Great Lakes Brewing Company — Restaurant in Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio has a thriving craft beer scene. The majority of the breweries in the city are less than five years old, but there are some veterans among them and the oldest of them all is Great Lakes Brewing.

Great Lakes Brewing isn’t just the oldest craft brewery in the area, it is also one of the nation’s oldest craft breweries and if you didn’t already know this, you will know it when you visit and take a tour. The history of the brewery is on display in the Symposium, which is located across the street from the production brewery and is the place where you purchase your tour tickets. The tour is priced low and includes four, 5- ounce samples of beer, so it is an excellent deal.

After you brush up on the history of Great Lakes Brewing, a guide will walk you across the street to visit the actual brewhouse. It’s a very large place, producing around 150k barrels of beer each year. In addition to brewing beer, the building has meeting rooms for private gatherings, so don’t be surprised if you see and hear other events taking place when you tour.

Great Lakes Brewing also has a brewpub adjacent to the symposium and many guests go directly to the brewpub for more beer and food following the tour, or before the tour. You will likely want to, because the samples they serve are certain to whet your appetite for more. There are several classic beers in the lineup that have stood the test of time and a nice variety overall. The samples, though, are perfect to let guests sort out which they like best before continuing to the brewpub.

Breweries number in the thousands and are located across this great land of ours. Most of them are young, but Great Lakes Brewing is one of the pioneers; a brewery that has been brewing delicious craft suds for three decades. It is definitely deserving of a visit the next time you’re in...

This experience was just so so for us. We started off with an appetizer. We ordered the Bavarian pretzel, which was very good. The pretzel was soft and not chewy. The beer cheese that came with it was great as well. The food we ate after the appetizer was hit and miss. My wife ordered the hot buttered chicken sandwich. I'm pretty disappointed with this one. If you look at the pictures, it is the one that looks like a hamburger, which is what I thought it was when it came out. There was nothing Nashville hot about this. Not much of a butter flavor, either. It's just bland with a taste of fryer oil. It did come with pickle slices, which were pretty good though. My son ordered chicken nuggets from the kids' menu. We also had an issue with one of his nuggs, but the manager took care of it for us. For the chicken sandwich and the nuggs, they both ordered fries as their side. The fries were amazing. Somewhat crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The perfect seasoning on them as well. I ordered the West side mac. Though it didn't seem like a mac and cheese so much as it did an alfredo dish, it was the star of what we ordered. I would get it again for sure. It had grilled chicken in it, which was cooked perfectly, and pieces of bacon as well. The bacon had a great taste. A little crunch and a little smokeyness. The cheese was creamy and full of flavor. The gouda really pulled through. All 3 of us liked this dish the best.

Our server was good and took care of us with no issues. We ate outside on the patio, which was really nice as well. I dont think it was the best we've had, but it wasn't even close to the worst. It's pretty much right down the middle. Overall, for me, I would recommend giving this...

Made a reservation and was seated at the appropriate time. My party was excited for this as we heard amazing things about GLBC. We ordered a beer flight and a bourbon flight, both were great. We ordered food (2 mac and cheeses, a salmon BLT, and a brat and perogies) and it just never came out? Yes, we should have complained but we like to give people a chance especially when places are busy. An hour and 15 minutes later and our server (who was very very nice, older blonde haired woman. I think her name was Nancy) came over to tell us something happened in the system and our food was never put in. 15 minutes later, our food came out and the order was wrong. We got two mac and cheeses as ordered, but also got two brats and perogies - no salmon sandwich, which we were looking forward to. But with the wait, and being told we will be "taken care of", we let it slide and ate it. Both were decent, but we were so hungry at this point we devoured it.

Members of our party have a Cleveland Brewery Passport, which was offering a 15% discount on the food. When the bill came, we found out all we received was about 22% off, so the inconveniences really only showed as though they were worth 7% off. When we were told we would be "taken care of", we expected some more. We go to lots of restaurants nationwide and we don't expect discounts when the service is slow, but this just felt wrong.

Overall, the food and drinks were slightly above average, and the server was friendly and kind, but from this experience, we are...