Sunday 6th of September 2015 12:53:48 PM

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Buckeye Brewing has two locations. The Beer Engine taproom is a stand-alone one-story brick building, and the main brewery and Tapstack tasting room are located in an industrial parka few miles away. The Beer Engine has a red and orange neon sign in the window facing their dedicated parking lot. The interior has bountiful craft beer decorations with brewery posters, banners, and beer bottles and tap handles around the perimeter. The ambience is dimly lit with a red ceiling and beer bottle lamps hanging over the central bar. The multi-sided 18-chair bar wraps around a central island with glasses and liquor. Around the perimeter are several high top tables, and there are a few dining tables in one corner. On the wall behind the bar is a row of 30 tap handles below a couple of large screen televisions for sports. They have 8 Buckeye beers on tap, as well as 20 guest craft beer, mostly from great regional breweries. The beer is available by glass or taster size. The Buckeye beer is not brewed here, but is from their main production brewery. Their beer is impressive across a range of styles, and my favorites were their IPA's. Their food menu consists of pub appetizers, salads, gourmet burgers, a good variety of sandwiches, and dinner specials. The food is good and the place is popular. The staff is super friendly and very helpful. The Beer Engine has a friendly, neighborly atmosphere, and is worth visiting.

Friday 25th of January 2013 09:48:39 AM

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Not the place it used to be. Beer selection is over whelming and the food is good but the service has continued to decline as have my visits and recommendations to others they try the Beer Engine. I would now recommend other establishments over the Beer Engine. 1/24/2012 skated at Winterhurst last night so since I was in the area stopped to see if anything had improved, sadly it has not. Table service is barely adequate to non existent, tap selection is fair. Food is probably the only reason I'd return now and then only if I was in the neighborhood, would not go out of my way to visit the Engine anymore.

Tuesday 24th of August 2010 10:50:09 PM

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What is with Northeast Ohio and their fantastic beer? Are they just driven to it by being perpetually snowed in for four months out of the year?
Buckeye Beer Engine is the pub form of Buckeye Brewing, which is just down the street in, I believe, Cleveland (this is in Lakewood). It's also apparently a local favorite.
I came in on a bus at a weird hour. I was staying at a hotel by a rapid station and said "I should do a public transit tour and end it with lots of beer." So that's what I did. Let it be known that the Detroit Avenue bus is not bad at all and runs right to the 117th/Madison rapid station.
The place was obviously some sort of goofy casual restaurant in the past because it just has that look from the outside. They seem to have their own private lot also, which is nice in Lakewood. Beer paraphernalia all over the walls, a big u-shaped bar, and some pretty good music on overhead.
I got an early dinner and found myself in their happy hour, which meant $2 off burgers and $1 off Buckeye beers. Fabulous!
The bartender was really, really nice. They seem to have a really good staff overall.
What threw me off was the way the taps were set up. They had four Buckeyes on but 28 taps overall. However, Buckeye did have many more beers to offer.
I started in on the questions with the bartender about this, just because I was curious, and she asked the guy across the bar who had, until just then, been sitting at the bar and pounding an unknown substance in a container with what looked like a miniature green plastic toy baseball bat, to come over and answer my questions. The brewer.
Nice guy too. Pretty young. He had some recommendations for the region on brewpubs after he heard about my odd traveling, and attempted to explain the brewery-Engine relationship. Honestly though, and maybe it was the alcohol (they have some strong beers), it didn't really make sense to me there.
So they have about eight beers normally, from what I could tell, four or so of which are seasonals. They bottle, from what I could discern, three of them and distribute (in kegs) three of them to just a select couple of bars, including the Tree House on W 6th, which he mentioned several times. I wasn't clear on which beers were bottled and which were distributed and why, nor was I clear on the main question: with 28 taps at _your_ bar, why not just have all of your beers on tap? Like I said, that high ABV was certainly hitting me, so I could have just missed it.
But the beers were great. The brewer, in between interruptions from the drunk hipster girl who would come in every couple of minutes between cigarettes, pushed me toward the imperial stout and that was, honestly, a very, very good one. To me, shared a lot of characteristics with Old Rasputin (they coincidentally had some North Coast on tap, but not that one) but was, in all honesty, better. And I like Old Rasputin. I think that was my favorite out of all of them.
The food was also fantastic. I had the "spicy" veggie burger which was served with housemade chips and a fried pickle. I write "spicy" because there was nothing spicy about the patty. BUT, when you added the "wusabi" sauce on it, it was on. Very good with that one.
I should also mention that those 28 - 4 guest taps were some of the best selection of taps I think I've ever seen at a bar. Best of the best, worldwide, really. West Coast stuff, East Coast stuff, Colorado stuff and plenty of regional specialty brews. If you add the bottles that they have, you're pretty much sitting on beer heaven. Reading through that bottles list is daunting, to say the least. These are guys are right down the street from Melt, and they have a really good tap selection also. I brought the place up and there's definitely some bitterness toward them. But that's understandable.
My tab was also very reasonable considering all that I ordered, although the happy hour certainly had a lot to do with that.
Speaking of tabs, weirdest part of that night was that the brewer paid for his beers before leaving. Eh?

Sunday 6th of June 2010 10:14:14 AM

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Alright, browsing some of the cleveland areas, and as a homebrewer I have to correct a severe injustice. Cleveland Chop House is currently rated higher than the Beer Engine, which anyone that has been to both will tell you is ridiculous. Chop House makes some of the worst beer ever sold to the public.

Ok, so now on to the Beer Engine itself. First off, if this place only sold its own craft brews, it would not be very noteworthy, because those beers (the ones I and friends have had) tend to be average at best - except for their Dunkel which is nice.

The value here is in the ability to order something like 30 beers on tap. 2 in cask. Sometimes they'll get their hands on trial beers from great craft breweries as well.

On top of that, the menu beyond the tap is enormous, and constantly changing, which is quite fun.

Usually pretty busy most nights, but no so much you have to wait hours for a table. One of the best places to pull up and have some great beer in all of Cleveland (in fact the best beer selection in the city).

The food is pretty good - a few items I am aware of stand out, like the baked beans, veggie burger, and the deep-fried andouille sausage. I have had mixed luck with the burgers themselves - forgot which one I liked and which I didn't though. Simply can't speak to every single item on the menu though.

Saturday 4th of April 2009 03:45:39 PM

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Twists and turns over some rough city streets finally got me to this location. Not exactly on the main drag and the area seemed a little worn.

Pretty good overall beer selection, but not that many of their own on draft for some reason. Seemed to have a lot of the normal out-of-town beers on the menu. Brookly brewery was the ones they were pushing the day I was in....so-so.

Dining room was smallish, remember parking was next door and may have been shared.

Overall, not a bad place, but not a destination place especially late in the evening.

Sunday 2nd of November 2008 08:16:08 PM

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Beer Engine is a beer bar on the west side of Cleveland, relatively easy to get to off the freeway. Kind of a small place, decent size bar and maybe 20 tables in the place. Nice appetizer listing. Primary focus is burgers, but they also have monthly dinners matched with a specific brewery. Food is decent, not exceptional. You do get a deep fried pickle with dinner which is a little different.

Beer Engines primary local beer is Buckeye Brewing which features about 8 of their beers. Hippie IPA is probably the most famous, not a favorite of mine but I know quite a few people who do enjoy it. The bar has about 25 beers on tap, 2 on cask and probably about 200 in bottles. The best I had recently was Hook Norton Double Stout, excellent, sort of dry stout from England.

A good place to grab some unusual bottles in particular, usually a decent crowd but not too busy to get the attention to do a proper tasting.

Friday 17th of October 2008 10:39:29 AM

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Buckeye Beer Engine is a brewpub & beer bar located a few miles west of downtown Cleveland and a short drive off of I-90. The building stands alone on the south side of the road, and parking is plentiful.

As you walk in, you'll see a wide open floor plan. The heart of the room is the long, u-shaped bar. Tables ring the outer edges of the tastefully decorated room.

The food at BBE is sandwiches, burgers and comfort food. The monthly specials were german themed for October. Schnitzel and a huge brat & smoked porkchop platter were highlighted. I opted for the cyclops burger. It was a three napkin special and was darn tasty. All burgers are served with homemade chips, and they are a hit.

You'll have plenty of great beer to chose from. There are 27 taps, 2 casks, and 5 pages of bottles listed. I tried a couple of their house beers, Sasquatch and Madison. The Sasquatch is a very drinkable 6% IPA. Madison is Buckeye's Kolsch. A wise man once told me to judge a brewer's ability by the quality of his lightest beer. Buckeye Beer Engine's brewer passes the Kolsch test. It was flavorful, flawless, and drinkable.

It took me too long to get to Buckeye Beer Engine. I will make it a point to return next time I'm in Cleveland.