Ale back for Reds games BarrelHouse revives traditions with return to ballpark, Opening Day customer appreciation specials BY JON NEWBERRY | snipped-for-privacy@ENQUIRER.COM
Baseball and Cincinnati beer, a pairing once as natural as peanuts and Cracker Jacks, are getting back together.
After a two-year absence from Great American Ball Park, BarrelHouse Brewing Co.'s RedLegg Ale will once again be on tap during Cincinnati Reds games this season and at the park's Machine Room Grille, according to Rick DeBar, BarrelHouse's brewmaster.
BarrelHouse is also reviving another longtime Opening Day tradition with a "customer appreciation day" at its West End microbrewery. DeBar said it will be an annual event, with door prizes donated by area businesses - including two tickets to Opening Day - as well as sausages from Avril-Bleh & Sons meat market on Court Street downtown and plenty of RedLegg Ale and other BarrelHouse beers.
Beers and sausages are $1, and there's a $5 cover charge. Proceeds go to a trust fund benefiting the children of Guy Barattieri Jr., a Cincinnati native who grew up in Pleasant Ridge and was killed in action last October in Iraq.
The brewery's Opening Day festivities are a throwback to the days when saloonkeepers from all over the city would gather at Hudepohl Brewing Co.'s "bier stube" on Gest Street and later at Hudepohl-Schoenling on Central Parkway for annual spring get-togethers to talk baseball over beer and brats.
DeBar said the idea for a customer appreciation day was sparked while he was buying some meat at Avril's one night and got to talking with owner Len Bleh. Bleh had supplied sausages for the brewery's kick-off party a couple years ago after it completed its relocation from Over-the-Rhine. After that, "it just kind of fell into place," DeBar said.
The return of RedLegg Ale to the ballpark was a result of talks between its distributor, Blue Ash-based Cavalier Distributing, and the Reds. Although the National Football League recently forced Owen County-based Elk Creek Vineyards to take its Jungle Juice wine off the market because it allegedly infringed on the Cincinnati Bengals trademark, DeBar said the brewery has had no such trouble with Major League Baseball or the Reds, who were known as the Cincinnati Redlegs in the 1950s.
"They came to us (for RedLegg beer) when we first opened," he said. "It's never been an issue."
The brewery initially planned to make a beer called RedLegg Lager, but the team wanted right away to sell at Riverfront Stadium. That was a problem because lager beer has to be aged much longer than ale, which is made with a different kind of yeast. It would've taken the brewery eight weeks to produce RedLegg Lager, so they switched to RedLegg Ale, which was ready in a few weeks, DeBar said.
RedLegg Ale's later disappearance from Great American Ball Park began when production was interrupted while it was moving its brewing equipment from Over-the-Rhine to its West End facility in early 2004, DeBar said. The brewery has since signed on with Cavalier, which handles BarrelHouse sales throughout Ohio.