Akronym Brewing, Akron OH

27 March 2023

It’s been a couple of weeks since I visited Acronym, but I’ll try to remember what I liked (or not) about each of the beers. I also wish I’d taken a photo of the outside of the building, which is on a busy street corner in downtown, even though it was somewhat unassuming – there was a good-sized outdoor sidewalk space available that they call their “biergärten” (a strange spelling to be sure).

Akron has a number of breweries now but I was there on a Monday and this was the only one open. I’m glad it was as the beers and food were all great! They weren’t busy when I arrived and the bartender was cheerful; there wasn’t table service so I sat at the bar and started with flight #1:

Black Hat Schwarzbier – I love a good Schwarzbier and this was as good as any I’ve tried, with that delightfully dark malt and caramel flavoring.

Gold on the Ceiling Belgian Strong Ale – OK, 9% is a bit high for lunch, but it was just a taster! It was very possibly my favorite beer of these four, well-balanced and not obviously heavy-handed on the alcohol.

Hose Handler – This one is a double dry-hopped IPA and it’s their newest IPA, very tasty.

Henry – This is a double dry-hopped NEIPA and it was neck-and-neck with the Gold on the Ceiling for first place in this flight, but in the end, it came second just because you get a lot of this style just about everywhere you go.

Lunch doesn’t look like much, but I’d order this again in a heartbeat. Their menu is small but this Short Rib Melt – beer-braised short rib & onion that you don’t need teeth to chew (it’s that tender), melted swiss, and garlic aioli on perfectly toasted bread – was incredible. The fact that the chips were run-of-the-mill truly didn’t matter one bit. It was quickly followed by flight #2:

Czech 123 Czech 123 – A Czech Pilsner that was beautifully crisp and refreshing.

Pattie Stout with Coffee – I’m not a big fan of dry Irish stout, but this one has locally-roasted coffee in it so it was a must-try. It was good, but it didn’t change my mind about dry stouts.

Proving Ground IPA – They like to experiment, and this is the eighth in this Proving Ground series. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the rest of the beers I had.

The Cold Truth – With this beer, I had all four of their IPAs. It’s a DIPA that doesn’t taste like one, very well-balanced and satisfying.

I was arriving at my hotel around 3pm and it was my last night on the road for this trip, so I opted for a couple of crowlers to go as well as a “Snack Box” from their menu. The Snack Box photo is below (the top box is hummus); that’s a LOT of snacks!! The apples and carrots were particularly tasty, and just what I needed after a few days of fewer fruits and veggies than I normally eat.

One of the crowlers was The Cold Truth; the other was the Czech 123. All in all, I was very happy to be in Akron on a Monday when Acronym was my only option.