USA, OH: Walking Distance Brewing Co. to have its grand opening this week-end

You see a hatchback headed down the street loaded front and back with about 250 pounds of pumpkins. It’s only natural for one to suppose that the driver needed all of those gourds to make beer.

Well, it was only natural for Teddy Valinski, he of the hatchback and the pumpkins, to think that. Because that was exactly what he was doing, the Union County Daily Digital reported on October 7.

Mr. Valinski needed the pumpkins for a batch of beer he was brewing at Walking Distance Brewing Co., 222 E. 8th St., Marysville, a new watering hole on the south side of Uptown Marysville which is having its Grand Opening this weekend, a debut that does indeed include pumpkin ale.

“I had to get them here somehow,” Mr. Valinski said of the pumpkins while making a motion toward his three-door car the size of kayak. “That’s all I had.”

We are happy to report that the pumpkins, Mr. Valinski and his vehicle all made it back Walking Distance Brewing Co. unscathed. The pumpkins were immediately deseeded and chopped up for use in making an ale that has an aura of autumn and will be available this weekend.

Mr. Valinski is the brewmaster and co-owner, along with Doug Olsen, of Walking Distance Brewing Co., one of the few saloons one can visit where they brew the beer right in front of you. Walking Distance Brewing Co. is aptly named as the beer brewed there travels a total of 30 feet or so before being hooked up to a tap and distributed one pint glass at a time. It goes from the mixer, to the vats, to the kegs, to the cooler, and finally to the gullet without covering enough territory to gain a first down. Depending on how many growlers you’ve had, that 30 feet might be considered crawling distance.

Joking aside, Mr. Olsen and Mr. Valinski didn’t chose the name Walking Distance Brewery Co. on a whim or it sounded cool, although it does. They are both stout (excuse the pun) proponents of buying local and do their best to ensure that all of the ingredients for their beers – the grains, the hops, the occasional pumpkin or a dash of dank – are as close to 100 percent Union County grown as they can get. Mr. Valinski reluctantly admitted that for one recent batch of brew, his recipe called for special dark grains and there were none available in Union County at the time. He refused to say where he eventually got the coveted cereal, but did admit “They were grown here in Ohio, I can tell you that.”

Brewing beer is a relatively simple process and one that has been around for over 10,000 years. Recipes to brew beer were found among the hieroglyphics in the Pyramids, as were, not surprisingly, cures for hangovers. Malted grains and water are pulped into a mash, called wort, to convert the starches in the grain into sugar. The wort is then pumped into a tank where hops are added for that distinctive beer taste. The liquid is heated to a prescribed temperature, then moved again into vats where specific amounts and types of yeasts are added. The yeast converts the sugars into carbon dioxide, which is siphoned off by a system of hoses, and alcohol, which is siphoned off into kegs and then poured into pint glasses.

The dozens of different ales, lagers, stouts and pilsners and such can be created by tweaking the recipes – using different types or amounts of grains, experimenting with yeast, adding a flavoring or two with the hops or tossing a pumpkin in the wort. The beer is classified by alcohol by volume (ABV), the amount of the International Bitterness Units (IBU), which speaks for itself, and the Standard Reference Method (SRM) which identifies the beer’s color on a sliding scale, with the higher the number, the darker the beer. Walking Distance Brewing Co.’s Ohio Boii beer has an ABV of 4.6%,10.9 IBUs and is rated at 3.8 on the SRM, making it a light colored beer with low bitterness. On the other end of the spectrum, a Dash of Dank has 6.7% ABV, 81.4 IBUs and is rated as 8.7 o the SRM, making it a dark beer that might possibly melt your fillings.

Walking Distance Brewing Co. has three fermenting vats on the premises but have been using just two for now until it’s all hands on deck. It will eventually have room for about 17 taps, four or five of which will be non-alcoholic drinks provided by none other than very popular, and very local, Soda Pharm, which moved to its new address at 16671 Burns Road earlier this year. As for the beer, all the taps will be full of suds brewed right there on site in full view of everyone, 1,200 pints at a time.

Walking Distance Brewery Co. is open Friday, October 8 from 3 to 11 p.m. The “official” Grand Opening with be Saturday from noon to 11 p.m. and both Guelaguetza and Mother Truckin’ Tasty Food Trucks are scheduled to be on hand from noon until 6 p.m. Live entertainment is also scheduled for Saturday, October 9.

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