Masthead Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Cleveland

Went here for the first time last night with a small group of friends. We had planned on going here for a while, but finally found the time to go. Apart from the slight stress of finding (cheap/free) parking nearby, it was a good experience.

The interior is massive, which I really love. There is no shortage of smaller, crowded bars/breweries (at least ones I've been to) so having that much open space was refreshing. For sports fans, there are plenty of TV's for viewing any games that might be on that night.

I am a big fan of their ordering system. Whether you have small or large party, it is beneficial to either. Instead of servers having to juggle between several tables, waiting on everyone in your party to get their order ready, or trying to squeeze to the bar and get someone's attention, it's super easy. You walk in, grab a menu, find a seat, and when you're ready you order at designated areas at the bar. They pour your drink there, and give you a pager for your food. Super simple.

I opted for the Smoked Helles Lager and the Spicy Soppressata Pizza. The Helles was like BBQ smoke in beer form, which I thought was absolutely wonderful. It was very smooth and rich, but still light and refreshing. My pizza took maybe 5 minutes (being wood fired bodes well for time and taste). I didn't expect it to be that quick, so that was a nice surprise. The crust was slightly tough, but it was hot and flavorful. I'm a big fan of the char on wood-fired pizza, and the Soppressata was crisp and salty (yum!)

Pricing to me was quite reasonable. For a house brew and pizza, I made it out for just over $18 before tip.

Masthead is a nice representation of the growing beer scene in Cleveland. It has helped spark my interest in checking out what other breweries in the city have in the works. They are a good destination for a casual drink, or a larger get together. I look forward to going there with a larger group of friends and enjoying a nice outing. Totally worth it,...

I have been here for work events, lunch meetings, and just to go out at night for beers and pizza. The place is large and GREAT for groups. You should try it out and level me a response thanking me afterwards! ;-)

Masthead is within walking distance of most of the downtown hotspots, though it is not close to them by any means. That said, it is well worth the walk! The place itself is very large and has giant windows on the wall facing the street. I'm not mentioning those because of the view, but because the are pulled up like garage doors when the weather is nice, which makes the atmosphere very open and full of fresh air in the spring and summer.

The beer list is long and excellent - even though they sell out of some of their "on-tap" offerings, you should still be able to fund a beer you love somewhere on their list.

Their pizzas are VERY good by Cleveland standards, which is very refreshing, as most Cleveland pizza sucks. While I'm not a huge fan of Hawaiian pizza, theirs is actually really good because they use a pineapple salsa instead if chunks of pineapple (I find that the chunks of pineapple most places use make the pizza overly sweet). If you ate feeling daring, one of the people in our group got the reuben (white) pizza and said it was excellent.

The staff and service is great, but I have found that the table burgers can be a tad bit aggressive when the place is busy. Twice I've seen them as someone who is still holding their glass and drinking from it! In the busser's defence the glass looked pretty empty. But still - they are holding it! Let them finish! And after they said they were still working in it, one buster just stood behind them and watched them finish their drink! Granted, that is the exception to the rule here, hence the 5 stars (if I see it again, though, I'll revise this review).

If you are still reading, you are obviously interested in checking the place out, so stop reading reviews and go there for...

Basic...very basic. We decided to try this place (8/27) but we should've went to our fave place instead...here's our experience;

The location is odd you have to drive around for parking. It use to be an old factory of some sort so it has some nice details. Very large open space, and large front windows. After getting inside we found that there is no waiter. You simply grab a menu FIND a seat at one of the many large picnic tables, figure out what u want to eat (which isn't hard since it's only pizza), get in line and order your food. Its a free for all so once you get up to order you may not get your same spot back unless your group stays seated. There is water sitting out in a cooler with no ice and warm glasses if you're thirsty while you wait. There's pizza, salad, large pretzel, fruit and about 3 other appetizers. There pizza menu is pre made either white or red sauce. I didn't see a toppings list so we ordered what was listed. White Mushroom pizza for me and P.S.M for him (pep, saug, mush). The beer menu was nice and had a good variety. Wait time was about 15 minutes. You'll get a pager that will vibrate when your order is ready, then you walk over to the pick up line and grab ur food, sort of like a lunch line at school. This is not the time to be germ warden either, all the pies are waiting on pick up so grab yours and go. All pies are one size and one type of crust (thin and crispy). When you have a very thin crust you should not over cook the pizza but the white pizza was pretty tough. The red pizza was very basic. Pizza and beer for two $55.00 and definitely not worth it.

Overall if you're headed downtown to the game and want to grab some pizza WAIT! You can do better further downtown, Pizza Hut in the stadium or on the East Bank (BeerHead is our fave). You can get full and maybe...