location hangs as well.
You have to love any place with a tabletop hockey game.
They opened the production side in 2017. In 2018, the front side of the taproom opened, followed by patios.
“There’s room to grow in this space,” Dunn said, “but I think we’re content where we are.”
In 2019, about 70% of their beer was being consumed in house and 30% distributed. That ratio – thanks to the pandemic – flipped in 2020. Distribution targets mainly Greater Youngstown, but “We’ll get up (to Greater Cleveland) more this winter,” said Dunn, who said Birdfish beers are in Flat Iron Café in the Flats, Sauced Taproom & Kitchen in Lakewood and Boss ChickN Beer.
Getting the beers out means getting the word out.
“We’re trying to get those people who are ‘Hey, want to take a Saturday-afternoon trip to Columbiana?’ which we get a lot,” Dunn said.
When those craft-beer fans make it down, they will discover an array of styles.
“When we first started down here, we loved Hazy New England IPAs, but we said, ‘Hey, let’s just brew those all the time’. But we shortly realized we’re in Columbiana.”
To appeal to the masses, they added a pair of 30-barrel lagering tanks.
Ohio tags hang around taps with beer using indigenous ingredients.
It turns out, though, the Hazy is Birdfish’s best-selling beer – most consumed in house, most widely distributed.
“We try to have everything - something for everybody - who comes in,” Dunn said. “Stout, usually something dark, kettle sour, barrel sour on tap.”
They keep 11 beers plus a seltzer on tap. Small wooden cutouts in the outline of Ohio proudly hang over taps with beers that use indigenous ingredients. (Eight of 11 beers recently had tags hanging.)
Channell and Snyder brew on a seven-barrel-system from Portland Kettle Works, and last year Birdfish produced 1,000 barrels of beer. In 2020 they added a canning line from Twin Monkeys Beverage Systems of Denver. It handles about 17 cans per minute. They can roll off 12-, 16- and 19.2-ounce cans. Once they even did a run of 8-ounce cans.
“We try to support U.S. manufacturing,” Dunn said.
Last year the brewery filled 100,000 16-ounce cans and 20,000 12-ounce cans.
Recent beers include Cowtown, a chocolate Milk Stout; Captain Milt’s Navy Grog, a rum barrel-aged imperial Brown Ale; and a pair of India Pales Ales, including the wonderfully hoppy but still hazy Too Hip To Sip. They also have made a maple-syrup bourbon barrel-aged ale. The brewery’s Christmas Ale offering was a unique one: The Grynch, an Imperial Amber Ale brewed with nutmeg, ginger, clove, cinnamon and honey.
Having a quality product is imperative, but the giving-back aspect helps them establish their footprint in the area. Birdfish continually invests in local projects, like raising money for a disc golf course, dog park and skate park.
“It’s that mindset,” Jugenheimer said of local breweries. “You get people who want to build something that’s going to last, not just, ‘Hey, let’s make some money and build something fun.’ They want to build in a community, and they want to be a part of that community.”
This is Too Hip to Sip Hazy India Pale Ale.
Six-pack of facts about Birdfish Brewing Co.
• The brewery is at 140 E. Park Ave., Columbiana. The brewery, which has a dedicated parking lot, is about 85 miles from downtown Cleveland and is Columbiana County’s Brown Backers location.
• Nearest breweries are each three to four miles away: Ill Will Brewery, BrewLounge Beer Co. and Vineyards at Pine Lake (which has a brewery).
• Food trucks are scheduled seven days a week, and the brewery is dog- and kid-friendly. Live music is performed on Saturday afternoons and occasionally during the week. A pinball league is held on Tuesdays, open-mic nights on Wednesdays. Vinyl nights also are held, and the brewery recently started bingo.
• Huge artwork labels the Christopher Walken (walk-in) cooler.
• The name goes back to their home-brewing days,” Dunn said. “We tried to relate the name to a penguin because of Youngstown State Penguins mascot and the Pittsburgh Penguins. … A penguin is a bird that’s swims, so - Birdfish.” Speaking of names, they made a Hefeweizen called Clumsy Banana, which is named after the way some uninformed folks might pronounce “Columbiana.”
• A workable 1890s Chandler & Price letterpress from Cleveland sits nearby and is used for demonstrations. Hex Letterpress prints coasters and signs on it.
Related coverage
We visit as many breweries as we can throughout Northeast Ohio, from ones in the planning stages to others that are pouring beer and marking anniversaries. Here is a look at our 2021 visits:
5 Barrel Bullet Brewing, New Philadelphia
Broadview Brewing Co., Broadview Heights
Bummin’ Beaver Brewery, Auburn Township, Geauga County
Ghost Tree Brewing Co., Amherst
Immigrant Son Brewery, Lakewood
Maize Valley Brewery, Hartville
Penguin City Brewing Co., Youngstown
Sandy Springs Brewing Co., Minerva
UnHitched Brewing Co., Louisville
Like beer? Check out GiveThemBeer for gifts for beer lovers. The company offers craft-beer baskets, seasonal selections and more.
I am on cleveland.com’s life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, here’s a directory on cleveland.com. Bill Wills of WTAM-1100 and I talk food and drink usually at 8:20 a.m. Thursday morning. Twitter: @mbona30.
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